A case study of immigrant students' construction of national identity through the analysis of their discourse in a Greek Intercultural school

ABSTRACT

A central issue in the academic discussion related to immigrant groups and their integration in ‘their new home’ is national identity. This paper focuses on the methodological choices during a case study of the students’ subjectivity in an Intercultural School in Thessaloniki in Greece and on how immigrant students form their identities. Most students as second-generation immigrants constantly negotiate multiple identities. This negotiation leads to the construction of ambivalence and conflicting identities that are represented with uncertainty and equivocation in their discourse. In this paper, I will present briefly a conceptual placement in social constructionism and the distinction between primitive and modern nationalism and will continue focusing on how the ambiguous and conflicting identities of immigrant students are shaped based on conception of national identity, the role of nostalgia and memory and finally on the polycemy of the construction of national identity of students.

KEYWORDS:

• National identity
• immigration
• intercultural education
• discourse analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Evmorfia Kipouropoulou is currently a Special Scientist at the University of Western Macedonia, Greece. She has studied Philosophy and Education in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and holds a master’s degree and a PhD in Education with emphasis in Intercultural Education and immigration. Her scientific work is been published in scientific journals and at international conferences. Her research interests are related to the construction of national identity, multiculturalism, social identities, teaching methodology and discourse analysis.

Notes

1 These are repatriated Greek immigrants from the countries of former Soviet Union, their number calculated at 350.000. They constitute the vast majority of all immigrants arriving from the countries of former Soviet Union. By clarifying the terms, the term repatriated can only be attributed to the first generation, since the members of the next generations were born outside of Greece and belong to the diaspora (Sapountzis et al., 2006; Christopoulos & Tsitselikis, 2003).

2 All proper names used in this article are pseudonyms.

3 Gunther Kress participated in the study as «colleague from an institute abroad». The Thesis was submitted under the program for the enhancement of new research staff (PENED 2003). Under this program collaboration with Gunther Kress, and his scientific guidance, proved invaluable especially for the selection of the method for discourse analysis.

4 The word Pontios in the Greek language stands for an ethnic group that comes from the region of Pontos (Asia Minor) in Asia, in present Turkey. Repatriated students from the countries of the former Soviet Union come from multilingual environments. They speak the Russian language, the language of the republics they inhabited, and – those from Turkish-speaking parents – understand a Turkish dialect. However, they emphatically mobilize their Pontic origin as opposed to Greek, speaking of the Pontian dialect and the Turkish language with which the larger members of their family communicate. This Turkish dialect was used by Turkish-speaking Pontic populations who had been forbidden to use the mother tongue on the Ottoman Empire, mainly from the populations living in the mountain Tsalka of Georgia and moved to Russia (Agtzidis, 1991, p. 16; Kesidis, 1995, p. 97–98). The mobilization of Pontian origin is evident in the students' discourse with a few years of residence in Greece.