Immigrant youth and the dynamics of marginalization

Abstract

This article explores the usefulness of traditional sociological perspectives on inequality in light of marginalization processes affecting immigrant youth in Norway and in other Western societies of today. Departing from general theories on inequality and marginalization, and the more specific perspectives on ethnic minority youth in Europe, a trenchant argument in the article is that increasing attention to the construction of normality and otherness in respect to majority-minority relations is needed. The 1990s public debate about immigrant youth in Norway, as earlier in many other Western societies, has been characterized by sensational media stories about ‘problems’ with youth gangs and forced marriages. Another characteristic of the Norwegian public debate is making links between ad hoc political ‘needs’ to solve these problems and researchers’ definitions of the energizing factors of marginalization. In relating the Norwegian situation to the broader European one, where an increasing support for populist right-wing parties and differentialist racist arguments has been a major trend throughout the 1990s, various visions of the future for immigrant youth in Norway are examined.