Keeping Up Appearances Within the Ethnic Community: A Disconnect between First and Second Generation South Asians’ Educational Aspirations

Abstract

Second generation South Asian youth are defined as part of the model minority based on their educational success in Canada and elsewhere. The literature explaining these successes highlight parental pressures as a determinant. Based on a qualitative study of South Asian second generation youth in Toronto, we examine their educational experiences, and their interpretations of these experiences. We find that there is a disconnect between the first and second generations' motivation for academic achievement, which causes significant intergenerational tensions. Our findings lend support to the arguments that immigrant parents often exert authoritative influence on their children's educational paths; however, our findings also shed light on why the second generation might interpret these pressures as problematic. We argue that among our participants, the tension is not simply about the educational pressures themselves but more so their origin: their parents' collectivist concerns about family status and prestige. The pressure to please their parents in order to impress the ethnic community is what these second generation youth feel is so problematic and contributes to intergenerational tension. The findings indicate the need to approach second generation experiences using new lenses, particularly by synthesizing understandings of their educational outcomes with their realities of being embedded in collective communities. By way of conclusion, the impact on migrant settlement processes across generations is discussed.