The Lives of Recent Chinese Immigrant Children in Canadian Society: Values, Aspirations, and Social Experiences

ABSTRACT/RESUME This study investigated Chinese children whose families recently immigrated to Canada. The study examined these children's lives with respect to their personal values, their future aspirations, and their social experiences. Ninety-two Chinese immigrant children aged eight to thirteen were interviewed. Their responses were categorized and compared with those of a sample of ninety non-immigrant, Caucasian children. A child assessment scale was also administered to assess the children's perception and experience of their classroom social environment. The results yielded similar values and aspirations among immigrant and nonimmigrant children, although the immigrant children tended to choose more professional careers or undertakings as future endeavours than did the non-immigrant children. No discrepancies were found, however, between the immigrants and non-immigrants in their social experiences, neither group experiencing exclusion within the school or community. However, the immigrant children perceived the classroom as being more competitive than did the non-immigrant children and reported discrimination mainly as a result of race and language differences. Actions for supporting recent immigrant children and directions for further research are suggested. Cette etude porte sur des enfants chinois dont les familles ont recemment immigre au Canada. Elle examine la vie de ces enfants en ce qui concerne leurs valeurs personnelles, leurs aspirations pour l'avenir et leurs experiences sociales. Quatre-vingt-douze enfants immigrants chinois ages de huit a treize ans ont ete interviewes. Leurs reponses ont ete classifiees et comparees a celles d'un groupe de quatre-vingt-dix enfants caucasiens nonimmigrants. Une echelle d'evaluation pour enfants a egalement ete administree afin d'evaluer comment ils percoivent l'environnement social de leur salle de classe et comment ils vivent cette experience. Les resultats demontrent des valeurs et des aspirations semblables parmi les enfants immigrants et non-immigrants, bien que les enfants immigrants aient une tendance a envisager des carrieres ou des entreprises plus professionnelles que les enfants nonimmigrants. On ne retrouve toutefois aucune difference entre les experiences sociales des immigrants et des non-immigrants, aucun des deux groupes ne se sent exclu de l'ecole ou de la communaute. Cependant, les enfants immigrants percoivent la salle de classe comme etant plus competitive que les enfants non-immigrants et affirment que la discrimination est surtout provoquee les differences raciales et linguistiques. L'etude suggere d'encadrer les enfants ayant recemment immigre et propose des pistes de recherche pour le futur. INTRODUCTION Recent years have witnessed an unprecedented increase in the number of immigrants in Canada. Between 1986 and 1991, 819,000 immigrants and refugees arrived, 19 percent of whom were children under the age of twelve (Beiser et al. 1995). Three-quarters of these immigrant children were estimated to be of school age in the early 1990s (Cole 1998). Asians comprise the largest group of recent arrivals, accounting for 40 percent of all those immigrants who came to Canada between 1978 and 1986 and comprising 3 percent of the total population in 1999 (Badets 1990). Asians now make up the fastest growing population group in Canada. The greatest number of Asian immigrants are Chinese (White and Nanda 1990). They topped the list of immigrants between 1991 and 2001, and account for 17.3 percent of Canada's immigrants in 2003 (Galloway 2003). Immigrants begin their adaptation to a new country through acculturation, a process which continues indefinitely (Gordon 1964). Psychological acculturation applies to the "changes in an individual who is a participant in a culture-contact situation--a person who is being influenced directly by the external culture and by the changing culture of which the individual is a member" (Graves, as cited in Berry 2003, 19). …