ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the relationships between race, ethnicity, and class among 15-year-old Turkish youth educated in Germany. It argues that ethnic identities are stronger in working-class schools, especially in contexts of conflict, whilst political identities are more pronounced in middle-class schools. As a result of their schooling, community experience, and socioeconomic background, Turkish youth develop different forms of identities relative to their European and ethnic identifications. Although there are overlaps: I consider political identities to constitute a sense of belonging at the local, regional, national, or supranational citizenship level (such as Stuttgart or Europe), whereas ethnic identities are mainly linked to common ancestry, customs and traditions, and language and dialects (such as Swabian or Turkish). Discussions are largely based upon insights obtained from extensive fieldwork in German working-class (Tannberg Hauptschule) and middle-class (Goethe Gymnasium) schools in Stuttgart, supplemented by an analysis of the wider macropolitical background and its impact on schooling and youth identity formations.
