ABSTRACT
Foreign-born and Canadian-born children and youth from immigrant families have a numerically strong presence in Canadian society. In 2006, such children represented about 20% of all young Canadians under the age of 18 and are expected to reach 25% by 2016 (Canadian Council on Social Development 2006). Many of these children are multilingual. More than 200 languages were reported in the 2011 Census as a home language or mother tongue (Statistics Canada 2012). The dominant discourse tends to present immigrant children as a problematic group stuck ‘between two cultures’ (Gardner 2012, 891). In the study of globalisation and transnational migration, adult immigrants’ experiences and perspectives are well studied (Satzewich and Wong 2006). Little attention has been paid to immigrant children (see Hoerder, Hébert, and Schmitt 2006, for an exception). This study explores how immigrant children negotiate their identities in transnational contexts.
