Abstract
Getting Used to the Quiet focuses on the adaptation and integration process that immigrant adolescents in New Brunswick, Canada experience. While adult immigrants mainly seek economic integration, adolescents’ adaptation seems to be more dependent on social integration, such as the challenge of making friends despite the language barriers, the search for adult role models, and the need to embrace a new culture without losing their own heritage and cultural identity.
The main research question that Stacey Wilson-Forsberg investigates is how the actions of engaged citizens of a community factor into immigrant adolescents’ sense of belonging. In fact, when the host community lacks pre-existing ethnic networks, the interactions with local residents play a fundamental role in forming immigrants’ identity as part of that community.
A total of eighty-five voluntary participants, recruited through a purposive sample, participated in the study. Through in-depth interviews and focus groups, the author shows how the immigrant adolescents gradually become involved and gained membership in the receiving communities by making connections with peers and adults, with a particular focus on the beneficial effect of social networks and informal relations as channels to develop a lasting sense of belonging.
The core of the book presents established theoretical frameworks and immigrant adolescents’ personal experiences. The interviews are very detailed, and help the reader to understand that the process of developing a sense of belonging involves many challenges and, despite some common points, every person goes through a unique experience.
The well-structured research design, along with a delightful narrative style, makes this book useful and interesting for all social science scholars, policy makers, social science students at both graduate and undergraduate levels, and for the general public as well.