Political alienation among migrant youths: Exploring the mechanisms of political alienation and acculturation among migrant youths in Norwegian schools

Political culture and alienation

A political culture is characterized by how a given country’s citizens perceive their political environment. Such a culture consists of people’s attitudes towards persons, institutions, and the system as a whole, and also the role of self in the system (Almond and Verba, 1963: 12–14). Political alienation may be conceived of as a cluster of such attitudes at one end of a continuum whose opposite extreme is defined by the concept of political trust and/or support and integration (Finifter, 1970: 89; see also Easton, 1975; Norris, 1999). Gniewosz et al. (2009: 337) define political alienation as ‘citizen’s subjective feelings about their abilities to affect the political systems at the individual level’. Political trust may, on the other hand, be defined as ‘basic evaluative or affective orientation towards the government’ (Miller, 1974: 952; see also Miller and Listhaug, 1998; Newton, 2008). Political alienation may take various forms: political powerlessness is recognized as the perceived inability to influence policy; political meaninglessness is understood as ‘the perception that political decisions are unpredictable’; political normlessness is the belief that norms and rules governing the political system do not function properly; and political isolation is rejection of political norms held by other citizens (Finifter, 1970; see also Seeman, 1959). Political powerlessness and meaninglessness are the most relevant forms to adolescents owing to their limited political experience (Gniewosz et al., 2009: 337).

Acculturation attitudes

The term acculturation refers to ‘the ways people prefer to live in intercultural contact situations’ (Phinney et al., 2006: 73). According to Phinney, there are two fundamental aspects of acculturation: intercultural contact and cultural maintenance (Phinney et al., 2006: 3). The first aspect refers to people’s attitudes towards seeking contact with other cultures and being influenced by their new experiences, while the second refers to the way in which people prefer to keep and maintain their own cultural heritage. Phinney et al. show both theoretically and empirically that the process of acculturation of immigrants is related to a number of factors, such as their cultural identity, language, peer contacts, family relationship values, and perceived discrimination (Phinney et al., 2006). In the present empirical study I have confined acculturation attitudes to aspects of cultural identities (national identity, immigrant identity) and peer group relations. National identity may be seen as objectified by the history, common culture, common legal rights, and common economy in a territory (Smith, 1991: 14). National identity can also be understood subjectively in terms of a person being a ‘member of an imagined political community’ (Anderson, 1983: 5ff.). The latter understanding is in line with how identity is understood in the present article, i.e. in the sense of belonging to a group (Phinney et al., 2006: 7). Phinney et al. emphasize peer group contact among members of both their own group and larger society as a fundamental aspect of the acculturation process and also as an indicator of acculturation (Phinney et al., 2006: 80). Schools are without doubt a most important arena in this respect, as this is where students display their identities, intermingle, make friends, and integrate. By exploring the mechanisms of political alienation and participation and particularly their link to acculturation attitudes, I hope to generate knowledge that may be important for the processes of social and political integration in multicultural schools.

On the interrelationship between political alienation and acculturation

Showing political engagement in different arenas of participation may be part of the life that immigrants choose to live, and in that respect their attitudes to acculturation may be significant. Political alienation and acculturation attitudes have an integration and/or segregation dimension in common. To withdraw from politics and participation is to some extent logical if an individual hesitates to integrate with the local population. Similarly, people who are interested in and trust local politics may also be inclined to participate and integrate, and also have stronger national ties to their new country of residence. However, acculturation attitudes and political trust and/or alienation may also be independent of each other. Political participation, such as by voting and being involved in other political activities, may be entirely logical even in cases where immigrants live fairly segregated lives, with close ties to their place of origin and other immigrant citizens, and have few social contacts with ethnic Norwegians. It may also be logical to live an integrated life but without a desire to participate, and to be generally distrustful of politics, especially since many immigrants may be in the process of obtaining full citizenship and rights to vote. In causal terms, we may speak of a two-way causal relationship between political alienation and acculturation.

Selection of students

In this study the focus is on a broad sample of students originally from Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, and drawn from three upper secondary schools in the middle of Norway. Immigrants from these origins face challenges in terms of culture, language, etc., leading to greater variation in their adaptation to Norwegian society compared to immigrants from Western societies. Only second- and third-year students (aged 17–19 years) who had experienced a compulsory civic education course at school were selected. Further selection criteria were designed to give the largest possible variety in terms of national origin, religion and gender. Furthermore, I focused on students who had a certain amount of experience of both their cultural background and their current residence in Norway. A few second-generation immigrant students were also included in the study. Some students who had chosen social studies as their main subject in upper secondary school were included in order to cover this aspect of immigrants’ interest. Table 1 lists the students who participated in the study, and their origin and background.

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Table 1.

Selected students and schools (in the first row the number represents the students in each school, while the letter refers to their school, e.g. 1B represents student 1 at school B), by gender, nationality, language, religion, time of residence in Norway, choice of social studies, class level, and subject of study.

Variable/student	1B	2B	3B	1T	2T	3T	4.1T	4.2T	4.3T	1G	2G	3G	4G	5G	6G
Gender	M	F	F	F	M	F	M	M	M	M	F	F	M	F	M
Nationality	Congo	Rwanda	Kurdistan	Iraq	Iran	Vietnam	Bosnia	Chile	Albania	Somalia	Bulgaria	Congo	Afghanistan	Burundi	Somalia
Language	Swahili	Swahili		Arabic	Arabic	Vietnam-ese	Bosnian	Spanish	Albanian	Somali	Bulgarian	Swahili	Pashtu	Swahili	Somali
Religion	Christian	Christian	Muslim	Muslim	Bahia	Christian	Christian	Christian	Muslim	Muslim	Christian	Christian	Muslim	Muslim	Muslim
Time of residence (years)	6	6	6	8	5	Born in Norway	15	Born in Norway	Born in Norway	4	2	6	6	4	5
Social studies choice	no	no	no	no	no	no	no	yes	no	yes	yes	yes	no	yes	no
Class	Extra	Extra	Extra	3rd year	3rd year	3rd year	1st year	2nd year	2nd year	3rd year	3rd year	3rd year	3rd year	3rd year	3rd year
Subject studied	Emil	Seta	Nanan	General	General	General	Vocational	General	Vocational	General	General	General	General	General	General

Note: Three students from school T insisted on a group interview so they are numbered 4.1–4.3 rather than 4–6.

Research procedures

School election survey and political orientations trust and participation among youth

In the following I present a comparative analysis of political and social orientation between native Norwegians, non-Western immigrants, and Western immigrants.

From Table 2 (note: all scales reversed) it is apparent that non-Western immigrant students show the same levels of trust in politicians as native Norwegian students do. However, the non-Western immigrants display lower levels of political interest, are a bit more supportive of democracy, feel greater obligation to vote, discuss politics more often with friends, and participate somewhat more in demonstrations compared with Norwegian students (columns 1 and 2 in Table 2). There are positive findings of participation and political orientation among young non-Western immigrants. However Østerud (2007) points out that particularly non-Western immigrants occupy a new lower political class which lead me to expect that there are certain qualitative mechanisms working on a larger scale which alienate particularly non-Western immigrants from political involvement and participation.

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Table 2.

Political and social participation and political trust among Norwegian, non-Western immigrant and Western immigrant youths (mean, standard deviation and N) Note: all scales reversed: low mean is high score on variables.

Variable	1. Native Norwegian			2. Non-Western immigrant			3. Western immigrant			Min–max	Correlation with organization membership Pearson’s
	Mean	(sd)	N	Mean	(sd)	N	Mean	(sd)	N		R	N
Member social or cultural organization	1.49	(.50)	8,269	1.63**	(.48)	647	1.48	(.50)	287	1-2
Trust in politicians	2.78	(.75)	7,723	2.73	(.83)	634	2.79	(.80)	262	1-4	.13	8,460
Political interest	2.63	(.77)	8,565	2.48**	(.85)	702	2.55	(.86)	299		.09	9,384
Democracy good	2.09	(.77)	8,565	1.97**	(.82)	660	2.12	(.83)	279	1-4	.14	8,473
Voting obligation	2.09	(.93)	7,987	2.02**	(.93)	618	2.17	(.99)	271	1–4	.12	9,388
Discuss politics with friends	3.09	(.73)	8,560	2.95**	(.80)	701	2.84**	(.88)	298	1-4	.07	9,339
Voted in school election	1.13	(.33)	8,524	1.15	(.36)	694	1.16	(.36)	300	1-2	.06	8,948
Participated in demonstrations	1.81	(.39)	8,144	1.68**	(.46)	653	1.66**	(.48)	284	1-2	.06	8,758

**

Significantly different at 1% level from native Norwegian group

Source: School election survey 2009, Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD) (http://www.nsd.uib.no/nsd/english/index.html)

Non-Western immigrant students were more frequently found to be members of social and cultural organizations than native Norwegians. This may be regarded as a sign of integration and social participation. Such organizational membership correlates positively with all indicators of trust and political participation (far right-hand column in Table 2) (see the Appendix for translated survey questions). The correlations are moderate to weak. The positive correlations led me to expect to find that students who integrate well show more political trust and participate more with respect to their political orientation.

First analytical stage – scoring on alienation and acculturation scales

At the outset of the analysis a coordinate system composed of two variables, acculturation attitudes (national identity and peer group contact) and political trust and/or alienation, was constructed (Figure 1). The vertical acculturation scale shows integration and segregation as opposite positions, while on the horizontal scale, trust and alienation constitute the opposite ends of the scale. In Figure 1 students are identified using the same codes as used in Table 1.

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Figure 1.

Tentative positions of students along the ‘acculturation’ and ‘political alienation’ scales

In Figure 1, moving clockwise from the upper left corner: in quadrant 1 (Q1) it is apparent that the students showed signs of political alienation and integration; quadrant 2 (Q2) shows students whose emphasis was on trust and integration; quadrant 3 (Q3) shows students whose emphasis was on trust and segregation; and quadrant 4 (Q4) shows students who expressed political alienation and segregation. However, these placings are the result of often contradictory expressions on the indicators and are therefore uncertain. Some students had come from situations of political conflict and had traumatic experiences of war or ill-functioning political systems. They often faced value conflicts, and sometimes conflicts between loyalty to their family and their present life. In most countries, the period of adolescence is characterized by trial and error, seeking identity, and making decisions for the future. In the case of immigrant youths, a number of issues such as future citizenship and cultural integration as opposed to segregation were added to their multidimensional ‘internal discourse’. The ongoing debates and ambivalence were explicit but largely unspoken in the interviews, and were apparent in the uncertainty expressed in the students’ attitudes to both acculturation and political alienation. In the following, I will point out some general findings from the first stage of the analysis.

First, all students seemed to situate themselves closer to the middle than to the extreme positions on both scales. With the exception of student 5G, none of the students expressed themselves as highly integrated or segregated on the vertical scale or highly alienated or trusting on the horizontal scale.

A second trend seems to be contradiction in students’ attitudes. The informants showed signs of trust, participation and interest in politics on the one hand, and of voices of alienation on the other. Similar contradictory voices were expressed in their acculturation attitudes on the integration–segregation scale for example: ‘When I discuss life with Norwegian friends I sometimes feel we are on a different planet, we have such different views’ (student 3G). The acculturation process sometimes seemed stressful and challenging to immigrants, yet there were also positive experiences in their new life.

The third point relates to the ‘tentative regression line’ indicated on Figure 1 (for regression analysis and tentative regression lines, see Hinkle et al. (1998: 132) and Skog (2004: 213ff)). The more an immigrant perceives him- or herself to be integrated, the more likely it is that he or she also will express political trust and support. Although this analysis is tentative, it may be looked upon as empirical support for a theoretical interrelationship between the two scales. It also corroborates the results from survey data in the previous section. Although somewhat different indicators are involved, the regression line may indicate support for the correlations between trust and voluntary organizational involvement in the school election survey mentioned above. In the following, I will explore how immigrants perceived their acculturation and political alienation, and search for empirical evidence of interrelationships between these aspects.

Exploring mechanisms in political alienation and links to acculturation

The students perceived themselves as having either a strong (original) national identity or a mixed identity between the original one and the new one: ‘I am African and can never be fully Norwegian’ (3G). The majority of students expressed such a strong identity, especially those below the trust–alienation axis but also some of those above the axis. Students 4.2T and 4.3T were characterized by a more mixed identity, and these students insisted on a group interview (together with 4.1T): ‘We are from Bosnia, Chile and Albania, but we are also Norwegians’ (students 4.1T, 4.2T, and 4.3T). They had all been born in Norway, and this clearly made a difference in terms of their language skills and integration. However, they still expressed their identity according to their country origin, while emphasizing their present national attachment. They were mostly uninterested in politics. None of the students expressed uncertainty about their original and present national identity. With regard to peer group relations, there seemed to be two trends. Some students claimed that Norwegians are hard to get to know, are too different, and that they prefer not to mix with immigrant students. On the other hand, the majority of immigrant students had Norwegian friends and some also claimed that the latter were among their best friends.

I will now focus on individual students, starting with student 5G (Q2), who was somewhat exceptional but nevertheless interesting. He was a member of a youth group in a political party and expressed that he had full confidence in Norwegian politicians and the Norwegian political system: ‘You have a very good system’, he claimed. He also did not perceive himself as particularly powerless politically: ‘even though I am only 19 years’ (5G). This student was rather exceptional in his trust in Norwegian politics. He rejected the notion of his political orientation being inspired by someone else. He considered himself as having both a Norwegian identity and a Burundi national identity in equal shares. The shared identity was a sign of his openness to the new political culture. His uncommon admiration for the local political system was due to the contrasting experiences of his country of origin. ‘The positive surprise’ should not be overlooked as a mechanism linking past and present political experiences.

The other students were all more moderate in their expressions of trust and alienation. However, student 3G (Q3) was also supportive: ‘I don’t see a lot of things that need to be changed in this country … On the other hand, people in this country are conservative and don’t seem to want change … they don’t want immigrants to have influence’ (3G). Student 3G expressed that Norwegians are reserved, hard to know, that she did not consider herself to be fairly well integrated, and that she felt she was not likely to be, even in the future: ‘We are too different’, she claimed (3G). Despite this, she had a good command of the Norwegian language and a positive attitude toward Norwegian society. When politics and political influence were considered from the immigrants’ position it seemed too difficult and not desirable to bridge the cultural gap. The perceived cultural gap might be looked upon as a mechanism linking acculturation attitudes and political alienation.

Quite a few of the students were uncertain when asked about their trust in politicians and the political system. Their trust was often coupled with aspects of political meaninglessness: ‘politicians promise much more than they actually carry out as effective politics’ – a rather universal argument against politicians and the political system. Student 3T (Q4) was quite clear about this when she expressed distrust due to perceived low political effectiveness. This was also the case for student 1G (Q4): ‘Honestly speaking, I don’t trust them [politicians] … They promise one thing but act quite to the contrary’. However, this student expressed confidence in the political system. While some students may have had good reasons for their scepticism, their somewhat negative attitudes may also be a sign of what Finifter describes as ‘naive expectations’ as to the outcome of the political system (Finifter, 1970: 390). Student 3T expressed a feeling of powerlessness. She avoided participation in order to protect her family, thus pointing to immigrants’ subordinate position. Few students actually expressed any ‘fear’ of the consequences of political participation. Still, many may have felt this way and avoided participating in political discussions in class. This fear of social sanctions may be looked upon as another mechanism linking acculturation attitudes and political alienation.

Student 2T (Q1) described his religious identity as important to him. He emphasized that his immigrant identity could never be changed, and this put him in a ‘subordinate position’ compared with the Norwegians (2T). On the other hand, he had several Norwegian peers and was often tempted to disregard moral obligations placed upon him by his faith or social familial heritage. Student 2T further pointed out how he perceived that immigrants and Norwegians are treated differently and he believed it is hard to change such unequal treatment: ‘Immigrants are a minority and it will always be like that. You have no options for influence [and therefore feel powerless] … Everything has to do with my background [as immigrant authors comment]. If I look like a Norwegian, everything changes’ (2T). Two points seem quite clear. From student 2T’s point of view, immigrants are much less influential, and the perceived powerlessness is precisely attributed to their immigrant identity. Student 2T seemed to have a rather deterministic but certainly not surprising view of the political implications of immigrant identity. Furthermore, he pointed out that for reasons of religious suppression he had no option of returning to his country of origin and instead he had to look ahead ‘elsewhere’, and at the time of the interview the future seemed to be in Norway. This perspective made his ties with his home country less salient to him, and seemed to open him up to new influences, including political engagement. Perceived determinism in immigrant identity may be looked at as another mechanism which is not favourable to immigrant political participation.

The group of students labelled 4.1T–4.3T expressed little interest in politics. One of them stated: ‘I haven’t thought about it, but maybe later when I am 18.’ When asked about their possible influence on political issues, they claimed that they had not thought about it and considered themselves to have less influence than native Norwegians, although they might have voted if an issue was of importance to them, and at least one of them confidently considered himself able to have influence if a given issue was important to him. Furthermore, the students claimed that their immigrant and Norwegian friends were generally withdrawn and adopted a ‘spectator’ position in society. Their attitude towards politics was not analytical, but rather one of disinterest.

Student 3G, who came from a country of fierce political conflict, claimed to have great political interest in world politics, but not in local Norwegian politics, which is all about the ‘details’ in life (3G). This student did not feel powerless; on the contrary, she felt capable of influencing politics but was simply not interested in engaging in local Norwegian discourses. She pointed out that the local Norwegian political rhetoric used words such as ‘crises’, but the word ‘crises’ had become somewhat meaningless in the light of her own traumatic political experiences. This is maybe another version of the political contrast that traumatized immigrants, especially politically and personally.

Several students said that they would not participate politically because it is not appropriate behaviour for visitors. Student 2B stated: ‘Actually, as an immigrant, I have less influence because this is not my country. I don’t make the rules here. And it is going to be like this forever. It is not just in Norway it is like this in all countries – as an immigrant you have less influence’ (2B). She continued to explain that she would not approve of immigrants trying to influence politics in her home country either. Furthermore, student 2B claimed that she had a weak national identity, but more a continental (African) identity owing to her refugee situation both in Africa and in Norway. On the other hand, she tried to integrate in her present environment socially and politically and expressed herself as being ‘on the move’. There seem to be two forms of alienation here. In student 2B’s case, a voice of powerlessness is explicitly attributed to her immigrant identity. However, she seemed to exclude much of the political arena because of her felt restrictions from moral obligations imposed on her as a guest in a different country. Being a ‘guest’ implies respect for the local political order and having fewer moral rights to change the political environment. Two other students (2T and 1B) felt similar moral obligations regarding their political behaviour: ‘Yes, I think it is both right and wrong if I want to involve in politics’ (2T). A third student expresses: ‘My voice may count on the one hand, but why should I involve in politics here?’ (1G). The ‘guest attitude’ does not seem to be influenced by a wish to integrate but appears rather deterministic and excluding with respect to political engagement. However, several students rejected this attitude when asked specifically about it, including 3G. When confronted with other students’ perception of the guest role, she understood their approach, but added ‘why should I think this way?’ (3G). She saw no reason why her immigrant identity should influence her political actions. ‘The guest role’ is certainly a mechanism regulating political involvement (alienation) and acculturation.

Student 1B further expressed that in a political debate between her and Norwegians, the Norwegian politicians would listen to Norwegians and she considered herself less influential. In all of her expressions the immigrant identity was the reason behind the perceived powerlessness (1B).

In the cluster of students categorized in Q4 (Figure 1), student 1T strongly emphasized her culture and hence also her religion. As a Muslim she wore a hijab. Throughout her interview she expressed that she felt different, and opened and closed the interview by asking for respect and understanding: ‘They always ask me why I wear a hijab … I wish they would understand our culture and religion’ (1T). Her political trust was rather conditional, most likely because she experienced lack of understanding and disrespect from the larger society. She found it too difficult to discuss and become involved in politics. Thus, perceived disrespect could definitely lead to withdrawal from political arenas and work as a mechanism in the interrelationship between acculturation and political involvement.