(Dis)entangled identities : a comparative study of adolescents’ ethnicity and ethnic identities in Belgian secondary schools

Identity is often used in political discourse to develop a frame of who’s in and who’s out in our contemporary, super diverse society. Within this context of super diversity, adolescents are developing a sense of who they are as well as of how they belong and relate to others around them (Verkuyten et al., 2019). This dissertation aimed to address specific gaps identified in the current literature on ethnic identity. First, ethnicity was approached as an umbrella term that could be used as a steppingstone to study the multiple ethnic identities of adolescents with or without a migration background (i.e. their national, regional, religious and heritage identities). A broad, inclusive definition of ethnicity enabled us to grasp the added value of the multiplicity and multidimensionality of individuals’ ethnic identity. Second, by combining insights from different disciplines (i.e. political theory, social psychology, anthropology and sociology of education), this dissertation employed a socio-ecological approach towards identity, diversity and intergroup relations. Third, this dissertation illustrated the importance of also considering intranational contexts (e.g. regions in a federal state) as an alternative to the nation state as a common unit of analysis. This thesis was guided by one overarching research question: How does the Belgian regional and educational context relate to the ethnic identities of adolescents and their academic, psychological and intercultural functioning? In general terms, we found that adolescents incorporate the distinction between nation and region into their multiple identifications. The distinction between the regional and the national identification seemed particularly relevant for adolescents of Turkish and Moroccan origin (see Empirical Chapter 2). The differences between the Belgian regions became also clear when we focused on students’ hierarchical thinking about identification and intergroup relations. More specifically, the Francophone context appears to be a macro context that is more hierarchically attenuating than hierarchically enhancing when compared to the Flemish context (see Empirical Chapters 4 and 5). Those two macro contexts are however not determinative because schools have the freedom to formulate their own policy. In short, we observed that schools with a culturally sensitive environment via policy and teaching have also student populations with positive ingroup identities as well as positive outgroup attitudes (see Empirical Chapters 4 and 5). Furthermore, we focused on the role of peer victimisation and identity in relation to students’ perception of peer norms (see Empirical Chapter 3) and depressive feelings (see Empirical Chapter 2). These studies illustrate that adolescents’ ethnic group or integrated identity can serve as a promotive factor