Race, Educational Streaming, and Identity Formation Among Stem-bound Asian Canadian Youth

This chapter seeks to contribute to an ongoing discussion about Asian Canadian identities, model minority stereotypes, and structural racism against Asian Canadian youth in the Canadian education system. Using a Bourdieusian lens, this narrative study explores how to understand the experiences of Asian Canadian youth who are streamed into STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)-related occupational trajectories. Using data obtained from semi-structured interviews, I explore how streaming in high schools affects the identity formation of these youth. I argue there is an insight to be gained by paying closer attention to homologies between racial tensions and disciplinary tensions within the public school system. Doing so opens up new ways of framing and recognizing partial and diffuse acts of resistance among Asian Canadian youth who would otherwise appear to have internalized dominant stereotypes and norms.