ARCHIVED – Recent Immigrants, Earlier Immigrants and the Canadian–Born: Association with Collective Identities

5. Conclusion

In this report, we provided an overview of literature on identity, and findings from an analysis of the Canadian WVS (2006), focusing on three population groups: recent immigrants, earlier immigrants, and the Canadian-born. All three groups collectively express high levels of positive identification as a citizen of Canada, as a citizen of their province/region and as a member of their community. Similarly, all three groups express very high levels of pride in Canada. These findings are consistent with Pearce’s results, derived from the 2002 EDS data. Pearce suggests that “the strong sense of belonging to Canada is perhaps a credit to the Canadian multicultural framework and the federal government’s keen interest in developing policies and programs based on research on Canadian social cohesion” (Pearce 2008, 20).

Findings from our descriptive analysis also suggest an overall tendency among all three groups to report the strongest identification with Canada as a whole, and the weakest identification with North America. Furthermore, recent immigrants are more likely than earlier immigrants and the Canadian-born to strongly identify as a world citizen, and recent immigrants are less likely than earlier immigrants and the Canadian-born to strongly identify with the other collective identities (including Canada, province/region and community).

Findings from the cross-tabular analysis suggest that for recent immigrants, race appears to be a marker of differences in the degree to which one identifies as a member of their community, their province or region, citizen of Canada, and citizen of the world. The Black population reports the lowest levels of identification as citizens of Canada and as citizens of their province/region. The role of discrimination in society should be taken into consideration when attempting to gain further insight into these findings. However, the Black population also reports the highest levels of identification as members of their local community. These results require additional in-depth qualitative and quantitative analysis.

Results from the ordered logistic regression analysis suggest that for recent and earlier immigrants, the tendency to ‘strongly identify’ as a member of one’s local community is associated with an increased likelihood of identifying as a citizen of Canada. This finding is consistent with Pearce’s conclusion which suggests that “there may be an intricate relationship between neighbourhood strength and general community attachment” (Pearce 2008), and also consistent with Hipp and Perrin’s (2006) conclusion which suggests that feelings towards one’s neighbourhood are positively associated with national level attachment. It may be the case that community level experiences, interactions, attitudes and norms are generalized by the individual and projected onto the larger national community.

These results also suggest that the experience of integration is very much community-based. Government of Canada programs such as the Welcoming Community Initiative may have a direct and positive impact on the degree to which immigrants associate with various Canadian collective identities by fostering more welcoming communities and by promoting participation. For recent immigrants, the CIC settlement programs may also play a significant role in expanding social networks and increasing access to community resources which, in turn, plays a role in positively impacting community attachment. Furthermore, these findings allow for the preliminary development of a theory which proposes that identity is rooted in a complex web of social relations wherein the strength and security of one collective identity may provide the foundation for the strengthening of other forms of collective identification.

The degree to which one feels a sense of attachment and identifies with one’s community, province or country has significant emotional and behavioural connotations, which in turn has an impact on the cohesiveness of communities as well as Canadian society at large. Therefore, one of the various ways in which the Government of Canada can promote Canadian identity is by supporting citizenship uptake among immigrants. Citizenship promotes loyalty and attachment to Canada, nurtures a shared national identity and in turn fosters a sense of belonging for newcomers. Therefore, the continued recognition of citizenship as the ultimate goal of the Government of Canada’s Immigration Program plays a critical role in fostering a shared national identity and a sense of belonging for immigrants.

Finally, further research is needed in order to provide insight into these findings. For example, it would be interesting to similarly analyze responses from previous and upcoming waves of the WVS to analyze changes in collective identification over time. Furthermore, the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC) can provide additional information on levels of belonging among recent immigrants and provide insight into immigrant category (e.g., refugee, economic and family class immigrants). Qualitative research could also be used to provide insight into gaps in our understanding, as well as provide more insight into the complex and subjective nature of identification and belonging.

5.1 Limitations of the research

There are several limitations of this study that should be noted. Firstly, due to the subjective nature of the questions, respondents may have a variety of different interpretations about what ‘seeing themselves as a citizen of Canada as a whole’ means. For instance, some individuals may be responding to a factual question about their status as a Canadian citizen whereas others may be assessing the degree to which they associate as Canadians, or feel that they ‘belong’ in Canada. Further muddying the waters, while a question pertaining to legal status as a Canadian citizen was posed to participants in the boosted new immigrant sample of the WVS, a similar question was not posed of core sample participants. Furthermore, respondents may have a variety of different interpretations on what ‘local community’ means because a definition was not provided.

A key limitation of this dataset is that it does not permit analysis by immigration class (e.g., family class, economic class and refugees); this may have provided this research valuable insight into differences in responses amongst earlier and recent immigrant sub-groups. Moreover, the dataset does not allow for the separation of the second generation population from third-plus generations, all of which are categorized as ‘Canadian-born’. Furthermore, the data does not take into account any subsequent moves within Canada that may have a significant impact upon the degree to which a respondent identifies with their community and province/region.


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