Edlie Courdi's Interview With My Father

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On Thursday, February 22nd, I conducted an interview with my father, Élie Courdi, about his experiences in primary and secondary school. Élie was born in Egypt but immigrated to Canada with his mother at five years of age, so he identifies primarily as a Quebecer from Egyptian origin. He is now 53 years old and speaks both English and French. He still understands Arabic, his maternal language, but does not speak it fluently anymore. The interview was conducted at our home in St-Bruno and he seemed interested in this opportunity to reflect back on his past schooling experience, although he had trouble remembering many details. Following a year in integration class for immigrants at kindergarten level, he went to elementary school at a French …show more content…

That is, regardless of the social structure and social stratification, an individual can move from a disadvantageous ascribed status to a “higher” achieved status through the educational opportunities school offers (Barakett & Cleghorn, 2008, p.5). At first stance, I though this function was well achieved in Élie’s case, but through our discussion, I came to understand that even though he’s current achieved status is “better” than his ascribed status, school did not contribute to provide him with opportunities for social mobility. Coming from a relatively poor background, Élie now belongs to a much higher class, but according to him, it was his personal choices and perseverance much after high school that allowed him to achieve that new status. However, I still believe school played a role in the sense that by the end of his formal schooling, Élie felt much more integrated in Quebec’s society, spoke the main language and assumed his identity as an immigrant more openly, all aspects of his life that would have otherwise closed him a lot of opportunities (É. Courdi, personal communication, February 22, …show more content…

This function refers to the role that school plays in allowing children to learn how to act with their peers, and at the same time, in encouraging students to stay within their group of the same age, gender, class or race (Barakett & Cleghorn, 2008, p.7). Élie’s experience in elementary and secondary school clearly reveals how schools performs this function. As mentioned above, peer pressure played an important role in social control, which also translated in subgroup control as students were encouraged to stay with people of similar interests, tastes and clothing style. Specifically, Élie mentioned many of his friends were like him raised by single mothers and came from the same social class. This had long-term repercussion in Élie’s life, since he met his current two best friends in high school. As for behaviour between students, school did transmit some expectations of mutual respect and standard norms such as waiting for your turn to speak (É. Courdi, personal communication, February 22,

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