Model Minority Stereotype and Racialized Habitus: Chinese Canadian Youth Struggling with Racial Discrimination at School

Abstract

This paper examines how Chinese Canadian youth struggle with the model minority stereotype and experience racial discriminationat school. Three negative connotations associated with model minority stereotype are identified, which respectively treat Chinse students as academic achievers and thus social nerds, undesirable immigrants (descendants) from the non-Western world, and targets of bullying.Drawing on Bourdieu, I elaborate on a concept of racialized habitus, particularly in relation to the model minority stereotype. I argue that in addition to the existing theorization of racism as institutional and systemic, racism has also been maintained and reproduced at the individual level as a racialized habitus.