Social class and its reproduction in immigrants’ construction of self

Abstract

This article explores the ways in which class position forms part of immigrants’ social imaginary and shapes important aspects of their engagement with the sociocultural landscape to which they have come. It is argued that sociocultural experience is the scaffolding for self-representation across development and thus plays a key role in our conscious and unconscious, in what we do and how we understand it. Two case examples, one of a patient who emigrated from an upper class background, the other from a patient who emigrated from a lower working-class background, are used to illustrate the ways in which class identifications influence self-representation and the experience of immigration.