‘The trouble is they don’t mix’: self‐segregation or enforced exclusion?1

Abstract

This article draws on a two‐year study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) of South Asian parents and their children’s views on the school experience (Parents, Children and the School Experience: Asian Families’ Perspectives – Grant Reference: R000239671). The article focuses on an aspect of the young people’s school experience and reports that teachers constructed the students’ behaviour in terms of ‘Asian gang culture’. Teachers frequently criticised the South Asian students for not mixing with their white peers, not going on school trips, and not participating in extra‐curricular activities. The authors discuss this in relation to notions of integration, teachers’ perceptions of gendered and ethnic differences and issues of symbolic violence. The emphasis was on the students integrating into the dominant culture: in terms of conforming and knowing their place. In this sense the young people do not see a place for themselves. Ethnocentrism together with racist harassment serves to relegate the young people to the margins, where they have little choice but to remain, not least for fear of their safety.