The Underachievement of Portuguese-Canadian Youth: An Ongoing Phenomenon

Fernando Nunes

doi:10.25071/1929-8471.68

Auteurs-es

Fernando Nunes Associate Professor, Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, NS

DOI :

https://doi.org/10.25071/1929-8471.68

Mots-clés :

Academic achievement, Portuguese-Canadian, education, minorities, drop-out

Résumé

For nearly 4 generations, the youth of the Portuguese-Canadian community have been underachieving academically and dropping out of school earlier and in greater numbers, than most other youth. As a result, the Portuguese in Canada have had disproportionately low levels of frequency in post-secondary education, which are often comparable to those of Canada’s Aboriginals. The author discusses some of the reasons for the perpetuation of this phenomenon: The ignoring of the underachievement of Luso-Canadians by anti-racism education scholars; the dismissal of existing research data and unwillingness to acknowledge the effects of systemic barriers, by the community’s own political and business leadership; the belief amongst many that Portuguese-Canadian parents are at fault for the perpetuation of underachievement; the positioning of the Portuguese-Canadian community as a working-class, little-educated group; as well as a lack of programs that are specifically targeted to Portuguese-Canadian youth.

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