How does social class shape and influence the ethnic identity of immigrants? Take the Chinese group in Glasgow as an example

Yin, Zhaowei (2025) How does social class shape and influence the ethnic identity of immigrants? Take the Chinese group in Glasgow as an example. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

This thesis focuses on Chinese immigrants from different social classes in Scotland, aiming to explore how individuals' understanding of ethnicity is influenced by their social class, thereby contributing to the sociological literature on the intersection of ethnicity and class. In particular, it pays close attention to the life trajectories of working-class Chinese immigrants, especially those on the margins of society, enriching the British sociological scholarship on the experiences of Chinese immigrants by refusing to treat this group as simply homogenous.

The thesis adopts an everyday life approach, emphasizing the importance of capturing, identifying, and analysing dynamic, nuanced, and complex social relationships and practices related to ethnicity in daily life. It also employs an intersectional lens, arguing that individuals’ understanding of ethnic identity is always shaped by the interwoven influences of different social categories and multiple social spaces. Furthermore, this study draws on Bourdieu’s theoretical framework, utilizing concepts such as social space, field, capital, habitus, doxa, symbolic violence, and reproduction to analyse the different forms of class inequality experienced in ethnic identity construction and reproduction.

Based on two years of fieldwork – including life history interviews with 29 participants from different class backgrounds in Glasgow and two periods of participant observation – this study qualitatively examines the participants’ life trajectories and the ways in which they understand ethnicity within a broader socio-cultural context. Grounded theory was adopted for data analysis, and the results are presented through key themes and case studies, incorporating participants’ original interview excerpts. Accordingly, the thesis argues that within a given social space or field, class influences ethnicity through the unequal possession, inheritance, distribution, and access to different forms of resources, which is reflected in a series of social relations and practices in everyday life. The findings suggest that participants’ understanding of ethnicity is always structurally shaped by their social position and the logic of the spaces they inhabit. For example, due to the unequal possession and acquisition of material and symbolic resources caused by class differences, individuals encounter different forms and degrees of obstacles in transnational mobility, as well as varying capacities and strategies to cope with these challenges, which shape their interpretation of ethnicity. This study also emphasizes that the way class influences ethnicity within a given social space depends on its specific hierarchical structure and the forms of capital that are at stake in such spaces. For example, in Chinese school space, class can influence students' ethnic identity and resistance through the degree of cultural capital inheritance and inequalities in the possession and distribution of educational resources, thereby affecting the reproduction of ethnicity.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: H Social Sciences > HM Sociology; H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races
• Colleges/Schools: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences
• Supervisor's Name: Smith, Professor Andrew and Piacentini, Dr. Teresa
• Date of Award: 2025
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2025-85417
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 26 Aug 2025 10:10
• Last Modified: 26 Aug 2025 10:12
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.85417
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/85417