Disadvantaged Neighborhood

Where we live is a little bit different, once they wrote in a newspaper, it is

“Klein Istanbul in Bremen”. No German lives there (Temel, 150)

The interviewees chiefly live in neighborhoods deprived in some respects. The relative diversity that is observable amongst the family conditions of the students is not the case for neighborhood characteristics where there is uniform disadvantage. They come from the peripheries of Bremen such as Neuplatz, Mitte, Kobbel and Kolding, which are generally over populated by lower class immigrants and Germans. These parts of the city are all socioeconomically disadvantaged. Therefore, these quarters harbor limited resources and restrict the reach of inhabitants the potential opportunities that are available outside of these areas due to the limited social ties.

Most of the interviewees reported that they have grown up in these ethnically dominated areas where Turkish/Kurdish is generally spoken within the family and among friends. There is great evidence of homophiliy amongst the Turkish/Kurdish children. Their acquaintances

are mostly other Turkish/Kurdish children, even if there are German children and Russian children in the quarter. For it, they refer to cultural similarity and language issues; “...the ways we joke around are the same as we come from the same people, we know same movies...” (Ünal, 452). Their contacts with German families and friends is little to none in their neighborhoods.“German? I live here so long, but I have maybe only one (acquaintance) (Ibrahim, 3000). Ibrahim comes from a low socioeconomic background. He was born and grew up in Germany, but despite that, he has almost no German friends. Regarding the homogeneity of the neighborhood, Hakan reports that “we know each other from Kindergarten, mothers are acquainted for a long time. When they came from Turkey, they moved into this quarter, so now everyone knows everyone, we are like a family, altogether,we have visited each other very often, they are like brother in the quarter” (Hakan, 101). Hakan lives in the same quarter with Temel, and he also confirms ethnic homogeneity of the neighborhood, which Temel articulates above as 'Klein Istanbul⁴⁰.

The ethnic homogeneity and low socioeconomic background of the neighborhoods presumably makes it difficult for the children to find potential role models, which are also not available within the family. The interviewees report that drug use is common in their areas and many of their friends left school. As academic motivation grows out of social and personal relationships (Stanton-Salazar 2004:129) these children are destitute of the concrete connections to other social networks that might bring them tangible forms of support. Some parents do not want to stay in such neighborhoods, Turgay, for example, reports that his father became concerned about the neighborhood and moved into another place as he could afford it

“ ...how to say I mean the speaking style, such as small children swearing, my father said it'd be good to move into somewhere else, even if the rent is higher, the children can grow up better”. (Turgay, 124). Though Turgay's father managed to move out of the area before his trade business bankrupted, it is generally difficult for people to do the same thing probably not only because of economic restrictions but also the social ties which they are part of. For example, as stated above, working informally,with under-the-table-pay is common among the parents and it appears that in accessing such job opportunities, the social ties within which the person is embedded play significant roles.

Another equally important dimension of the neighborhood is the reflection of the neighborhood structure onto the composition of students in school. The importance of school as compensator of the weak resources that students bring from their families and neighborhoods have been indicated elsewhere (Stanton-Salazar 2001; Oakes 2005). For the

40Small Istanbul

students whose families have low social capital, school might have an equalizing effect (Solga 2008b). It might provide the opportunity to meet friends of different backgrounds and teachers who can convey better the resources into the student (Oakes 2005). Therefore, school time might stand for a very important break from disadvantaged neighborhood that limits accessing the necessary capitals.

However, this is mostly not the case for Turkish students, more than half of the interviewees stated that children of immigrants were dominant in their primary and later schools. “The classroom was full of Turkish” (Deniz, 227). There was a very low number of German classmates in their classrooms with mostly Turkish, Kurdish, Russian and Arabic students. The reason for the emergence of homogeneous student profiles in primary schools is probably owing to the fact that the students should, by law, attend the primary school closest to their residence in Germany⁴¹ (Kristen 2005). This somewhat explains why some students have the same friends both at school and in the neighborhood; “where we live ...there are not many German over there, it is a big quarter with only three or four German families. All are Turkish, Kurdish and so on, everyone knows each other, I was always in the same school with them, they were in the same school, my company was always them” (Temel, 130). It seesm that being structurally locked out in neighborhood repeats itself this time in the composition of the students in school. The students' contacts with native students and the students of different socioeconomic background remain limited .

Nevertheless, this should not be generalized for each interviewee. It is obvious from the reports that dominance of children of immigrants in primary school is not exclusively the case. Some reported a mixed composition of the classroom and school; “it was like fifty-fifty, there were some Germans but others, too, coming from different places [countries]” (Sinan, 273), whereas some other stated the dominance of German students in their classroom, “in the school almost all were German....only a couple Turkish and Kurdish” (Aykut, 272).

Similar to Aykut, Erdem reports; “In my class there was only an Arabic and a Turkish student the rest was German” (Erdem 337). These statements indicate that the homogeneity in the neighborhood does not always mean ethnic homogeneity but predominantly socioeconomic homogeneity.

Conclusion

I have sought to show in this chapter the background characteristics of the interviewees.

41This is one of the reasons of the emergence of ethnically segregated schools especially in industrial areas of large cities. For this see at (Kristen 2005).

The findings suggest that they are diverse in many respects but have also some things in common. The socioeconomic background characteristics reveal that the interviewees mostly come from lower family backgrounds, whereas a few come from entrepreneurial families.

Some experience social and psychological derivations of their poor socioeconomic conditions such as stress, anxiety, conflict and resentment. On the other hand, some children come from peaceful family environments and do not perceive any socioeconomic hardships. Another important point was the educational profile of the family members. The findings suggest here a limited degree of diversity. Some parents are lacking of experience in education at all and have language problems. Few hold Hauptschule degrees, have no language problems and are putting efforts into their childrens' schooling. Yet, the low education and language incompetency weaken parental involvement in school, and loosen control over child's school performance in most cases. These problems are exacerbated by lack of access to translators for the parents in schools. Also, in the cases of better educated and supportive siblings, many of these interviewees prefer to 'stand on their own' as a result of their concerns about masculinity, manliness and pride. This presumably further prevents potential success in school.

Another background characteristic is the neighborhood. All interviewees live predominately in the disadvantaged parts of the city of Bremen, which are over populated by lower status Germans and immigrant inhabitants; they contain weak resources, and lack role models. This composition of the neighborhood repeats itself in the composition of the student profiles in school. Overall, the findings show that the backgrounds of the interviewees are diverse to some extent, however, they converge at some points. In the following chapter, I shall focus on the schooling years in order to understand the interviewees experiences in school coming from the backgrounds that are described so far.