A case study of immigrant students' construction of national identity through the analysis of their discourse in a Greek Intercultural school.

A central issue in the academic discussion related to immigrant groups and their integration in 'their new home' is national identity. This paper focuses on the methodological choices during a case study of the students' subjectivity in an Intercultural School in Thessaloniki in Greece and on how immigrant students form their identities. Most students as second-generation immigrants constantly negotiate multiple identities. This negotiation leads to the construction of ambivalence and conflicting identities that are represented with uncertainty and equivocation in their discourse. In this paper, I will present briefly a conceptual placement in social constructionism and the distinction between primitive and modern nationalism and will continue focusing on how the ambiguous and conflicting identities of immigrant students are shaped based on conception of national identity, the role of nostalgia and memory and finally on the polycemy of the construction of national identity of students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]