Cultural Differentiation or Self-Exclusion: On Young Turks’ and Repatriates’ Dealing with Experiences of Discrimination in Germany

Based upon Bourdieu’s ‘theory of capital’ and Willis’s ‘theory of cultural production’, the article scrutinizes the interrelation between perceived discrimination, self-exclusion and cultural differentiation. The empirical analysis is based on a longitudinal study by the German Youth Institute, which was set up to explore the transition of young Turks from school to vocational training and employment. The data point out that young immigrants who are dealing with experiences of devaluation of their (origin-)specific cultural capital and who are disadvantaged regarding the accessibility of dominant cultural capital bring about a production of a counterculture. They are less likely to exclude themselves in the sense of internalizing the rightness of the dominant culture.