SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This thesis attempts to discover and explain the processes generating the 'cultural synthesis' that appears to be characterising the ideas and behaviour of Pakistani teenage girls in London - a synthesis that is a blend of traditional Pakistani ideas and modern British ones. It is suggested that the processes of learning i.e. socialization and education, produce this cultural synthesis. Chapter One sets out the problem and advances four propositions which might be employed to analyse and resolve it. The dialectical nature of the relationships between ideas and behaviour and between education and socialization is examined. Chapters Two, Three and Four deal with the ethnography. Chapter Two describes the fieldwork, the universe of study and the social background, migration and settlement patterns of adult 'first-generation' Pakistanis in London. Chapter Three describes the behaviour of teenage girls in South London, their relationships with parents, kin and peers, and the genesis and resolution of intergenerational conflict. Chapter Four describes the girls' ideas and values and examines the importance of concepts of ethnicity and identity. Chapter Five analyses the ethnographic data within the context of the theoretical framework and its four central propositions as advanced in Chapter One.