Paper short abstract:

This paper presents youth with Anglophone migrant backgrounds in the Czech Republic based on research on an afterschool drama club in English. I argue that the experiences of Anglophone children and youth are different to those of adults and not always privileged.

Paper long abstract:

The childhood of people with Anglophone migrant backgrounds is considered privileged. English as their mother tongue, with its position in the globalised world, is privileged (Seidlhofer et al. 2006). Their family background in the globalised North is privileged (Black and Stone 2005), as well as their passports, which lets them travel easily around the world (Croucher 2012). However, the environment of childhood and youth is "not necessarily, nor even principally, the cultural environment(s) relevant to adults "(Hirschfield 2002, p 615). Older children and youth live in a temporality where peers' acceptance is critical (Jenkins 1996) and adults' privileges fade of importance. In the context of post-socialist Czechia, the society in 2020/2021 was still very homogeneous, Anglophone teenagers are often considered different and their position in a peer group is contested. Egalitarian, local mainstream schools exoticise these children and create a feeling of exclusion, of 'otherness'.

I argue that the homogeneity of Czech society and the environment of youth peer pressure makes Anglophone teenagers vulnerable. The privileges of adults cannot be copied into the specific environments of youth. The youth environment needs to be studied separately from adult situations. How can this experience help them navigate their adult life?