Identity perception in a multicultural society: A case study of Turkish immigrants living in Sweden

Identity is one of the most prominent subjects of sociology today. Subject to the changes and developments, numerous theories about identity were put front, and the arguments on identity after the World War II spreated the multiculturalism debates. Here, as the ideas on identity are studied, first the reasons of the popularity of identity as a subject is discussed and then it was concretized as individual identity, group identity, ethnic identity, national identity, and civilisation identity.However the debates on multiculturalism which refers recognization or struggle for the recognization of various identities is a recently formed issue; multiculturalism is not a recent case. There are a variety of debates which base the multiculturalism debates. The most prominent of these is the ethnicity centered discussions. There are two different dimensions of ethnicity discussions; western and non-western. Today these discussions are usually continued on axis of multiculturalism.Multiculturalism was politically recognized for the first time in Canada; and further, countries such as USA, Australia and Sweden declared that they adapted multiculturalism as a state policy. However they followed policies based on assimilation before, historical experiences and the conditions forced these countries to adapt multiculturalism policies. Here USA, Canada, Australia and EU cases were separately discussed in order to set forth a better understanding of how the shift to multiculturalism applications happened and what are its boundaries.Sweden is one of the uncommon EU countries which adaptated multiculturalism as a state policy. However the Turks relation with Sweden has deep roots in history, mass migration to this country started in mid 1960?s. Perception of identity differ among the generations. While the Turkish identity is dominant in the first generation which has lower level of education and less knowlegde of Swedish; Turkish identity started to lose its position as a dominant actor for the 3rd generation that were born and socialised in Sweden.