Adolescent identity exploration in a multicultural community context; An educator’s approach to rethinking identity interventions (original) (raw)
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This article presents the concept of identity education (IdEd) referring to the purposeful involvement of educators with students’ identity-related processes or contents. We discuss why educators may consider identity important to the realization of educational goals and choose to target aspects of students’ identity in their pedagogical practice. We offer a broad theoretical framework that organizes and focuses the extensive yet scattered discourse on identity and education. Because IdEd is a concept that accommodates diverse educational perspectives and concerns, we outline several parameters that can assist educators in making sense of this diversity and provide a conceptual basis for pedagogical and curricular decision making. These parameters also provide researchers from different scholarly traditions a common framework for constructive dialogue and can serve as a basis for generating focused and productive research directions.
Bridging Identities among Ethnic Minority Youth in Schools.
This digest examines the nature of multiple identities among ethnic minority youth and how youth bridge conflicting messages about cultural ways of being. It discusses how the school environment contributes to student internalization of various identities. Culturally diverse students often face contrasting notions of self because they must function in schools organized around the values and goals of the dominant culture. Minority children have difficulty internalizing certain aspects of the dominant culture, showing poorer school achievement and higher dropout rates due in part to the incongruent expectations, motives, social behaviors, language, and cognitive patterns of teachers and majority students. Student attitudes toward achievement differ by culture. How discrepancies in sense of self are understood by minority students and what is seen as normal by the dominant culture may differ significantly. As a consequence of this narrow view, minority students are often dismissed or pathologized in comparison to white students. School counselors must understand cultural differences in order to effectively help diverse students adjust and succeed. A comprehensive multicultural curriculum can provide students with broad-based knowledge of subjects covered, foster their understanding and appreciation of diversity, and promote positive inter-ethnic relations.
The Multidimensionality of Ethnic Identity Among Urban High School Youth
This study was designed to explore the associations of ethnic identity dimensions with collective self-esteem membership, school interest, student interest in learning, and community engagement among 406 ethnically diverse (Asian American, Black, Latino, Pacific Islander, and multiracial) high school students. Using the Ethnic Identity Scale, this article presents the relationships between school and community variables with students' perceptions of ethnic identity exploration, resolution, and affirmation. Correlational analyses and post hoc t tests using Steiger's modified z statistic show strong positive correlations between most school and community variables and students' ethnic identity exploration and resolution. They also reveal a strong negative correlation between students' school interest and ethnic identity affirmation. Results are discussed in terms of the emergent distinctions between student interest in learning and school interest as they relate to ethnic identity dimensions and collective self-esteem membership.
Research and Intervention Issues in the Examination of Ethnic Identity in African-American Youth
1994
In recent years researchers have developed strategies to understand or promote ethnic identity in African-American youth. This paper discusses six studies or interventions which explored ethnic identity among African-American youth. These intervention were designed to produce positive changes in areas such as ethnic identity, academic achievement, life skills and social competencies, cultural awareness, career exploration and social bonding. Participants ranged in age from 9 to 16 years of age, and came from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds and educational levels. The information on the interventions was based on self reports, archival data, participant observations, ethnographic techniques, and focus groups and are presented under five major headings: (1) operationalizing ethnic identity; (2) community representativeness; (3) difficult to reach; (4) engaging youth participants; and (5) researcher/community collaboration. While the efforts examined in this report provide valuable information, most interventions do not furnish the information needed to determine whether and how programs are producing the desired developmental changes. Likewise, while researchers know which activities promote ethnic identity development, scant intervention data exists to verify this belief. To answer these questions, researchers must undertake longitudinal and experimental research that examines a variety of psychosocial constructs. (RJM) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Ethnic Identity Interlention Issues Research and Intervention Issues in the Examination of Ethnic Identity in African-American Youth'
Child Development, 2017
Adolescents’ ethnic–racial identity (ERI) formation represents an important developmental process that is associated with adjustment. The Identity Project intervention, grounded in developmental theory, was designed to engage adolescents in the ERI processes of exploration and resolution. The current small‐scale efficacy trial involved an ethnic–racially diverse sample of adolescents (N = 215; Mage = 15.02, SD = .68) from eight classrooms that were randomly assigned by classroom to the intervention or attention control group. Differences between conditions in ERI exploration at Time 2 were consistent with desired intervention effects; furthermore, higher levels of ERI exploration at Time 2 predicted increases in ERI resolution at Time 3 only for youth in the treatment condition. Findings provide preliminary evidence of program efficacy.
2011
Racial-ethnic identity is a fundamental aspect of an early adolescent's identity because it includes the attitudes and feelings associated with ethnic and racial group membership. Literature shows racial-ethnic identity to be an important aspect of adolescents' developmental and psychological well-being. This is important in light of the increasingly diverse racial-ethnic demographic for New Zealand, particularly in our large cities. The present study is based around the broad research question 'What influences early adolescent racial-ethnic identity development?' This includes a fundamental question of 'How do early adolescents enact racial-ethnic identity in high school contexts?' and then, 'How does racial-ethnic identity impact on the way early adolescents engage at high school?' This study examines the importance of racial-ethnic identity among young adolescents who attend large, multi-ethnic, urban high schools in New Zealand. The project is comprised of one study with three parts. The analysis in this study focuses on a comparison of Year nine students (13-14 years old) in New Zealand from four racialethnic groupings: New Zealand European/Pākehā, Māori, Samoan and Chinese. Study 1a and 1b (n = 695) examined the self-identifications, feelings of connectedness, meanings
Identity text: an educational intervention to foster cultural interaction
Medical Education Online, 2016
Background: Sociocultural theories state that learning results from people participating in contexts where social interaction is facilitated. There is a need to create such facilitated pedagogical spaces where participants can share their ways of knowing and doing. The aim of this exploratory study was to introduce pedagogical space for sociocultural interaction using 'Identity Text'. Methods: Identity Texts are sociocultural artifacts produced by participants, which can be written, spoken, visual, musical, or multimodal. In 2013, participants of an international medical education fellowship program were asked to create their own Identity Texts to promote discussion about participants' cultural backgrounds. Thematic analysis was used to make the analysis relevant to studying the pedagogical utility of the intervention. Result: The Identity Text intervention created two spaces: a 'reflective space', which helped participants reflect on sensitive topics such as institutional environments, roles in interdisciplinary teams, and gender discrimination, and a 'narrative space', which allowed participants to tell powerful stories that provided cultural insights and challenged cultural hegemony; they described the conscious and subconscious transformation in identity that evolved secondary to struggles with local power dynamics and social demands involving the impact of family, peers, and country of origin. Conclusion: While the impact of providing pedagogical space using Identity Text on cognitive engagement and enhanced learning requires further research, the findings of this study suggest that it is a useful pedagogical strategy to support cross-cultural education.