Asian Women's Ethnic Identity: The Impact of Gender and Context in the Accounts of Women Bringing Up Children in East London

Abstract

This study examines the ways in which a group of women of Asian origin or descent define and discuss aspects of ethnicity and ethnic identity. Thirty-two Asian women of different religious and cultural backgrounds who were bringing up young children in East London were interviewed by an Asian psychologist. As part of a more extensive interview about childbirth, child care and child rearing, women were asked about their ethnic identity. Their accounts indicate that their constructions of ethnicity and ethnic identity are fluid and changing, taking account of gender, developmental changes associated with motherhood and the context of their lives as mothers of young children. Analysis of their accounts is used to argue that ethnicity and ethnic identity are not homogeneous categories, that they operate across gender and, therefore, greater consideration needs to be given in developmental psychology to the complexity and variations in women's representations of ethnicity.