Developmental Interplay between Ethnic, National, and Personal Identity in Immigrant Adolescents

Stefanos Mastrotheodoros,Olga Kornienko,Frosso Motti-Stefanidi,Adriana Umaña-Taylor

doi:10.1007/s10964-021-01434-y

Abstract

Developing a personal identity is a core developmental task for all adolescents. Immigrant adolescents need to integrate the meaning that their belonging to their ethnic group and the receiving nation has for them into their personal identity. The purpose of this study was to examine the longitudinal interplay between personal, ethnic, and national identities of a middle school sample of immigrant youth (N = 765, Mage = 12.7 years, SD = 0.6 at T1; 46% girls) enroled in Greek schools. Data were collected in three waves with repeated measures. To test the link between these identities, two trivariate Cross-Lagged Panel Models were ran, one examining identity exploration and the other examining identity commitment. The results revealed robust within time positive links between ethnic, national and personal identities for both exploration and commitment at all three time-points. There was some evidence that ethnic and national identities were negatively linked longitudinally, and limited support for longitudinal associations between these domains and personal identity. Follow-up analyses suggest that these processes may be specific to second generation youth and that findings may differ by ethnic background. Finally, the findings that emerged are discussed with attention to the socio-political climate in the receiving nation.

Highlights

ObjectivesThis study aimed at investigating the longitudinal dynamic interconnections among ethnic, national, and personal identity exploration and commitment, with the goal to make a first step to integrating the largely disparate extant literatures on these domains of identity
The formation of an identity involves different aspects of self-definition and, while being challenging for all adolescents, it is even more challenging for immigrant adolescents, who have to navigate between two different cultures: the culture of the country of origin and the culture
All variables showed moderate to strong positive, significant autoregressive effects that ranged from β = 0.52 to β = 0.65. These effects indicated that personal, national, and ethnic identity exploration were stable across time, and those students who reported relatively high degree of exploration at one time point tended to show high degree of exploration the following time points

Summary

Objectives

This study aimed at investigating the longitudinal dynamic interconnections among ethnic, national, and personal identity exploration and commitment, with the goal to make a first step to integrating the largely disparate extant literatures on these domains of identity

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion