Finding the Niche

Abstract

Minority adolescents have shown preferences for friends of the same ethnicity. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with two Chinese immigrant adolescent girls, one who preferred same ethnicity friends and one with no obvious preference. The study examined factors influencing friendship development of the adolescent girls, explored their definitions of ethnicity, perceptions of level of acculturation, similarities between friends, and parental perceptions of adolescents' friendship. Same ethnicity may not guarantee psychological proximity; such friendship may result from perceived greater dissimilarity to other ethnicities. The degree of acculturation partly determined psychological proximity. Parental support played an important role in adolescents' friendship. The study suggests the need to examine existing theories and findings of ethnic preference in friendship in complex ways and the need to bridge the psychological difference between ethnically different peer groups and between immigrant parents and children.