Identity Correspondence: The Influences of Psycho-Cultural Processes and Social Structural Contexts on Second-Generation Adolescents’ Identity Choices

• In Event: 534 - Section on Children and Youth Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Section on Children and Youth Roundtables (one-hour). Table 01. Race, Class, and Immigration

Abstract

Researchers have examined what factors influence and affect the ethnic identity choices of second-generation adolescents. Scholars have noted that due to the more rapid acculturation of the second-generation, there may be dissonance between these youth and their parents which may cause adolescence to choose different ethnic/racial identities than their parents’. During this developmental stage, adolescents are more likely than not living with at least one parent, therefore, taking this into consideration, identity choices of second-generation adolescents may signal the quality of parent-child relationships. However, despite this possible dissonance between parent and child culture and identity, that has been hinted at in the literature, this relational aspect of identity has not been systematically investigated. Therefore this paper advances the concept of identity as a relational measure between second-generation youths and their parents. This study uses Wave I of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS) dataset to assess how psycho-cultural processes and social structural contexts influence the likelihood of ethnic/racial identity correspondence between second-generation adolescents and their parents. Results show that social structural contexts are more significant in predicting the likelihood of second-generation adolescents’ identity corresponding with their parents rather than psycho-cultural processes. This study extends existing research on the identities of second-generation adolescents by providing an additional conceptualization and measure of identity as relational; the distance between the perceived identities of immigrant parents and their children.

Author

• Monique Deeann Asandra Kelly, University of California-Irvine