Intercultural Immigrant Youth Identities in Contexts of Family, Friends, and School.

Abstract

Much of the research on cultural identity development does not capture experiences of individuals with parents from two or more cultural backgrounds or those living in multicultural contexts. Our study explores how immigrant youth in a multicultural city view and use identities to negotiate at school, with peers, and with family. Participants (N = 20) were adolescents (12–18 years) living in Geneva, Switzerland. Findings show that youths' peer networks are multicultural and school and home are more likely to be monocultural. We can apply these findings to future research designed to ask youth about their identities within different contexts as well as to incorporate intercultural and multicultural identities into identity theories.