Browsing by Subject "Identity Development"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
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    Born Unveiled: The Process, Protest, and Product of Racialization Among International Black African Collegians in US Graduate Education
    (2024-01) Watson, Ashley
    This dissertation focuses on the racialization of graduate international Black African collegians (IBAC) and the effects it has on their racial identity development. The intercentricity of race maintains that race is a defining factor for how one is situated in US society. However, many international students do not come from communities stratified by race first. For example, Black US Americans (BUSA) are socialized to view race as a master narrative from an early age. Yet, IBAC, are socialized in ways that tend to prioritize clan, tribal, or ethnic heritage as differentiating characteristics. I argue that despite being raced as similar, BUSA and IBAC undergo different socialization processes and therefore, the identity formation around race for IBAC follows a different trajectory than that of BUSA. The study includes semi-structured interviews conducted with ten graduate IBAC recruited through purposeful selection. Transcripts were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis, a qualitative approach which seeks to provide detailed examinations of a person’s lived experiences. Based on this analysis, four thematic clusters and 14 subthemes were identified revealing how participants made sense and meaning of their racialization. The first theme, Becoming Veiled, outlines the process of becoming Black in a US context. The second theme, Living Under the Veil, draws attention to how IBAC maneuver through highly racialized environments. The final two themes, Resisting/Refusing the Veil and Opting Out both relate to how participants enact their agency to preserve their core essence. This dissertation extends current understanding of international student identity development by bringing into conversation critical intercultural studies, sociology, Black studies, and comparative education. Results from this study (in conversation with others) makes a strong case for reconsidering a blanket application of Cross’ (1978) Nigrescence Model as a schema for all Black students.
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    Critical incidents in the identity development of second-generation South Asian women.
    (2009-07) Banerjee-Stevens, Devjani
    This qualitative study set out to describe the process of developing a more integrated bicultural identity for second-generation South Asian women as they transitioned from adolescence into adulthood in a Western, pluralistic culture. Through semi-structured interviews, the researcher identified critical incidents that illuminated the participants’ dual identities and caused them to think about their identities in a different way. Analysis of the results illuminated four domains related to the bicultural identity development of second-generation South Asian women: (a) Feeling Different, (b) The Imposter Syndrome, (c) Family Connections, and (d) Finding Authenticity. This exploratory study suggests that the journey toward an integrated, bicultural identity is not linear. That is, some incidents and relationships may cause one to feel more positively about how compatible one's cultures are, where another event may have a more negative impact. Also, a similar critical incident may impact two second-generation South Asian women quite differently, depending on where she was in her bicultural identity development at the time the incident occurred. This, then, seems to be the overarching theme of this research: second-generation South Asian women appear to be attempting to find an "authentic identity" that encompasses their Indian and American values.