Family Influence on Adolescent Social Identity Development Adolescence is a significant developmental period in an individual's life that is characterized by physical, cognitive, emotional, and social changes. As a result of these changes, social identity development plays a critical role in determining an adolescent's self-perception and relationships with other people. Social identity refers to how someone perceives themselves as people in their particular social groups, such as family, friends, and community. The family is a vital socialization agency in shaping adolescent social identity development. Teenagers pick up cultural values, beliefs, and norms from their interactions with their parents. Through interactions with family members, …show more content…
Many adolescents can find a sense of pride and belonging in their cultural heritage and use it to overcome the difficulties they experience. Furthermore, communities with a widespread cultural or ethnic background can provide support and a sense of belonging to adolescents who feel marginalized in general society. As educators and parents, it is relevant to recognize the impact of cultural and ethnic backgrounds on adolescent social identity. We can make adolescents from diverse backgrounds feel valued and supported in their identity development by creating inclusive environments that celebrate diversity and promote understanding. We should also try to address the problems of discrimination and prejudice that can affect the well-being of adolescents who are marginalized or come from minority groups. As a result, cultural and ethnic backgrounds play a critical role in shaping adolescent social identity. By understanding how cultural values, discrimination experiences, and a sense of belonging affect identity development, we can better support adolescents from different backgrounds at this fundamental stage of …show more content…
There are several theoretical frameworks to help us understand, among them family systems theory and social learning theory. Decontamination theory is a theoretical framework that can be applied to intergenerational transmission. According to family systems theory, the dynamics of the family as a whole and the interconnectedness of families are thought to affect people's behavior and social learning theory. Decontamination theory is a theoretical framework that can be applied to intergenerational transmission. According to family systems theory, the dynamics of the family as a whole and the interconnectedness of families are said to affect people's behavior. The transmission of values and beliefs within the family has a profound impact on the development of social identity in adolescents. Steinberg et al. (1992) revealed that "parental values and beliefs were major predictors of teenage values and beliefs" (p. 235), indicating the vital role of intergenerational transmission in shaping one's sense of self and identity. Social learning theory, on the other hand, emphasizes the role of modeling and reinforcement in shaping
Phinney, J. S., & Chavira, V. (1995). Parental ethnic socialization and adolescent coping with problems related to ethnicity. Journal of research on adolescence, 5(1), 31-53. Adolescent coping with cultural and social stress when it comes to their ethnicity according to Phinneny (1995) are saddling. Minority parents are discussing prejudice more with their child and become acclimate in society.
Young people of color not only face systemic discrimination from their schools and the government, they put up with microaggressions and stereotypes from their peers and educators. These subtle types of racism can have a lasting effect on how people of color view themselves and their identity. It is commonly accepted that minorities can face systemic discrimination in terms of opportunities and education, but a topic that is typically minimized is how racism from their peers can affect the identity formation of young people of color. By growing up in a society that devalues people of color simply because of their skin, teenagers can have feelings of self-doubt and invisibility. This can result in them hating their skin color and alienating themselves from their cultural heritage, which makes it
It’s amazing how much I reference my reading to my experience to the my time at Robeson High School. I remember having a group discussion with the girls about their Ethnic identity and what they’ve faced so far in the world. At first, of course the girls were very reluctant to share but after Stanley and I shared our experience, they found familiar situation that they’ve experience. In “Hyphenated Selves: Muslim American Youth Negotiating Identities on the Fault Lines of Global Conflict,” the article talks about Muslim youth experiencing discrimination and having to be more conscious and mindful in their surrounding due to the event of 9/11. Although the girls aren’t muslim, they’re all black and they too face discrimination because of their skin.
Psychology today can tell us that the environment in which we grow up in can have an important impact on a youth’s identity and future. Growing up in not only a state of poverty, but with additional social and economic disadvantages can have an overwhelming negative influence on student’s performance. In major cities across the United States schools that poverty stricken African American students attend are segregated, not in a legal sense, but because of location. Neighborhoods with soaring levels of poverty are limited to the oftentimes overpopulated, underfunded, and understaffed local schools. Creating a culture of multigenerational families isolated in their own poverty.
I am mostly white with a bit of Hispanic, I wasn’t sure where I fit in. I grew up in a mostly black and Hispanic neighborhood, that didn’t make it any easier. My “group” consisted of a bunch of us misfits that didn’t really have anywhere else to go. I think that I sought out kids that had homes like mine so it made it easier when we couldn’t go to each other homes. When I read Desmond-Harris’s essay I could relate, especially where she talks about finding her coming of age when she find a group she can relate to.
Studying the development of minority ethnic groups is vital if researchers want to understand how they may differ from the majority. Personal and environmental factors interact to either leave a positive or negative effect on adolescents of all ethnicities. However, ethnic minorities, such as Latinos, deal with certain stressors and risk factors more often the majority ethnic group. One particularly high risk factor is discrimination, which is very prevalent in minorities and can be highly stressful and leave lasting effects on those who experience it. This study focused on Latino adolescents, and wanted to find out whether social support provided in schools could offset discrimination.
How can African American youth, yearning to find their true selves, do so under popular culture’s influence, conflicting religious beliefs and a fluctuating gender experience? Initially, further exploration and research into the unique gender and racial experiences of African American youth is necessary. This research is best conducted through surveys, questionnaires and face to face interviews. According to Denise Isom, after interviewing 5th, 6th and 7th grade African American children, she revealed their identity crisis: “They spoke of a deeply racialized reality, a gendered social world, and operated from a sense of self that was multifaceted and shifting” (Isom, 2012, p. 127-137). The research further demonstrated that this age group has a high level of confusion requiring the use of different “faces” around other people.
With the rapidly rising of biracial youth, it has been proven that the population is a vulnerable group facing potentially higher risks for mental health and behavioral issues compared to their mono-racial counterparts. Identity development, a central psychosocial task of children, is a complex task for biracial youths since they must integrate two ethnic identities. For biracial youths, mastery of the psychosocial identity developmental task can be overwhelming as they face stressors such as racial stigmas and negative stereotypes, which may lead to identity problems manifesting during adolescence. Biracial teenagers are a growing population who have some unique characteristics, related to their ambiguous ethnicity and their need to define
Not being able to know one’s identity during adolescence can lead to do drugs, commit theft, fail school, and be blind on what to do with their life. This is what James McBride had to go through during his adolescence. Growing up in a black community with a white mother can be very confusing and stressful. He employs rhetorical devices throughout his text in order to develop his epiphany regarding his mother’s life and by, extension, his own. Through the use of appeals and tone James McBride reveals the importance of education and religion, but above all else McBride mostly focuses on finding his identity, trying to understand race as he was growing up, and shows how his mother played an important role in his life
An immigrant family wants the best for everyone lives, however moving to a new country brings struggles. There struggles include finding a home, a good paying job, avoiding to be deported, being separated ,and continuing their education. Immigrants expect a better life because their old home and country did have much benefits as the new country gives them. The advantage of an immigrant family is family values which tends them to be closer. Disadvantages of an immigrant family are the struggles that were first mentioned and including that they face other people calling them a threat.
Throughout my experiences in this course so far, I have had many opportunities to reflect on my own past and have begun to better understand my own cultural identity. It has been much more difficult to wrap my head around than I would have predicted it to be because so many things play into the construction of an identity that it can be hard to look at all of those separate pieces together. My cultural identity, like all others, is more complicated than it first appears. I identify as a white person, a woman, an American, a gay person, and a feminist, just to name a few. While all of these labels carry with them stereotypes and expectations, they also interplay with the cultural influences I was subject to throughout my childhood.
Identity development during adolescence Adolescence is a developmental transition between childhood and adulthood and also a period of prominent change for teenagers when physical changes are happening at an accelerated rate. Adolescence is not just marked by physical changes but also cognitive, social, emotional and interpersonal changes as well. The development of a strong and stable sense of self known as identity development is widely considered to be one of the crucial tasks of adolescence. Identity development of an adolescent is influenced by external factors, such as their environment, culture, religion, school and the media.
“Family” is a hard word to create a concrete definition for. If one were to ask three random people on the street, it is likely they will receive three completely different answers to defining a family. The textbook definition of family according to the etymology dictionary is: “Origin in early 15c. “servants of a household” from Latin familia “family servants, domestics collectively, the servants in a household.” The traditional dictionary describes family in a more narrow fashion stating, “a basic social unit consisting of parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not.”
Cover Letter This essay made me do a lot of thinking about what family meant to me. There were a lot of words that came to mind but I came to the conclusion of only a few. There are SO many different definitions of family, love, support, etc.
I believe that every family has their own roots, essence, uniqueness, beliefs and thoughts, some families have both parents, some just the mother, just the father, two mothers or two fathers, they might have an only child or two, or maybe 5 or even 10, therefore, those children start learning all these things from their family and surroundings, they ask questions, they imitate each other’s actions and are constantly learning and trying to catch as much information and experiences as possible. Children are growing fast, their parents are their role models, they learn mostly from them; parents have the tremendous job of forming good citizens that provide to society, healthy and happy beings that keep growing as humans in every stage of their