“I Became Better at Balancing in Navigating through Different Cultures”: A Story about the Cross-Cultural Identity Development of a Recent Young Adult Korean Immigrant

Author(s):  
Minjeong Park
Author(s):  
Hildegunn Schuff

Children and young people with cross-cultural backgrounds are significantly influenced by multiple cultures during their upbringing. They face the ambivalence and challenges of regularly dealing with multiple cultural frames of reference, norms and expectations, and often experience particular identity challenges. One might say that much of the ambivalence of modern intercultural societies may show up as internalized ambivalence in these “children of migration”. This article explores cross-cultural identity development. The aim is to further our understanding of how the identities of cross-cultural children and young people can be supported and their resources activated. This can both strengthen their resilience and well- being, and be of great value to society at large. Psychosocial/cultural interventions and creative projects in cross-cultural settings are potential arenas for this type of cultural health promotion. One example is the multicultural music project Fargespill (‘Kaleidoscope’). In a case study of Kaleidoscope, I describe and discuss how these participatory creative activities work, and ask how they may foster the development of constructive cross-cultural identities. Participant observation was conducted in Kaleidoscope throughout a year. In the light of theoretical perspectives from social and cultural psychology, the article analyzes identity issues and possibilities within this empirical context. Supporting cross-cultural identity development in a constructive manner is here operationalized as allowing, increasing and acknowledging identity complexity. The findings are categorized under the headings of resources, vulnerability and creativity. The project leaders make an effort to establish trust and a safe, supportive space. They apply a participatory method, in which the participants are seen as resources and their strengths and contributions are emphasized. In some situations, the vulnerability that may be caused by potentially being stereotyped is apparent, and identity definitions and complexities need to be negotiated. There are explicit expectations concerning creativity in the Kaleidoscope process, and the crossing of different cultural expressions, old and sometimes new, leads to the final creative product of the performance. To summarize, identity complexity is given space to play out, relating to both origins and current participation in culture in construction here in Norwegian society. Thus, at its best, Kaleidoscope sets the stage for a flexible and playful performance of identity. This may be one path towards appreciated and integrated intercultural identities. 


2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Superle

In the past two decades, the previously silent voices of diasporic Indian writers for young people have emerged, and a small body of texts has begun to develop in the United States and the United Kingdom. One of the major preoccupations of these texts is cultural identity development, especially in the novels published for a young adult audience, which often feature protagonists in the throes of an identity crisis. For example, the novels The Roller Birds of Rampur (1991) by Indi Rana, Born Confused (2002) by Tanuja Desai Hidier, and The Not-So-Star-Spangled Life of Sunita Sen (2005) by Mitali Perkins all focus on an adolescent girl coping with her bicultural identity with angst and confusion, and delineate the ways her self-concept and relationships are affected. The texts are empowering in their suggestion that young people have the agency to explore and create their own balanced bicultural identities, but like other young adult fiction, they ultimately situate adolescents within insurmountable institutional forces that are much more powerful than any individual.


2005 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 123-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Paul Restoule

AbstractThis paper relates findings from learning circles held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, with urban Aboriginal men. The purpose of the circles was to determine how an Aboriginal cultural identity is formed in urban spaces. Education settings were mentioned by the research participants as a significant contribution to their cultural identity development. Participants described elementary and secondary school experiences as lacking in Aboriginal inclusion at best or as racist. In contrast to these earlier experiences, participants described their post-secondary education as enabling them to work on healing or decolonising themselves. Specific strategies for universities to contribute to individual decolonising journeys are mentioned. A university that contributes to decolonising and healing must provide space for Aboriginal students where they feel culturally safe. The students must have access to cultural knowledge and its keepers, such as elders. Their teachers must offer Indigenous course content and demonstrate respect and love for their students. Courses must be seen to be relevant to Indigenous people in their decolonising process and use teaching styles that include humour and engender a spirit of community in the classroom. In particular, Indigenous language courses are important to Aboriginal students.


Author(s):  
Michael Lawrence

Rakesh Roshan’s Khoon Bhari Maang (Blood-Smeared Forehead, India, 1988) is closely modelled on the iconic Australian television 3-part, mini-series Return to Eden (Karen Arthur, Kevin James Dobson, 1983), itself a self-conscious appropriation and strategic indigenisation of the melodramatic conventions and “feminised address” of the prime time American soap opera. In Return to Eden, a treacherous tennis champ marries a meek and dowdy heiress, Stephanie Harper, and throws her into alligator-infested waters; she survives, has plastic surgery, becomes a supermodel, and returns to exact revenge on her husband. In the transnational film remake, Khoon Bhari Maang, the heroine’s transformation is more extreme – in accordance with her revenge, which is more violent – and also more complex, in terms of cultural identity, since her journey, from frumpy Aarti to the sultry Jyoti, necessitates a negotiation of traditional/modern and Indian/non-Indian modes of womanhood (and this also resonates with the ‘reinvention’ of its star, Rekha, in the late 1970s). Drawing on recent discussions of the anxious “assemblage” of femininity in popular Hindi cinema this chapter focuses on issues raised by Khoon Bhari Maang’s presentation of the make-over conceit.


2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 640-646
Author(s):  
Keri J S Brady ◽  
Pengsheng Ni ◽  
Gabrielle G Grant ◽  
Catherine R Thorpe ◽  
Deborah Nadler ◽  
...  

Abstract The Young Adult Burn Outcome Questionnaire (YABOQ) is a validated, English-language patient-reported outcome assessment of young adults’ recovery from burn injury across 15 scale domains. We evaluated the cross-cultural validity of a newly developed Spanish version of the YABOQ. Secondary data from English- and Spanish-speaking burn survivors (17 to 30 years of age) were obtained from the Multicenter Benchmarking Study. We conducted classic psychometric analyses and evaluated the measurement equivalence of the English and Spanish YABOQs in logistic and ordinal logistic regression differential item functioning analyses. All multi-item scales in the Spanish YABOQ demonstrated adequate reliability except the Pain and Itch scales. One item in the Perceived Appearance scale showed differential item functioning across English- and Spanish-speaking burn survivors, but the observed differential item functioning had no clinically significant impact on scale-level Perceived Appearance scores. Our findings support the cross-cultural validity of the YABOQ Physical Function, Perceived Appearance, Sexual Function, Emotion, Family Function, Family Concern, Satisfaction with Symptom Relief, Satisfaction with Role, Work Reintegration and Religion scales among English- and Spanish-speaking young adult burn survivors. This work supports the use of these English and Spanish YABOQ scales to assess the effect of therapeutic interventions on young adults’ burn outcomes in pooled analyses and to assess disparities in young adults’ burn outcomes across language groups.


1976 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Wayne Dye

Every culture has some standard of right and wrong. This is not fully discovered in a people's behavior, our author reminds us, but in their ideals. These ideals may, in essence, closely parallel the Decalogue; but this essence may be applied with widely varying emphases in the real life situations of different cultures. If the missionary, jealous for the essence of God's righteous demands, relies too heavily on the applications and emphases of his own culture, he may experience little conviction of sin in his hearers — and confused standards in the emerging church. Fully recognizing the dilemma this imposes on the cross-cultural witness, linguist-translator Dye finds hope and help in an ethnotheological approach to the problem.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Masykurotus Syarifah

When talking about propaganda and cross-cultural communication, there are at least three key words to unravel these issues, namely propaganda, communication, and culture. All of the three have their own meaning and function. Here the need for more in-depth decomposition.Learning cross-cultural communication is necessary because it is a ticket for us to be able to adapt wherever we are, particularly in Indonesia where the various tribes and cultures live together. A prolonged conflict would occur if the person does not understand the differences and does nothing with cross-cultural communication. By studying how to build the cross-cultural communication, people will understand the differences and be neutral or moderate. So the conflict rose among different ethnic cultures will not happen. In addition, studying the cross-cultural communication will make us more cautious in building relationship to the different cultures. Preachers should be able to understand the place, culture, customs, and language of his objects because it will determine the success of their preaching.Keywords: Wisdom, Propaganda, Culture.


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