Setting Assumptions Aside: Exploring Identity Development in Interracial Intercultural Individuals Growing up in JapanPosted in Asian Diaspora, Dissertations, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive on 2012-05-04 01:47Z by Steven |
University of Toronto
2001
280 pages
Penny Sue Kinnear
A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto
This research attempts to understand the experience of interracial/intercultural individuals growing up in Japan. Their experiences do not fit current minority identity development models. Much of the tension in their experience appears to be between the individual’s own experience and the stereotypica1 experience he or she is supposed to undergo as a mixed individual. Identity was not a question of either/or, but took shape from dialogues that reflected a complex relationship between community, individual, language, and culture. One factor determining the tenor of the dialogue is its grounding in commonalities or in differences. The experience was profoundly different for individuals who attended international schools or Japanese schools. The difficulty that the international school attendees articulated, in contrast to those attending Japanese schools, appears as a clash of boundaries, not values. This is reflected particularly where “Japaneseness” fits in the hierarchy and the degree of rigidity or permeability of those boundaries.
Read the entire dissertation here.