A Qualitative Study of Multicultural Identities: Three Cases of London's Inner-City Children

Abstract

Metropolitan areas present opportunities for persons from all over the world to form multicultural relationships and raise their child in a third culture. How do these children make sense of who they are? Multicultural identities have often been described as being in "crisis"—the individual does not feel fully accepted in any culture and is depicted as "on the border" or "an outsider within." While the "identity crisis" should be taken seriously, the ability to create a space in between cultures, to form a novel self-concept is equally, if not more important. Children growing up in London with the immediate influence of more than two cultures—mother and father originating from diverse cultures and raising their child in the third (England)—and how they start to make sense of themselves is analyzed from a social representations perspective that emphasizes the marking of different cultural I-positions within the person's dialogical self-construction. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0602183