JACOBS UNIVERSITY BREMEN

New home country, new values? Jacobs University research on adolescents with immigration background

   

Jacobs University now started a new 2-year research project on identity and value formation of adolescents in Germany and Israel with immigration background and their families in comparison with indigenous families. Funded by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research with about 300.000 Euro and headed by Prof. Dr. Klaus Boehnke, Jacobs Professor of Social Science Methodology, the project is a joint venture with the research group of Prof. Dr. Ariel Knafo of Hebrew University of Jerusalem within German-Israeli Research Consortium “Migration and Societal Integration”.

[ Aug 01, 2007] 

Migration often leads to a reconsideration of one’s identity and a potential conflict between different value systems represented by the culture of origin and by the receiving culture. For migrant adolescents, this coincides with the developmental task of identity formation, in which "old truths" are renegotiated, and the values and preferences promoted by peers, teachers, and parents are all potential influences to choose from. This deliberation process is highly likely to have an impact on adolescent wellbeing and on family functioning.

The new research project “Identity Development and Value Transmission among Veteran and Migrant Adolescents and their Families in Germany and Israel: Life Transitions and Contexts” will study the impact of migration on the development of personal and social values as a core aspect of adolescent identity. To disentangle the effects of migration and of developmentally-induced change on identity formation, it is important to study adolescents' identity development in immigrant and non-immigrant families, and to follow migrant and non-migrant families as adolescents undergo important life transitions. Early and mid adolescents and their families will participate in a school-based cross-cultural, cohort-sequential study. They will come from six cultural groups, including migrants from the former Soviet Union to both Israel and Germany, Turkish immigrants to Germany, Palestinian citizens of Israel, and native samples from Israel and Germany.

Each of the six samples will include a core sample of 300 families. From each cultural group, two age groups will be studied before and after an important life transition. For half of them, this will be the transition from elementary school to middle school, and for the others the transition from middle school to high school. In addition, each participant's parents and (if reachable) grandparents will be contacted. The study will look at the development of identity with a focus on three values relevant to immigration, school transition, and identity development: tradition, achievement, and self-direction. The design's strength lies in its simultaneous exploration of three major factors that influence identity development: maturation, intra-familial transmission, and migration.

 


Author: Kristin Beck. Last updated on 02.08.2007. © 2007 Jacobs University Bremen, Campus Ring 1, 28759 Bremen. All rights reserved. No unauthorized reproduction. http://www.jacobs-university.de. For all general inquiries, please call the university at +49 421 200-40 or mail to info@jacobs-university.de.