Forging the Future Between Two Different Worlds

Abstract

In order to understand the interplay of culture and mind in immigrant adolescent learning and psychological adjustment, this multiple-case qualitative study examined salient home and school experiences told by recent Chinese immigrant youth in semistructured interviews and narrative essays. Forging the future between two different worlds defined, respectively, by Chinese tradition and Canadian culture, these adolescents struggled with high parental expectations and intergenerational conflicts at home and suffered acculturative stresses and ethnic peer divides at school. Situating the voices of the immigrant adolescents in the personal, relational, and larger sociocultural contexts, the study suggests that their ongoing psychological adjustment and transformation at the crossroad of two different cultures must be understood in light of the emerging, interdependent individual and social processes.