Identity Development in Ugandan Immigrant Adolescents

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore how first-generation female Ugandan immigrant youth experience and understand their health and development and how factors such as community, school, family, peer groups and individual characteristics affect their health behaviors and self-development.

Background: Adolescence represents a crucial period for developmental processes including identity formation, role development, interpersonal relationships and the development of health beliefs and behaviors. Immigrant youth are often exposed to new and conflicting norms regarding these aspects of development resulting in unique challenges and opportunities for growth. Identifying and understanding the factors that contribute to the healthy development of immigrant female youth is essential to promoting healthy behaviors.

Methods: This qualitative study employed Grounded Theory methods. Multiple interviews with 20 participants and 100 hours of community observation were the primary data collection strategies. Participants were recruited through St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Van Nuys, CA. Community leaders initially assisted in recruitment, followed by snowball sampling and included English speaking Ugandan females who were aged 17-25 years and who immigrated to the US at the age of 8 years or later. Dimensional analysis, an approach to the generation of grounded theory, was used as a primary analytic strategy. In addition to coding, memo-writing was used to track the developing conceptualizations and emerging areas of salience were then integrated into future interviews for further development and verification. A matrix was used to consider which dimensions and concepts had the greatest explanatory power.

Results: The dimension with the greatest explanatory power and therefore the central process of this sample was that of identity development. This process encompassed participants’ ethnic and racial identities, as well as their gender and role identities. Self-descriptions were structured as contestations to the perceived stereotypes of Africans, African Americans, and black Americans. Participants adopted ethnic labels and defined selves in terms of group membership primarily identifying as African, Ugandan, and black. Participants reflected on their racial and ethnic identity in terms of how it impacted their social status and opportunities, and described various internal and external practices of embodying and/or rejecting different racial/ethnic identities. In terms of gender and role identities, participants reflect on the differences and similarities in their trajectory as a young adult based on their move from a patriarchal society where women have “less life” to the United States where “everything is possible for me”. Factors in various social contexts including family structure, degree of community involvement, racial diversity of school setting, and language proficiency served to impact the transitions in this sample’s identity development.

Implications: For Ugandan adolescents, self-development is impacted by the understandings, choices, and tensions surrounding identity, identity labeling, and the challenging dynamics of gender/role stereotypes. This study captured not the mean experience of African immigrant youth, but starts to describe the range and variation of experiences affecting self-development and the impact of various social contexts. Awareness of and open dialogue of these factors can serve to bolster future promotion and prevention programs with culturally competent, developmentally appropriate, feasible, and effective interventions.