Shaping Children's Identity in Bilingual and Bicultural Families: Parent's Perspectives
Master thesis
Permanent lenke
http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2614484Utgivelsesdato
2019Metadata
Vis full innførselSamlinger
Sammendrag
This is a master's thesis, which has been designed and conducted as a part of the Childhood Studies program (NOSEB)1 , by NTNU2 in Trondheim, Norway. Living in a multicultural world gives us a wider perspective on what it means to blend cultures and languages on a daily basis, also by children. In my research I am showing how the socio-structural aspect of children, their agency and living as social actors is not left without a major influence by those surrounding them and caring for them in the first place - their families. The cultural identity is a process that cannot be left untouched by the effect and influence of the external factors. This research took place in Trondheim, by using 4 methods, which are semi-structured interviews, home visits with participatory observation, photographs and an online questionnaire with open questions. All together the research includes 123 participants: 15 people were interviewed, 5 children took photographs, there was 3 home-visits and 100 respondents answered the online, anonymous questionnaire. All of the participants are either parents raising children bilingual and bicultural, or they are the children themselves being raised in mentioned styles. The main findings point out that the context of upbringing, the family and its cultural background, play a fundamental role in the process of shaping child’s cultural identity. Despite the long and complex time-period it takes for it to be finalized, to some extent, if not fully, it is the family of the child that sets the first base for it to grow and develop and discover who she or he is, also in cultural matters. Children’s agency can only be acted on when given a chance and such an option. The question is not whether a child has agency, but here I was searching to see how is it executed in such a specific setting as the bilingual and bicultural families. The multicultural lifestyles of families that are the context for the process of cultural identity formation of children, include languages and cultural diversity. The methods how those languages and other elements of culture are incorporated in the daily life of the family are often unique for each family individually. Agency of bilingual and bicultural children is also present and active when facing negotiations of more than two cultures and two languages as a standard way of life