The Gothenburg Research Program on Ethnic Identity – Increasing the Life Chances of Young People

Aim

The overall aim of this ongoing research program is to provide an increased understanding of how ethnic identity develops and how to improve the opportunities for young people to handle both individual and interpersonal challenges and thereby enhancing their life chances. The different sub-studies are described below:

Young people's different contexts: school, social media and sports

Focus group discussions we have conducted with young people about ethnicity show that ethnicity is handled very differently across the studied contexts: school, social media, and sports. When it comes to school, there is a strong desire for topics such as ethnicity and cultural background to be addressed more frequently and in greater depth. The young people also highlight certain problems that arise when these topics are discussed in school, such as the reinforcement of stereotypes in the conversations. Social media is a context that young people describe as a very important source of knowledge and information about ethnicity but also as a forum where young people risk being exposed to harm. In terms of sports, youth sports are described as something of a safe space when it comes to problems related to ethnicity, but the young people are well aware that there are problems in adult sports with, for example, racism.

Student teachers perceive that ethnicity often concerns ‘the Other’

The analyses of focus group interviews with student teachers show, among other things, that the student teachers feel that when ethnicity is addressed in their teacher training, it is a sensitive topic that often deals with ‘the other’, that is, it deals with those who have their origin in a country other than Sweden. This is despite the fact that everyone has an ethnic identity regardless of whether they come from Sweden or another country. The focus groups also revealed that the student teachers wished that the topic was addressed more frequently and in a better way in their teacher training.

The intervention “The Identity Project” works

We have evaluated the intervention The Identity Project (Umaña-Taylor & Douglass, 2016). The results show that the intervention works well in Sweden in regard to its most important aspect enhancing identity exploration among participating students. We also examined whether the intervention affects students' attitudes toward others, for example, by increasing tolerance toward different people. In this area, we found no effect from the intervention. However, Swedish youth are already very accepting and tolerant of others compared to youth in other countries. We also found that individual characteristics, such as personality, play an important role in how young people benefit from identity-related interventions, which indicates that interventions should be adapted to better benefit all young people.

Members

Researchers

Ann Frisén, project leader
Philip Hwang
Sofia Berne
Moin Syed, University of Minnesota, USA 
Linda Juang, University of Potsdam, Germany

PhD Students

Amina Kaafiya Abdullahi
David Sandberg
Tommy Reinholdsson
Pär Stern