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While many studies on international/interracial adoptees were conducted quantitatively with adoptees, or by various research methods from the perspective of adoptive parents, this study seeks to gain an in-depth understanding of how Chinese born, American adopted individuals perceive, make sense of, and negotiate their bicultural identities as they transition into adulthood by exploring the narratives of 10 such women. Grounded in the interpretive paradigm and framed by co-cultural communication theory, our findings not only illustrate the diversity of communication strategies used by these women to negotiate their multifaceted identities while navigating through various situational contexts and life stages, but also unveil the perceived role of adoptive parents in shaping their identity (re)construction. The numerous instances of contradiction throughout each woman's retrospective sense-making reveals the ambivalences, vulnerabilities, nuanced complexities, and ongoing negotiations that they must engage in as a uniquely positioned co-cultural group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been suggested that in foreign language learning and ELF situations, identity might not be implicated in any great extent. Focusing on the impact globalization has on identities, the purpose of this study is to consider whether identity might be involved in Swedish students’ reasons for enrolling on an English-medium university program and, if so, the types of identities students construct. Analyses of data from interviews with 11 students revealed that identities do play a role in students’ enrolment reasons. However, rather than the bicultural identities identified in previous motivational research, the identities emerging here appear hybrid in nature. Along with other recent research, the results indicate that in contexts where English has a prominent social/societal/cultural presence it is implicated in identity construction, and that there is a relationship between identity and ELF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines Latino/a adolescents' ethnic identities and academic achievement. In open-ended interviews, the high school aged youth employed cultural and nationality explanations for their ethnic label choices. In many cases, they did not commit to a specific label, employing instead language that indexed their fluid, border identities. This study also made use of various academic performance measurements to quantitatively explore relationships between ethnic identity and academic achievement. A cultural dimension to ethnic identity and a bicultural identity emerged as significant predictors of academic performance. However, no single ethnic label had a definitive relationship with academic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]