constructing self-identity: minority students’ adaptation trajectories in a chinese university

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Constructing Self-Identity: Minority Students’Adaptation Trajectories in a Chinese University

Ling Li & Aruna Wu & Xiao Wen Li & Yuan Zhuang

Published online: 11 February 2012# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

Abstract Researchers have gone beyond identity status and been putting more andmore emphases on the dynamic process of identity development and its contextualembeddedness. Study of individual’s adaptation to the multicultural background is agood point of penetration. Because of the differences in regional conditions andcultural traditions, the minority youths who go to university in the mainstream culturewould have special experiences and challenges in the development of their self-identities. Semi-structured interview and narrative were used in this research todiscover the characteristics of the self-identity constructing processes of Mongolianundergraduates in a Shanghai university context. Their identity constructing processcould be divided into three stages: difference-detecting, self-doubting and self-orienting. The main efforts of identity constructing in each stage could all bedescribed as self-exploring and support-seeking. Special contents of internal explora-tions and sources of support were distinguished at different stages. As relative results,three main types of self-orientation were revealed: goal-oriented, self-isolated andunreserved assimilated. The characteristics of them are quite similar to those of threeidentity processing styles proposed by Berzonsky, which indicates there are somecommon elements lying in all self-development processes of adolescences and youngadults. Ethnicity and culture could be background and resource or what Côté calledidentity capital that impacts the special course of self-identity constructing undersimilar principles. Different attitudes towards and relationships with their own eth-nicity and new surroundings separated the three types of students from each other andinteracted with the developmental characteristics and tendencies of their ethnicityidentifications and self identities. It was found that minority youths’ self-identityconstructing was based on their needs of self-value and interacted with their ecolog-ical niche constructing. Take ethnicity attachment and ethnicity responsibility as a

Integr Psych Behav (2012) 46:335–356DOI 10.1007/s12124-012-9194-y

This research is financially supported by Chinese Ministry of Education

L. Li :A. Wu : X. W. Li (*) :Y. ZhuangSchool of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062,People’s Republic of Chinae-mail: [email protected]

typical example: the setting up of bi-direction relationship between individuals andtheir ethnicity (or other identity-related factors) was very important for minorityyouths to expand and integrate themselves. We also presented in detail our method-ological exploring process so as to illuminate the limitation of traditional methods andthe necessity and importance of methodological reform. Methodologically, both emicand etic positions were taken, interview and narrative approaches were adopted andindividual angle of analysis was kept in the research. They were all proved to beeffective to provide insight into the dynamic process of self identity constructing.

Keywords Identity constructing . Minority youth . Adaptive stages

The Background of the Research

In recent years, as Chinese government provides many preferential policies for thenational minority students in higher education, more and more minority adolescentsattain the opportunities to study in developed cities in China. But at the same time, itmeans that these students would study in the environments which are totally differentfrom their hometowns. So they would confront more challenges in adaptation,especially for those who have been educated in their own minority languages everbefore.

This research focused on a group of Mongolian undergraduates who studied inEast China Normal University(ECNU) in Shanghai, China. They came from InnerMongolia, which is located in North China and quite different from Shanghai in itssocioeconomic status, living habit and culture. Also, they used Mongolian as themain language before they entered the university, which would cause some difficul-ties in their thought, communication and learning in mainstream culture. Besides,these students would face another threat in the new environment: the loss of theirpositions as “excellent students” since their new classmates were all outstanding andeven better. So they should make more efforts to adapt and even more important, tokeep inner consistency and continuity of themselves and their lives.

When we paid close attention to the adapting process of those Mongolian studentsin ECNU, we found, to some degree, the inner process of adaptation is exactly a self-identity constructing and re-constructing process.

As Erikson (1968) proposed the conception of identity, he presented a phenome-non of individual exploration about his/her life positioning under the background offamily, race and society, and he found that the status of identity exploration influencespeople’s well-being. Following Erikson’s idea, Marcia (1966) emphasized that iden-tity formation was a dynamic and life-long process, with continuous changes in selfexploration and commitment. So he proposed the identity status paradigm includingachievement, moratorium, foreclosure and diffusion. Based on this paradigm, manyscholars carried out plenty of empirical researches and tried to illustrate identitydevelopment by measuring identity status. However, most of the researchers limitedidentity to status in that they just focused on the outcomes rather than the process andinteraction of it. As some authors suggested (eg. Adams & Marshall 1996; Bosma, &Kunnen, 2001; Krogger, 2000), the specific process of identity formation took placein the interaction between individual and his/her particular surroundings. Ecological

336 Integr Psych Behav (2012) 46:335–356

Systems Theory (Bronfenbrenner, 2006) advocated human development was a pro-cess of continual change, taking place in a complex, multilayered context.

Some other researchers have been studying identity from other perspectives. Forexample, Berzonsky (1989) conceptualized Marcia’s identity-status paradigm into asocial-cognitive models with three styles: informational, normative, and diffuse/avoidant identity. This model emphasized the function of information absorbing inidentity construction, which highlighted the interaction in the process. Following hisconcept of identity processing styles, Berzonsky and others have carried out numer-ous investigations to examine the role that identity processing styles may play informing commitments and a sense of identity (Berzonsky and Neimeyer 1994,Berzonsky and Adams 1999). In recent years, researchers have been putting moreand more emphases on the dynamic process of identity development and its contex-tual embeddedness (Lichtwarck-Aschoff, et al., 2008). Synthesizing Marcia andBerzonsky’s opinion, Luyckx (Luyckx, et al., 2006) put forward an integrative modelusing four structural dimensions–- commitment making, identification with commit-ment, exploration in depth, and exploration in breadth–- to describe different statusand styles in process of identity construction.

Thinking of an abundance of researches had been conducted on identity formationin adolescents but very limited attention had been paid on the process that drive theidentity development, Kerpelman et al. (1997a) proposed a control system theory thatwas based on Grotevant’s multilevel model of identity formation (1987). The controltheory made a perspective to observe the micro-processes of identity construction,which put attention to the interaction within intrapersonal factors (such as identitystandards and self perception) and interpersonal factors (such as comparator, reflectedappraisal and social behaviors). The model put attention to the origin and internali-zation of standard, and intended to account for developmental shifts, individualdifference and context issues in identity formation (Kerpelman et al. 1997b). Accord-ing to the control theory, the meaning of identity standard, individual’s feeling, choiceand adjustment with feedback of context were what important in the control system.

Identity constructing is a complex process, which requires understanding of howsocial, political, cultural, and historical contexts interact with and influence identityformation (Swanson, et al., 2002). The specific ways of identity formation maydepend on the specific cultural backgrounds and current cultural contexts of people.Their special experiences in different culture contexts result in the specific identitydevelopment trajectories. Ethnic identity is a critical concept in the study of the so-called “minority” adolescents—largely on the basis of the notion of “minority” incontrast to “majority” in the North-American societies. Kinket and Verkuyten (1997)defined ethnic self-identification as “the sense of belonging to the group, perceivedsimilarity, salience, commitment, and social participation and cultural practices”.

There is a growing number of studies that include models to describe ethnicidentity development in minority adolescents or adults who live in mainstreamculture. Cross (1978) proposed a model of Black consciousness development incollege students. In this model, the ethnic identity development stages referred topre-encounter, encounter, immersion-emersion and internalization. Berry et al. (1987)described four modes of acculturation, including integrated, assimilated, separatedand marginalized individuals, according to the relative strengths of identification withone’s own ethnic group and the mainstream society. Phinney (1989) proposed a three-

Integr Psych Behav (2012) 46:335–356 337

stage model to describe the progression of an achieved or committed ethnic identity.According to this model, the three stages were named unexamined ethnic identity,ethnic identity search and advanced ethnic identity respectively. In the first stage,some early adolescents and perhaps adults who had not been exposed to ethnicidentity issues might foreclose to majority group culture. The second stage wascharacterized by an exploration of one’s own ethnicity. As a result of the secondstage, people achieved a deeper understanding and appreciation of his own ethnicity,which was called ethnic identity achievement or internalization (Phinney, 1990).

The geographical transition as well as cultural conflict may influence youths’ self-identities development (Phinney & Goossens, 1996) .However, Spencer (2006)pointed out, for the colored youths, ecology had been commonly viewed as anonissue in the consideration of human development. Context had also been ignored.Since the youth was perceived as marginal individual, too much emphasis was oftenplaced on unproductive coping products, as well as the countless protective factorsand appearance of resilience were overlooked. In short, development, processoriented, and context-linked analyses had not been emphasized for youth ofcolor. So Spencer stated that a system-oriented analysis that acknowledged the criticaland ever-present role of the person’s own phenomenology or unique set of perceptionwas needed.

Sharing the same opinion with Spencer, we tried to analyze the minority youths’identity development trajectories from the interplaying viewpoint of the context andsubjects in development. Cultures and selves are mixing and increasingly sensitive totranslocating. Generally, measurement and interview are used to study the develop-ment of identity. Compared with measuring approach, interview and narrative aremore appropriate for studying such complex problem. But the dimensionalities thatmeasurement proposed could also be taken as reference of research. Otherwise,Hermans’(1995) theory of dialogical self provided a perspective of multiple voicesin mind to probe the dynamic process of identity formation.

Research Process: Continuous Exploration of Methodology

The participants of this research were 13 Mongolian undergraduates of ECNU inShanghai, China (see Table 1). All of them were educated in the Chinese province ofInner Mongolia Autonomous Region before they entered the university. Specially,they came from different areas of Inner Mongolian and grew up in different back-grounds. Some of them were from big cities where there are more Han (the majorityof Chinese) population and the culture there is more open and quite similar to themainstream culture. Many Mongols and Hans are married to each other. Mongols donot have many opportunities to speak Mongolian and Chinese is the official language.Some other students came from the countryside of Inner Mongolia that is far awayfrom big cities. There are Mongolian compact communities and the majority residentsare native Mongols. They live relative traditional lives and keep purer traditionalMongolian cultures, for example, speaking Mongolian with each other and celebrat-ing Mongolian festivals. Another group of the students came from towns which arebetween cities and countryside and the mixed-cultures there are obvious. Otherwise,these participants all experienced big transition since they moved from north to south


of China, from a minority-related area to complete mainstream modern city, andentered the university which meant to start a brand new academic life and relationshipgetting along with more different and excellent peers.

In order to get comprehensive information about their adapting process in theuniversity (ECNU), we first asked participants to narrate their College Life based ontheir own experiences and feelings. According to the primary analyses of narrativematerials, Aruna, who was one of the researchers and also one of the Mongolianstudents, was interviewed deeply by the other two researchers for altogether about 8 hat first. This was a quite open process and also a process of exploration about thecontents and methods of the further study.

Based on what were mentioned and emphasized most in the narratives andinterview, the interview structure was created along two main lines. First, theparticipants were asked to talk chronologically about the significant events happenedafter they came to Shanghai. The meaningful events which took place in theirinterpersonal contacts in the new environment were paid close attention. Second,the participants’ cognitions, feelings and responses to these events were focused onand the adaptive meanings of them were discussed. Every time, the interview lastedabout 75–120 min. Each participant was interviewed once to three times. All theinterviews were tape-recorded, transcribed and coded latterly.

We read carefully the original material to find the meaningful content for furthercoding. The coding focused on the following aspects:1) The words that showed thereason that caused the interviewee’s sense of inadaptability; 2)The words theexpressed individual’s feelings, including feelings towards himself/herself and envi-ronment; 3)The words that indicated their reactions to the problems and ways ofdealing with the problems; and 4)The words that represented their self-dialogues andself- reflections.

Based on the coding of the materials, we tried to summarize the stages and types ofadaptation. We thought this kind of summarization should provide a reasonableexplanation to the adaptation processes of the interviewees, which were the corework and also the hardest part of our research.

We tried five times to find the most suitable model of analysis mainly followingthe clues expressed by the participants and could show the adapting characteristics ofindividuals during the transitional period and make them similar to or different from

Table 1 Basic information of participants

Code Gender Age Grade Region Code Gender Age Grade Region

RP1 Female 22 3 City RP8 Female 21 2 Countryside

RP2 Female 22 3 Town RP9 Female 20 2 Town

RP3 Female 21 3 Town RP10 Female 21 2 Countryside

RP4 Female 22 3 Countryside RP11 Female 21 2 Countryside

RP5 Male 22 3 City RP12 Male 21 2 Town

RP6 Male 23 3 City RP13 Female 20 1 Town

RP7 Male 23 3 Town

Note: Region refers to the places in Inner Mongolia where the students come from


others. Each time when we came to a hypothesis about the stages of adaptation, wewent back to the original material, especially the material of these typical adaptableand inadaptable interviewees, to testify it. If we found the hypothesis could notexplain the relations within stages, namely to interpret the adaptation processproperly, wewould look for another critical information and revise the hypothesis from anew perspective. This was an exploration process that combined the top-down andbottom-up thinking approaches together. Looking back on this part of the researchprocess would benefit our methodology study in this realm.

At first, because when participants narrated their college lives, they alwaysmentioned the time line. And in each grade, students had different duties andpositions, and also had different mental states. So, following the usual practice indevelopmental psychological research, we summarized the stages under the frame ofgrade and sex of the interviewees. But these common experiences could not explainthe students’ differences in adaptation. The assumed stages were separate with eachother, namely that, there were less relations between stages and the adapting featureof students in the same grade.

Secondly, we adopted the type-stage model. According to the interviewees’common reactions and adaptive status in the new environment, we divided theprocess into five stages. This was a kind of linear development—one stage was onetype; the higher the stage the better the degree of adaptation. Compared to the firstanalysis, the second one presented the sequence of the stages of the development.However, it could not explain why and how the change would occur. And we couldnot find distinctive characters between some stages, which meant the developmentstage and the type of development were not in accordance with each other. Forexample, some interviewees could be rated as the same type based on the reactionto the new environment (e.g. self-reposition), but their behaviors of self-regulationbelonged to two developmental stages (e.g. just evaluated themselves objectively vs.internalized ethnic feeling and integrate it into their own development goals).

We also found that the model focused only on the common characteristics of thestudents’ behavior and overlooked their psychological activities, so it could not showthe inner reason of individual’s development.

For the third trial, we turned to focus on analyzing the subjects’ inner mentality inadaptation and, based on that, classified their adaptation process into three stages:exploration, self-doubt and rational assessment. Also, in the interviews, we noticed thatsome characteristics of the interviewees were very prominent when they deal withstresses. Thus, we noticed the subjective characteristics that influenced the participants’adaptation. They were tolerance, openness and ethnic affection, separately related to therelationships with others, new environment and their ethnicity. These traits reflected theparticipants’ development degrees. But how did they operate and impact individual’sadaptation? We still lacked the developmental interpretation of that.

Then we went into the fourth reanalysis and turned the line of sight fromintrapersonal to the social interaction. In the narrative, we found there were threemain kinds of relationships our participants would be involved in and had to dealwith. These were the relationship with the new environment, with others, and withtheir ethnicity. When we focused on the participants’ reactions and feelings in theseinteractions, we could better understand the developmental function that the personalcharacteristics (as already revealed in the third trial) had to individuals’ adaptation.


For example, we found the majority of participants would take tolerant reactiontoward awkward experience, which could help them to get friendly contact withpeople in the new surroundings. Past research revealed that social comparisons oftenled to contrast effects in self-evaluation, for example, people who encounter a highlytalented person come to feel less talented by comparison. But people would notengage in explicit social comparisons with close others(Pelham & Wachsmuth,1995). Besides, the trait of openness was likely to establish the permeability ofpsychological membrane (Valsiner, 2007).And the ethnic affection was a specialbut important factor that would influence our minority participants’ self-value andmotivation.

All these three could impact the quality of the relationship of participants with theoutside world, and in turn, impact their development directions and states. However,this model still failed to systematically combine these traits in the developmentalsystem and the stages could only reflect the participants’ response to the outside andwere still static ones.

In the fifth analysis, we put subjective reaction within the time clue of socialinteraction, then the process of identity constructing emerged. That was, basically, allthe reactions could be looked as the performances of self identity construction. So, weredefined each stage from the perspective of self-identity constructing, these were:difference-detecting, self-doubting and self-orienting. By this way, we found twokinds of efforts the youths would make all along the adaptation process: self-exploring and psychological support-seeking, but they were performed differently indifferent stages of development. This indicated the very relevance betweensubjects’ internal needs and external behavior. Moreover, we discovered differentparticipants differed in the contents of exploration and the sources of supportin every stage, which shaped the changing characteristics and distinct styles of theirself-constructions.

In this trail, we discovered the main duties of adaptation of our participants, thatwas, to integrate their relationships with new environment, ethnicity and othersaltogether with themselves. And also the important personal characteristics and theirpossible influences were put into the interactions and better understood.

Up to this step, the original static description of outside performance of adaptationhad been deepened into the analysis of individuals’ inside subjective explorations anddynamic interactive processes with the outside world. Furthermore, we foundalthough adaptation was a complex process, to individuals, basically to say, itwas a self-identity constructing or re-constructing process that embedded in specialadapting duties and contexts.

Stages of Identity Constructing: Interaction and Coherence

The adaptation process of Mongolian students in ECNU could be described as threestages. At the very beginning, Mongolian students showed great sensitivity to thedifferences between the modern city of Shanghai and their hometowns. We called itdifference-detecting period. In dealing with the differences, the upward comparisonwith mainstream culture and the stereotype threat to minorities would cause mostMongolian students to fall into a state of bewilderment which was referred to as self-


doubting period. When the students gained some necessary guidance and took part insome sorts of activities in the college, they would enter a new period named the self-orienting period. Detailed information was elaborated below.

Stage 1: Difference-Detecting

As freshmen in university, the Mongolian students were immersed in excitement andtension caused by the new environment. First of all, they had to acclimate themselvesto the physical factors such as the far more humid weather and crowded population inShanghai than those in their hometowns. In addition, the frequent contact betweenmale and female students in Shanghai was a little bit strange to Mongolian students,especially to the females. For instance,

It seems that male and female students here get to know each other very well.They can talk a lot even when they meet at the first time. It is quite strange tome… In my hometown, girls and boys seldom talk too much. They only makeinevitable conservations. (RP11)

Also, during this period, the identity as a minority was highlighted to Mongolianstudents because of their special language, culture and even names and appearances.They were particularly sensitive to any topic concerning their own ethnicity. Anycomment on their ethnicity might be taken personally. Through the comments fromothers, they realized more clearly about the differences of them from mainstreamculture.

I was startled every time when they asked me “do you still ride horses in yourhometown as a mean of conveyance?”or “do you still live in Mongolianyurts?”(RP7)They(Han peers) said, with an expression of approval, “Your Chinese is sogood. You can also speak English. So you are a trilingual guy!” .(RP8)

At the same time, they began to explore in the new surroundings and formedimpressions about others. On one hand, they tried to collect live information toexamine the previous indirect impression on Shanghai they got from others, books,media, etc. On the other hand, they began to construct their own knowledges aboutShanghai through the interactions with local people or other classmates.

In this period, the social supports were mainly from their families and Mongolianpeers. They called home quite often and spent most of their spare time with otherMongolian students. Relatively speaking, the individuals who were more open to thenew culture suffered less stresses and showed less withdrawn behaviors.

Stage 2: Self-Doubting

Getting involved more deeply and widely into new lives, the Mongolian studentswent beyond the perceptions and explorations of surface differences betweenwhat they ever had and what they now met. Actively or passively, they wouldencounter more social comparisons and social evaluations that related to theability or value of their own or their ethnicity. Objectively speaking, there aresome realistic disparties between Shanghai and Inner Mongolia, Shanghai is one


of the most developed cities in China. Inner Mongolia, as a whole, is a relativeless developed area, not only in economy, but in education. So, for theseMongolian students, they are not as good as others at knowledge base. Inaddition, Chinese is their second language which makes it harder for them tostudy in mainstream culture. On the other hand, since ECNU is one of the topuniversities in China, students who can pass the entrance examination and gainadmission to ECNU are relative excellent in their local areas. But when theycome together, this can be a challenge, especially for those Mongolian studentsaccording to their disadvantages in studies mentioned above. They said:

We were outstanding in high school. But now it is so difficult for us to study inChinese comparing to other classmates. It is a sense of complete loss. (RP6)I am really not sure whether I could perform as well as other Han students…(RP4)

Thus, these students moved into a new stage in which they would experience morecomplex feelings of uncertainty. According to the stereotype threat about minorities,the Mongolian students tended to be self-doubting in this stage. So they had higherpressure/motivation to pursue and defend their self-values and would try differentways and strive to reduce unpleasant dissonance. There were mainly four aspects ofefforts they make in this stage:

First, in order to cope the stresses and reduce uncertainties, Mongolian youthsmight use some kinds of self-defence strategies. For example, those who were notready to take the new challenge might defend themselves by depreciating theimportance of study in university when they could not achieve satisfying academicperformances or isolating or withdrawing from others when they did not get desiredresponses from relationships.

I don’t think it is a good thing to spend all day long studying just like abookworm. There are many other things for me to concern. (RP2)They (Han peers) don’t know much about Mongolian culture but they alwaysmake ridiculous remarks. I hate that. I would like stay with our own ethnicitypeers.(RP9)

They also would show self-arrogant by steeping in their (both individual andethnic) past glorious experiences to comfort themselves.

When I look at the picture of Genghis Khan on the wall in my dormitory, Iappreciate my ancestors who worked miracles in 13th centry. (RP7)

Doubtlessly, this kind of self-protecting thought could ease their anxieties to someextent. But it would weaken individual’s motivation for self-improvement at the sametime.

Some other students had been continuously encouraging themselves and increasedtheir efforts to study hard and prove themselves.

Once having begun sophomore year, I start to work hard and actively. I studywith all my might and compete with them (Han peers) in my heart. I am sure Ican do what they can do. As a Mongol, I have nothing less than them. (RP7)

Obviously, different self-defence strategies led to different development directions.


Second, since ethnic identity was so outstanding to Mongolian students innew environment, to overcome self-doubt and self-inferiority, they also wouldseek self-satisfication from their ethnic group. They were eager to seek valueattachment to Mongolian culture, which would promote them to develop furtherethnic identification and thereby widen their self-identifications. The activitiesof exploring and expressing ethnic culture, such as singing Mongolian songs,setting Mongolian dances, or communicating in Mongolian with other Mongols,provided the Mongolian undergraduates with not only self-confidence but also valueidentification.

I may not good at Chinese, but I can express myself by music, Mongoliansongs, all these can make me confident. (RP8)I learned to play Morin Khoor(a chordophone of Mongolian origin), and alwayscarried my instrument with me. That makes me feel good.. (RP3)I sang a Mongolian song at a party. They said it was amazing and from then on,whenever there is a party, they will invite me to give such a performance. Itmakes me feel good. (RP8)

Even those who were not good at singing or dancing before would be interested inthe Mongolian music after they came to Shanghai.

Also, they were keen on reading more materials or watching historical moviesabout their own ethnicity to get better understanding of her history. Since Mongol hadbeen powerful and glorious in Chinese history, through these activities, individualscould experience the sense of pride in their own ethnicity and then strengthened theirself-confidence. But there might be another tendency that some individuals woulddwell on ethnic history and take it as escapist sanctuary–-though it was not veryapparent in our participants. They tended to isolated themselves from outside newcultures.

Some Mongolian students not only attached themselves to their ethnicity, but alsoregarded themselves as representatives of their ethnicity and took the responsibility todefend her honor.

I am proud of our Mongolian celebrities who are well-known in Chinesehistory. And every time when I introduce them to my classmates, I feel I amnot alone, I am a representative of my ethnic group. At that time, I will bediscreet in words and deed to avoid disgracing the whole ethnicity. (RP7)

But some other students did not think they had the ability or responsibility to dosomething for their ethnicity.

According to the trajectory of the history development, I don’t think I canchange it, not even a group can make sense.(RP1)

Obviously, ethnic identification played an important role in the Mongolian stu-dents’ self-identity constructing process in this transitional period. Ethnic identity wasone reason that caused self-doubt in Mongolian students. On the other hand, ethnicityand its culture could also be significant supportive resources for them to confirm theirself-value and widen their self-identity. Nevertheless, for these Mongolian students,the exploration about their ethnicity and the attachment to it should be combined withtheir present life, especially with their personal positioning, so as to be resource and


motivation that benefit to the students’ adaptation and development. Individuals withsolid ethnic identity and keeping open to the outside might draw strength from theethnic glorious history and look forward with hope and confidence. Based on thesegood feelings, they would carry out more actively adaptive behaviors.

Remarkablely, there were two students who did not show significant experience ofongoing cultural conflict as well as ethnic attachment. In face of the uncertainty, theywould like to follow others from new environment. It was easy for them to assimilateinto alien culture but was hard to be an inheritor of their ethnic culture.

Third, in this stage, the Mongolian students also showed great tendency to enhanceinterpersonal interactions with others and want to be a part of those around them. Thiswas an important part in adaptation. Wider and deeper interactions are necessary andhelpful to make better understanding of each other and get more social supports fromeach other.

We found there was systematically difference between male and female students intheir interactive ways. Males tended to undertake the positions in class as a leader torealize their value. One male said:

I want to organize some activities in my class. It is more than a practice formyself. Others will not judge you only by your ethnicity when you do anexcellent job.(RP6)

By contrast, female students emphasized to build up amiable relationships, espe-cially with their Han peers. As one of them said:

I am very happy that they trust me and get close to me. They are willing to tellme their secrets, which makes me feel good. (RP10)

If there were any stresses, coping methods were also different between male andfemale students. Men might try to get released by drinking or fighting, while femalestudents might choose to talk and share feelings with other Mongolian students. Thedifference was associated with traditional gender role that was emphasized inMongolian culture and would result in different relationship styles.

However, the adaptation process would not go smoothly if these students rejectedto be open to the other cultures and just limited their interactions mainly with thosewho came from same ethnicity. They would trap themselves in self-handicappingsituation and went to self-isolated direction.

The other personal characteristic of the Mongolian students was outstanding whenthey dealt with relationships, that was tolerance. For example, when they weresnubbed sometimes, they tried to accept it and adjust themselves to it. As one studentsaid:

Once upon a time, my room-mates and I promised to go to class together.However, they left earlier without telling me. I was sad at that moment. But lateron, I realized that it was not necessary to take it as a hurt. And now I choose toset a clock alarm for myself.

The characteristic of tolerance was helpful for these students to establish friendlyrelationships with others and gain more opportunities of self-development.

Fourth, besides the factors mentioned above, there were other aspects contributingto the students’ self regulation, that was the encouragement or positive feedback from


others, especially those important ones. That would directly lead to the goal-orienteddevelopment and self positioning. One student said:

I have to say that the Algebra teacher was very important to me. He told me thatI was the only minority student working so hard as he ever met. His wordmotivated me a lot and from then on I recognized that I could redouble efforts tobe extraordinary as I did in middle school. (RP7)

Another student said:

My teacher always said that I was so excellent because I could speak threelanguages so well. She also encouraged me to keep working hard and to beconfident. I have to say her encouragement was very important to me.(RP12)

Of course, these students themselves had kept making efforts and performed wellin university. But realistic differences and difficulties also would catch them intoconfusion now and then. Positive feedback would be supportive power for themunder such bewildered situation. Also, as mentioned in the part of ethnic culture,when one student delivered a Mongolian performance and was warmly welcomed bynew classmates, the feedback raised her self-confidence and promoted further self-openness. As a virtuous circle, she learned to express herself in more appropriateways and fit into the new collective more easily.

To sum up, this self-doubting stage was a very active process, in which theMongolian students were continuously constructing their self identities. They keptexploring self-values and would feel conflict and self-doubt now and then. They usedself-defense strategies and also sought supports to maintain their self-values. Therewere two main ways for them to get social supports and regain self-confidences: onewas attaching to their ethnic culture and strengthening their ethnicity identifications,and the other was developing new supportive relationships with the outside.

Stage 3: Self-Orienting

According to the differences in their coping stategies, ethnicity identifications,interpersonal interactions, personal characteristics and the feedbacks from others,after the self exploring and cultural identity constructing activities in the previousstages, the participants went to different development directions. As a relativedevelopment result, they could be divided into three types in this period, based onwhether they had constructed individualized self-positions and formed specificdeveloping goals.

Three Types of Self-Orienting among Individuals

(1) Goal-oriented individuals including RP3, RP6, RP7 and RP13. They were thosewho were able to differentiate their own perspective and emotion from others’;They could understand their own ethnicity and others objectively; thus theycould establish wider supportive networks to improve their self identityconstructions.

(2) Self-isolated individuals including RP2, RP4, RP8, RP9, RP10, RP11 andRP12. They were those who evaluated the mainstream culture in an extremely


negative way and rejected to accommodate themselves to it. They took theirown ethnicity as a safe base and refused to go outside.

(3) Unreserved-assimilated individuals including RP1 and RP5. They were thosewho tended to overvalue the newly encountered cultural stimuli and acceptedthem without critique. It was easy for them to change, to abandon old things andfollow the new ones. There were significant differences in the narrativematerials made by the three types of individuals on the topic of CollegeLife. We analyzed their narratives by sentence groups and summarized the maintopics they mentioned as the following four aspects: (1) attempts to adoptsupportive resources for self-development; (2) self developing goals; (3) positivecomments on Mongolian culture and people; (4) the value of their behaviors totheir ethnic group as well as the sense of responsibility for it. Whether an individualcould adopt supportive resource from the environment would directly reflect his/her openness to the surrounding. The students of the three types were quitedifferent in this aspect.

Goal-oriented:

I intentionally inspire myself to learn from other classmates, for example, theirattitude towards work or study.(RP3)

Self-isolated:

I can find nothing to learn from them. I don’t like anything here.(RP2)

Unreserved-assimilated:

Everything here is so perfect… …well, I will do what they will do.(RP5)

Moreover, whether an individual could set up goals for self development reflectednot only his/her openness to the environment, but also his/her initiative attempt forself-improvement. Goal-oriented individuals usually set up long-term goals andconcrete steps to achieve goals, while self-isolated ones seldom did this. Besides,the unreserved-assimilated ones preferred short-term profits. In the interview, theysaid:

Goal-oriented:

I made up my mind to study diligently. I asked one of my classmates to wakeme up every morning by phone. When my phone rang, I knew that he hadalready got up. I asked myself why I couldn’t get up earlier and start to study ashe did. Then I would jump out of the bed immediately.(RP13)

Self-isolated:

I really dislike this kind of busy life. I wish to lead a simple and comfortablelife. I am not an ambitious person. (RP4)


(Q: What do you want to do after graduation?) I have no idea. I can work foranyone if only he offers a satisfying salary. Maybe I will stay here. Maybe I willgo back home. Who knows?(RP1)


In the third place, the three types of students showed significant difference in thedevelopment of ethnic identity and responsibility in an alien culture. The Goal-oriented and self-isolated students were more identified with their own ethnic culturethan unreserved-assimilated students. Compared with other two types of students,goal-oriented students talked more about ethnic responsibility in the interview:

Goal-oriented:

On many occasions, I am not only on behalf of myself, but also my ethnicity. Itis inevitable that people here will judge my ethnicity by my performance,especially when I didn’t do well enough. No matter when and where I succeed,the honor will be shared by the whole Mongolian ethnicity.(RP7)

Self-isolated:

I hate the unreasonable comment on our ethnicity and relative things. Forexample, dairy food is very important to us. When one of my classmates saidthe taste of milk was disgusting, I was totally offended (note: Inner Mongolia isone of the most important areas of milk resource in China.)(RP9)


As I don’t major in Mongolian, it is not necessary for me to concern too muchabout the ethnicity. As to what I will do in the future…Um…I don’t know. Ihaven’t thought about it.(RP5)

Distribution characteristics the participants showed on the four topics, respectivelyand totally, separated them from each other into these three types. In sum, comparedto the other two types, the goal-oriented students mentioned more numerous andvarious topics, which seemed to be an effective and useful index that could mirror therichness of thoughts and depth of reflective of the participants. In particular, the goal-oriented youths integrated supportive resources absorbed from new environment andpositive identification with their own ethnicity very well and got the source of self-confidence and impetus from both of them. They also formed concrete goals based oncombination of self-development and ethnic responsibility. As a result, they con-structed higher and wider individualized self-position. Though self-isolated youthsshowed strong appreciation towards their own ethnicity, they lacked the conscious-ness to adopt supportive resource from new surroundings and assume the responsi-bility for their ethnicity. Consequently, their developing goals seemed to be vague andgeneral without too much guidance to practice. The unreserved-assimilated studentsshowed most attempts to adopt supportive resource from new surrounding, but theylacked any connection with their ethnicity. So when they talked about the future, theytended to swim with tide instead of having firm and clear orientation.

Developing Tendency within Individuals

During the transitional period, students of the three types had undergone differentdeveloping trajectories.

Goal-oriented individuals could form an objective comparison between their ownculture and the mainstream culture they faced; thus, they could keep open to the


surroundings and positively communicate with others. In this way, the well estab-lished relationship could become supportive resources available for the developmentof self identity. They could learn from others through interpersonal interaction andform their own developing goal, which will help them to integrate into the newenvironment. The goal-oriented individuals went through the self doubt period byconstructing ethnic identity which improved individuals’ relationship with theirethnicity. Those individuals combined their own developing goals with the ethnicresponsibility and transformed them to a higher level of social responsibilities aspublic intellectuals should do. For instance:

I know that I am not knowledgeable enough. I do not deny it. I wish to learnmore so I’m not afraid of asking questions. However, some people do not thinkso. They’re content with instant payback. People do not concern the public’sinterest. For example, we often can read the news about the young richgeneration who prefers to drag racing in public road to show off his luxuriousvehicles ignoring traffic rules. I really don’t’ appreciate it.(RP7)

Another student said:

I used to read things only to my own interest. But now I realized that manyother things are quite useful although I’m not interested. I have to learn as muchas I can if I want to be a teacher. It is a shame if I can’t answer my student’squestions one day.(RP3)

We could see that the goal-oriented students kept on self-reflecting, which was anoteworthy feature of them. They mentioned more plentiful and multiple topics ininterviews and narratives. During the self-doubt period, they linked their past expe-rience with present life and built up bidirectional relationship between themselves andtheir ethnicity to balance the feeling of inferiority and arrogance. Also by self-reflecting, the goal-oriented were able to combine the self-development with theethnic responsibility, so that they formed individualized self-position.

Looking back to the growing up experiences of the goal-oriented students, theyhave always got instructive supports from their families and kept good communica-tion with their parents. For example:

I said to my mother that I was changing. After I experienced so many things, Ibecame more and more passive. Then my mother told me that was real lifewhich I had to face.(RP7)I did not know how to adjust myself at that time. Then I called my father whowas always like my friend. He encouraged me to be confident and solve theproblem one by one.(RP6)

Self-isolated individuals experienced more anxieties than excitements in the firststage. When the reality they met did not fit their expectation, they tended to skirt theunfavorable information and avoid facing difficulties. The attempt of ethnical attachmentcan release the stress to some extent. However, self-esteem could not be fully achieved asthere was no considerable achievement. In this case, the incongruity still existed.Individuals tended to withdraw to a safe and familiar place. They only attached to theirethnicity one-waywithout forming the sense of representative of their ethnic group. Fromthe interview, we could see that they talked little about the ethnic responsibility.


Three possible reasons for self-isolation were demonstrated in the interview. First,all this type of individuals had inhabited in the countryside or small town and hadfewer chances to communicate with other cultures in their lives before they came toShanghai, so they would be more defensive in the unfamiliar and challengingsituations. Second, since there were more females for self-isolation, it might berelevant to the traditional gender role of the female in Mongolian culture: Mongolianfemales were expected to be comparatively introverted and family-centered and theywould become homesick when they had difficulties in new environment. Besides,these individuals were less reflective which was necessary to integrate the contrastingfeeling of interiority and arrogance in the second stage. When they rejected to acceptnew information, it was difficult to construct goal-oriented self development.

Unreserved-assimilated individuals experienced excitement and stress at the verybeginning. Compared to the other two types, these individuals showed less innerconflicts and exploratory behaviors before they assimilated the alien culture, forexample, the way of wearing or speaking. They would like follow what was highlyappreciated by popular culture and tried to keep themselves in fashion. What theyseemed worried about was being behind the times. They thought ethnicity was a verygrand issue beyond their duties. Personally, ethnicity was just one of the signals oftheir identity, which made them a bit special from main population in China. Thestrategy they took to deal with the sense of self-doubt was not trying to constructethnic identity or carry on positive internal exploration.

Unreserved-assimilated might be caused by the following reasons. First, theseyouths used to live in cities, where there were more Han-characterized regions, thusthe Mongolian culture hadn’t been deeply embedded in them. Second, we found thatthe participants of this type were mostly the youngest children in their family, andthey usually were not asked to assume the responsibility for the family or others.

Corroboration and Expansion:A Process Model of Self-Identity Constructing

In conclusion, we generalized a three-stage three-type model of the process ofadaptation, basically to say, of self-identity development of minority undergraduateswhen they transferred to mainstream culture as follows (see Fig. 1):

The three-stage in this model was about much the same process the participantsexperienced to adapt and construct their self-identities. That was a process individualscontinuously contacted with their environments. Due to the different choices theymade in every stage, especially their different responses to the environmental chal-lenges and inner imbalance in self-doubting period, the individuals went to differentdevelopment directions and displayed different orientation styles.

The characteristics of the three self orientation types found in this research wasquite similar to those of the three identity processing styles in Berzonsky’s researchesFor example, identity processing styles were found differentially associated with thetypes of self-elements within which one’s identity was grounded. Individuals withhigh informational scores highlighted personal self-elements (e.g., ‘my ideas’ and‘my dreams’), those with high normative scores emphasized collective self-attributes(e.g., ‘family’ and ‘religion’), and those with high diffuse-avoidant scores focused onsocial self component (e.g., ‘popularity’ and ‘impressions made on others’). Linkages


between identity style and reasoning processes have also been investigated. Aninformational style is associated with problem-focused coping, cognitive motivation,and openness to alternative ideas. A normative style is associated negatively withopenness to alternative values and actions but positively with a need for cognitiveclosure. A diffuse-avoidant style is associated with emotion-focused avoidant copingand maladaptive decisional strategies including pre-decisional procrastination andavoidance and post-decisional rationalization and excuse making (Berzonsky, 2008).Thinking about the relationship characteristics and coping styles of our participants ofthree different self-orienting styles compared and discussed above, it was not difficultto see that the goal-oriented, self-isolated and unreserved-assimilated should respec-tively corresponding to the informational style, normative style and diffuse-avoidantstyle of Berzonsky, and this research could be regarded as an embodiment and vividexample of those findings. Also, under the background of minority undergraduatesadapting to mainstream culture in a transitional period, the detailed analysis of theself-identity constructing process in this research illustrated how identity processingstyles interacted with context. To some degree, these different identity styles weredevelopment results of former socialization and, reversely, would impact furtheridentity development.

On the other hand, the three types of the self-orienting in this research wererelative classification. Some students would be in the middle of two types or showdifferent development degrees or attitudes to different aspects of their lives. Forexample, RP8 was assigned into the self-isolated mainly because she was seldomseeking for help from new environment. But she was good at singing Mongoliansongs and got self-confidence by that in mainstream culture. According to Côté’s(1996) identity capital theory, ethnicity related talents and skills could be a kind ofpassport that was helpful for individuals to set foot in social world. So, if RP8 couldbe more open to outside and set up more connections with outside, she was more

Difference-detecting

Internal exploration: Experiencing differences

Source of support: Family and Mongolian peers

Self- doubting

Internal exploration: seeking self-value

Source of support: ethnic culture; approval from

mainstream important relationships

Self-orienting

Goal-oriented:Internal exploration: learning from

and integrating different cultures

Source of support: ethnic culture,

mainstream culture

Self-isolated: Internal exploration: staying in

familiar/comfortable zone

Source of support: Ethnicity honor,

family and Mongolian peers

Unreserved-assimilatedInternal exploration: Assimilating new

cultural values

Source of support: stylishness

Fig. 1 Identity constructing process of mongolian students


easily to adapt and deal with all kinds of requirements she met. Furthermore, shecould play a more positive role in inter-ethnic communication.

Looking at the differences and similarities among three types of self-orienting, wecould find the importance of setting up positive bi-directional relationship betweenindividuals and their context. For example, attitude towards ethnicity culture andmainstream culture, attachment to ethnicity and responsibility for ethnicity, collectiveself-attributions (‘ethnicity’ here) and personal development goals, personal endeav-ors and positive feedback from others, historical impacts and future goals, and so on.Taking ethnic attitude as an example, we found the sense of ethnic responsibilityplayed a critical role in separating goal-oriented individuals from the other two types.Extensively speaking, ethnicity could be a kind of identity capital as Côté (1996)called. The contents of the goal-oriented individuals’ self-identities were expanded byinvolving ethnic identification, especially the ethnic responsibility in. They had moreand higher categories to belong to, which went beyond the narrow concept of anyconcrete ethnicity. So, in one aspect, they could accept the differences amongdifferent ethnicities and cultures very well and learn from all of them, that was, theyenlisted most resources for their developments. In the other aspect, when they met thestereotype threat, they would not be caught by negative emotions and could deal withit more calmly and with more self-reflections. They would set goals to promote thedevelopment of their own ethnicity and communication among different ethnicitiesand make positive preparation and efforts for the goals and to the goals.

According to the ethnicity-related aspect, this three-stage model was also some-what similar to Phinney’s (1989) theory on ethnic identity development model andalso had some differences. The model proposed by Phinney (1989) demonstrated thatminority youths could foreclose at the very beginning in the first stage. However, inour research, we found that when the Mongolian students entered the new situation,they chiefly focused on external novel phenomena and tended to feel more excitedand a bit nervous. That could be attributed to the positive feeling these students hadsince they just won out in the college entrance exam –- which is the hardestcompetition for most Chinese youths, especially when they entered top universities.On the other hand, since the participants in this research were already undergraduatesand were no extreme maladjusted ones, we could presume the minority youths hadbeen into different types before entering universities, and those who were withcommunicative difficulties or significant self-closed characteristics would not selectto go out from their hometown. Also, in today’s continuously changing society, it washard for individuals to keep entire self-closed. So, in fact, in our research, the state ofentire foreclosure seemed not appear. The students kept on self-exploring andsupport-seeking all along, even if in different directions. The identity constructingwas continuous even in the second stage when individuals fell into self doubt. As akind of self-defending strategy, individuals tended to construct ethnic identity tocounteract the sense of uncertainty brought by the differences between the twocultures, which was quite similar to the concepts of “ethnic exploration” in Phinney’stheories, “encounter” in Cross’s theory (1978) and “awakening” in Kim’s theory(1981). It was notable to mention that the ethnic identity constructing might start withthe awareness of ethnicity identification, but it was really motivated by the need ofself-value. Attaching to the ethnic culture could enhance individuals’ self-values. Sothe participants put up to culture seeking behaviors and ethnicity identifications. Even


the conception of the self-isolated style in our research just implied an ethnic conserva-tism standpoint and was more likely to be a coping style with self-defendant tendency.And if the Mongolian students could get positive feedback in new environment and newrelationships, they would confirm their self value and keep on exploring and endeavoringin new cultures. On the other hand, the propensities of openness, tolerance (friendship),self-confidence, and responsibility of the minority youthswould benefit them to constructtheir niche in the new culture, which could initiate them to learn from their peers in thenew environment and set up self development goals. In this way, sense of self value is akey factor, which regulates the meaning of identity standard.

Ethnicity or other cultural factors all could be regarded as a special part of anindividual’s identity. The forming of the ethnicity identification or other culture-related identification all could be regarded as a special process of self-identityconstructing. There were common principles underneath these processes and eachof them also had some special characteristics. As the ethnicity Mongolian that wasconsidered in this research, it is somewhat different from minorities in North America.Mongolian has its language and has ever been quite influential and powerful in history.Mongolian and Han ethnicity have been cultural integrating since the early history.Otherwise, Mongolian still preserves its own cultural tradition since inhabiting InnerMongolia Autonomous Region. So the relationship of two ethnicity is independent buthybrid as well. That may be another reason leading to un-entire foreclosure. Deducingfrom that, identity might be object specialty. As background and content, differentobjects, even different ethnicities with different historical and realistic characteristics,would impact the special course of identity constructing under the similar principles.Once again, it is verified that the identity constructing process is a interacting process ofindividuals and their contexts.

Our research tried to delineate the dynamic and continuous process of minorityyouths’ self development in a transitional period. Although it had been acceptedwidely to put more emphases on the processes and interactions in developmentalstudies, how to realize that was still a problem. The stages or states found in mostformer researches were exactly kinds of development steps or results, not processes.In this research, we tried from several perspectives to open up the dynamic andinteractive constructing trajectory of minority undergraduates’ self-identity.

First was the focal point of the research. Differing from most other researchesabout culture adaptation which mainly focused on ethnicity identification formation,we adopted individual viewpoint of analysis in our study, that was to say, we putemphasis on self-identity constructing and subjective needs. In order to understandthe complex process of identity construction, we focused on analyzing the interactiverelationship between the context and the minority youths’ actions and feelings. Thus,we could see how the ethnicity identification was motivated and constructed based onthe minority youths’ subjective needs of self defending and psychological supportseeking, and conversely, how their self identities were enriched or narrowed by theethnicity identification they formed. Also, the model we built not only describedcommon characteristics but also considered personal and distinctive experiences.This change of perspective in analysis made it possible to demonstrate the infiltratingand constructing process of cultures in adaptation and avoid just regarding thecultures as entities which were used to be compared with and adapted as in manycross-cultural studies. At the same time, illustrating the different development


trajectories of self-identities of different individuals could enlighten some helpfulintervention approaches with high ecological validity to improve the minority youths’self-developing.

Second was methodological exploration. Semi-structured interview and narrativemethod were mainly used in this research and apparently showed their advantages inrevealing development process and reciprocal interaction. Beyond that, we adoptedboth emic and etic viewpoints in the research. As to the research team, one of themembers was also one of the participants; another researcher was not a Mongol buthad ever lived in Inner Mongolian for a long time and came to Shanghai several yearsago; and the other one was an expert in self-development study. All of us weredifferent cultural “insiders” or “outsiders”. During the study, we kept on discussingabout the key information and the meaning of them, enlightening each other withdiverse information susceptibilities, proving and adjusting our understandings, anal-yses and expressions of the adaptation processes so as to make certain the findingsand conclusions were more credible, integrated and intensive. A good example wasthe finding of ethnicity as a kind of identity capital. When Aruna was interviewed byas well as discussed with the other two professors, she mentioned even if she was notvery good at singing and dancing, she turned into a Mongolian music fan and startedstudying Mongolian instrument after she entered the university. The professorspointed out the meaning of these unconscious cultural root-seeking behavior underher companying feeling of proud and comfort. Aruna also recalled she always went tolibrary to read materials about history when she felt frustrated. Professor Xiao Wen,Li found sensitively that these materials were related to the brave and heroicMongolian ancestors. Professor Ling Li also associated the situation with the proud-ness of her husband–-who was also a Mongol–-aroused by the relative TV programsand films. Later, when Aruna interviewed the other participants, she found the similaractivities to gain cultural attachment and raise the level of self-value.

We presented in detail our methodological exploring process in this article so as toilluminate the limitation of traditional methods and the necessity and importance ofmethodological reform. We believe that the critical part of a study is ideas, perspec-tives and thinkings of analysis instead of just following special steps or usingparticular measures or the very tools. The formers are deeper and more implicitthings and interweaving with the research object. A true study is supposed to includerepeated consideration with combination of bottom-up and top-down perspectives tofind out the frame and order. Through these trail-and-error processes, we hope toindicate that the dynamic interacted analysis perspective is able to provide reasonableand in-depth explanation, especially to cultural psychology issues. And we canrealize the advantages of qualitative methods in this kind of research.

Lastly, based on our research processes and results, we wanted to suggest thattheoretical validity could also be taken as a kind of criterion of psychological studies(Li 2012). If a theory is reasonable and has explanatory strength of relevant phenom-ena, it should be acceptable. Concerning our identity constructing process model andinfluence factors behind it, they could be referred to in any situation whenever thespecial identities the individuals attached (e.g. race, ethnicity, gender, region, etc.)were distinctive and significant–-there would be the similar psychological processand development trajectories of subjective self constructing, especially when indi-viduals transferred from lower/disadvantaged levels to higher/advantaged levels.


Originally, Erik Erikson was aware of the identity confusion problem undermulti-culture and racial discrimination background and then proposed the impor-tant role the identity formation played in the development of individual. JamesMarcia expanded upon Erikson’s initial theory and noticed the Erikson’s processthought about identity formation and attempted to analyze the process by de-scribing the identity statuses. However, Marcia’s identity statuses model wasquite simplified and more widely used as a convenient measure instrument laterin most researches. According to the limitation of mainstream psychometrictesting, Erikson’s ethnic culture related identity has been divorced from itscontext and becomes the static, isolated, and simple type-measure thing. Inrecent years, dynamic systems theory and dialogical self theory are devoted tocorrect this kind of problem. Micro study of identity development supplies amethodological perspective. In this research, we meshed all these methodologicalthoughts, insisted to analyze the subjects in relationships, and adopted thestandpoint of interaction between subjects and objects. The results showed thatidentity formation was an individual historical process, in which, based on selfneed and development level, subject interacted with the contexts includingcurrent environment and ethnicity culture. As a supportive resource to individ-ual’s self-value, ethnicity culture was constructed into individual’s identity. Theneed of self-value and its development level impacted the manner of interactionand the feeling of meaning when individual interacted with new environment.Through adapting behavior, individuals constructed their niche, and identity andniche were formed together. Since what we focused on, the interaction betweensubject and context was of universality, the principles revealed by this researchshould exist widely in any identity construction under different situations.

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Ling Li is an associate professor of psychology at East China Normal University (ECNU). She gother M.Ed in 1996 and PhD in 2002 and worked as a visiting scholar in Laboratory for ComparativeHuman Cognition (LCHC) at University of California, San Diego (UCSD) from 2009 to 2010. Herinterested fields include socialization, interaction of self and social support, and cultural psychology.

Aruna Wu is a PhD student majored in developmental psychology in ECNU. Her main research interestsare the development of self identity and cultural psychology.

XiaoWen Li is a professor at ECNU. She got her MSc in1988 and PhD in 1995 at ECNU. She is interestedin the self development. She is inclined to ecological style of research, and has researched on the students’self development and the school culture constructing for a long time.

Yuan Zhuang was an undergraduate student at ECNU. And now she is a Project Manager in ShanghaiPsylife Consulting Company.


constructing self-identity: minority students’ adaptation trajectories in a chinese university

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