Feeling similar, being different: Immigrant youth, multicultural identities and coping with discrimination

Abstract

AbstractMost of the social psychology literature focuses on the difficulties that young people of migrant backgrounds (YMBs) living in Western countries have in negotiating multicultural identities and developing a sense of belonging to two cultures, emphasizing the negative consequences of feeling discriminated against. However, how YMBs who self‐identify as multicultural reconcile their feelings of integration with identity denial and discrimination has been less explored. The purpose of the present study was to examine, in a sample of YMBs living in Italy, how they reconcile their multicultural identities and perceptions of integration with feelings of rejection by segments of Italian society. Twenty‐five young adults (mean age: 24.5; SD = 4.1; Female (F) = 13) from different ethnic backgrounds participated in semistructured interviews. The results highlighted the protective role of bicultural identification in the identity of YMBs, expressed in the tendency to avoid recognizing oneself in the image of the ‘migrant’ and instead to promote that of a multicultural individual who is not different from other fellow citizens. This goal was achieved at the interpersonal and intrapersonal levels by adopting cognitive strategies of stigma avoidance such as personal/group discrimination discrepancy and doublethink. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.