An interactive model of immigrant parents' socialization strategies, teachers' integration expectations and identity dynamics among minority adolescents

The chapter focuses on a three dimensional conceptual model regarding the process of identity dynamics in minority youth, as it is influenced by the interaction between the socialization strategies of two important socialization agents: parents and teachers. The component aspects of the model developed by the authors are based on empirical research (qualitative and quantitative) in Israel, Canada, France and South Africa. We outline possible interactions between four different socializing strategies found to be typical among immigrant parents and three types of integration expectations that teachers most often display towards their young learners. We then propose ways in which these interactions may affect minority youth's self-identity processes by facilitating or inhibiting the preservation of identity imperatives related to the development of self at the interface of cultures. We suggest that regardless of the adaptive socialization strategies that parents and teachers use, it is the interaction between them and the developing child's identity imperatives that produces the conditions that enable or hinder children's exploration and development of different ways of being. The nature and quality of the relationships between parents and teachers and their willingness to engage thoughtfully with each another in seeking to understand their joint impact on the child's development is at the heart of what enables children to learn about themselves and others from their relational experiences.