Identifications and cultural practices amongst British Bangladeshi and mixed-heritage adolescents

Abstract

I had originally intended for this paper to be a report of some of the findings which we obtained in a recent acculturation study. In this study, we looked specifically at how 11-17-year-old British Bangladeshi and British mixed-heritage adolescents in London negotiate the demands of living with multiple cultures. We found that these adolescents were very skillful at managing their multiple identities across different situations and contexts. These adolescents were also very skillful at tailoring their cultural practices and behaviours according to situation and context. We found no evidence of a sense of marginality, or of being “caught between two cultures”, in either group. However, most importantly of all, we found that our findings were not compatible with the fourfold model of acculturation.

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