Stephen Castles’ work profoundly changes how we think about the students in our international schools. He argued convincingly that identity is not a static, fixed entity we are born with, but a dynamic process, constantly being shaped and reshaped by our social interactions and experiences. This insight is particularly critical when we consider teenagers who migrate for their secondary education.
Adolescence is, by its very nature, a time of intense identity formation. Teenagers are already grappling with questions of who they are, where they fit in, and who they want to become. When you overlay this developmental stage with the experience of moving to a foreign country and entering a new school system, this process of identity negotiation becomes even more pronounced and complex.
Castles’ theories illuminate this complexity:
Navigating Multiple Cultural Scripts: Identity Negotiation in Action
For these young migrants, arriving in a new country means encountering different cultural “scripts” – unwritten rules, values, and ways of behaving that are embedded in the new social environment and its dominant discourses. In their home country, these scripts might have felt natural and invisible. Suddenly, in a foreign setting, they become very apparent.
Identity negotiation, from a Castlesian perspective, involves the conscious and unconscious ways these teenagers navigate these different scripts. Do they adapt their behaviour and communication style to fit in with their new peers or the host country’s norms? Do they hold more strongly to the cultural practices and values of their homeland? This isn’t a simple choice, but a continuous process of trial and error, observation, and adaptation. Their interactions in the classroom, in social settings within the school, and in the wider community all become sites where this identity work takes place.
Forging Layered and Hybrid Identities
Castles moved beyond older, often problematic, ideas of assimilation, where migrants were expected to simply shed their old identity to adopt a new one. He showed that migration more often leads to the formation of layered or hybrid identities.
Teenage migrants in international schools are prime examples of this. They don’t stop being who they were when they left home. Instead, they begin to integrate aspects of their experiences in the new country and the international school environment into their existing sense of self. They might adopt new linguistic habits, develop new interests influenced by their international peers, or gain new perspectives on global issues.
The result is often a hybrid identity – a unique blend of their national or ethnic background, their family’s cultural values, and the new cultural capital they acquire through their international experiences. They might feel perfectly comfortable in their home country context, while also feeling a strong sense of belonging within the diverse, often transient, international school community. This is not a deficiency or a sign of not belonging anywhere, but rather a testament to their ability to connect with and draw from multiple cultural wells.
Transnationalism and the Multi-Local Self
Adding another layer of complexity, Castles’ work on transnationalism highlights how migrants maintain significant connections to their homelands. For teenagers today, this is amplified by technology. They remain in constant contact with family and friends back home through social media, messaging apps, and video calls.
This means their identity formation is not solely influenced by their immediate environment. Their social circles, cultural touchstones, and even the dominant discourses they engage with extend across borders. They might be discussing global pop culture with friends at school while simultaneously following social or political developments in their home country online.
This multi-local existence shapes their identity, creating a sense of belonging that is tied to more than one place. While incredibly enriching, this can also present challenges. They may feel a pull between different sets of expectations, experience a sense of being “in-between” worlds, or struggle to fully articulate their complex identity to those who inhabit only one cultural space.
For educators, understanding these dynamics – the intense identity negotiation of adolescence amplified by migration, the development of layered/hybrid selves, and the influence of transnational connections – is crucial. It helps us recognize the deeper processes at play when a student seems to be struggling to fit in, exhibits shifting behaviours, or expresses feelings of displacement. It encourages us to create an environment that validates their complex identities and supports them as they navigate this transformative period of their lives.