Describe some of the challenges that ethnic minority adolescents and emerging adults face in the dominant culture.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Individuals consciously confront their ethnicity for the first time in adolescence. Adolescents and emerging adults from ethnic minority groups face a choice between two or more sources of ethnic identification: their own ethnic group and the mainstream, or dominant culture. Many adolescents resolve this issue by developing a bicultural identity. There are differences in identity among first, second, and third, or later generations of immigrants. Historical, contextual, language, and political factors, all affect the degree to which one becomes culturally competent. Pressures may be different for adolescents and emerging adults from different ethnic groups. Media images may either discourage or encourage members of an ethnic group to identify with their group or retain parts of its culture. Discrimination may force people to see themselves as cut off from the majority group and encourage them to seek the support of their own ethnic culture.