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Over 240,000 American students studied abroad in the 2006 - 2007 academic year (Commission on the Abraham Lincoln Study Abroad Fellowship Program, 2005). Despite the large number of students abroad and the breadth of the study-abroad literature (e.g., Dwyer 2004, Anderson, Lawton, Rexeisen, & Hubbard, 2006; Dewey, 2004; Milstein, 2005), there is relatively little work on the psychological ramifications of going abroad. Specifically, few studies investigate issues of identity change in students who study abroad. This dissertation was designed to provide an initial examination of these issues. Three theories of identity were applied to understand identity change in students abroad. Self-categorization theory (Oakes, Haslam, & Turner, 1994), which emphasizes the fluidity of identity and its dependence on social memberships, predicts that students will internalize the culture abroad and become very connected to it. Self-verification theory (Swann, 1997; Swann, Rentfrow, & Guinn, 2002) states that because people's personal identities give their lives coherence, meaning, and continuity, people are highly reluctant to change their personal identities. According to self-verification theory, students abroad will cling to their existing identities and remain connected with people from the country of origin. Identity negotiation theory (Swann & Bosson, in press; Swann, 1987) adopts a moderate position, suggesting that people retain their original identities but, under some conditions, modify them in response to exposure to the host culture. Students spending a semester abroad completed online questionnaires before they left the United States, and three times during the semester abroad. Students changed on several characteristics across the semester abroad. Students abroad changed more than a matched-control group spending the semester at the University of Texas at Austin. Personal characteristics, such as extraversion, agreeableness, and openness to experience, predicted degree of personal change, personal growth, and identification with the host country. Various social behaviors abroad, as well as living with a host family, were correlated with identity change. A model linking each theory with data about various choices of living arrangements, social behaviors, and identity outcomes is presented. / text

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published_or_final_version / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

published_or_final_version / English / Master / Master of Philosophy

Different types of self-discrepancies are associated with different negative affects. The present study explored the relationship between self-discrepancies and depression and anxiety. In addition the relationship between self-discrepancies and coping styles was examined. Data was gathered from questionnaires distributed to second and third year undergraduate psychology students at the University of Natal - Pietermaritzburg. The final sample consisted of 113 subjects. The data was analysed using the Pearson product-moment correlation, hierarchical multiple regression, and non parametric tests. The results of the study showed that subjects are more bound to ideal self-guides, more so those pertaining to their own standpoint. Further, it was found that female subjects manifested higher self-discrepancies than male subjects, except in the ideal/own domain where male subjects had a relatively higher discrepancy. Female subjects manifested the highest discrepancy in the ideal/other domain. In terms of the relationship between the self-discrepancies and affect, it was found that both the total ideal discrepancy and the total ought discrepancy correlated positively with anxiety, with the total ideal discrepancy having a slightly higher correlation. Further, there was a significant positive correlation between the total ideal discrepancy and depression. More specifically a significant positive correlation between the ought/own discrepancy and depression was noted. With regard to coping styles, the findings showed that overall, Black subjects, male subjects and subjects from the lower socioeconomic group used the acceptance style of coping more frequently. Further, some significant positive and negative correlations were noted between different self-discrepancies and different coping styles. In addition, some significant positive and negative correlations were also noted between depression and anxiety and the use of different coping styles. The results were discussed in terms of the self-discrepancy and coping literature. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1997.

This qualitative study explores identity formation in contemporary society, through investigating the influence of the media on identity formation. The focus is on identity and what people attribute from the media as defining their view of themselves and their world. Seven people aged 25 to 35 years participated in individual, semi-structured interviews, specifically focusing on the participants’ media usage in their leisure time. The analysis revealed that the participants’ tendency to position themselves as agents that were immune to the media’s influence was reflective of the ideological discourse of the ‘self-contained’ individual. Evidently, the participants were unaware of the way(s) in which they had been interpellated to behave as subjects of an individual kind. The prevailing ideological discourse of individualism was challenged by highlighting the contradictions in the participants’ accounts. The analysis further confirmed that identity formation is a dynamic and contradictory process, and unavoidably shaped (even constituted by) history, culture, politics, and ideology. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

This research focuses on young black women’s identity construction in the context of democratic South Africa. It focuses on how they negotiate adolescence and young adulthood as black females in a country with a history of racism. The assumption in the newly democratized South Africa is that opportunities are given on merit as opposed to the inequalities that existed according to racial differences during apartheid. The study aims to find out how young people construct and negotiate their identities and their view of their futures as well as possible threats to these future identities within this context. The young women’s narratives give insight into the state of the socio cultural context of post apartheid South Africa. These young women narrate their lives as the hinge generation: they are the first generation to grow up in the new and free South Africa the first generation to have access to a broad range of opportunities that were denied black people during apartheid governance. The young women’s narratives reveal a very fluid sense of identity. Their lives do not follow the patterns of the lives of the previous generations including those of their parents. They do however, negotiate these opportunities in the context of inequalities inherited from previous apartheid governance. Impoverished livelihoods, death of family members, gender inequities, poorly developed school systems and poor social amenities that they face in everyday life pose possible constraints to their envisioned futures. The study is based on the theorisation of self as a narrative, a story to be told. The self is understood as fragmented and changing as opposed to a single fixed entity. The narrative approach allows for the participants to tell their own stories bringing together past memories, anticipated futures as well as ongoing experiences they consider important. A total of 10 women took part in the study; 5 from Amangwane a rural community located in the Drakensburg area and 5 from the urban location of Chesterville. Their life stories were collected through in depth interviews in a wider context of narrative approach. Further, there was a follow up interview for each participant giving focus to central themes. A two phase analysis was used to examine the way the narratives were put together as well as paying attention to the content of the narratives in order to understand meaning attributed to events and experiences. The young women’s narratives were structured by an interaction of regressive and progressive plots. This is reflective of the challenges and difficulties that they face in their everyday lives in the South African context. The major regressive moments were financial difficulties, death of loved ones and motherhood. In the midst of these challenges, most stories were generally progressive towards the future. Some, however, were in the midst of uncertainties and some of the life stories were entrapped in difficult life circumstances that made it difficult to see success in the future. The key themes that came from the stories were poverty, place, family structure, gender, language and education. Poverty was experienced as very significant and real. It hampered everyday lives and the construction of future identities. The rural areas are the most hit by poverty especially female headed families. Fathers were constructed as possible solutions to economic problems because of their ability to access resources. Migration between urban and rural spaces is prominent in the rural women’s narratives. Urban areas presented improved life opportunities. Even so, urban space is fragmented and racially stratified. The urban young women’s narratives show a desire to succeed and move out of townships into suburbia. English is considered to be the economic language and its use provides young women with access to resources and a better life. Education is constructed as important by the young women as it gives them access to their desired future identities. However, schooling experience is characterised by lack of teachers, inadequately trained teachers and poor education standards. Gender inequities pose challenges which constrain the young women from reaching their full potential. The young women negotiate their lives in a context resonating with apartheid effects. They are faced with challenges and very difficult life circumstances. They however remain hopeful and are able to construct alternative future identities for themselves. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2010.