11-24years Old Tibetan Adolescents’ Self-identity Development Characteristic And The Relation With The Ethnic Identity

Self-identity is our theme throughout the whole life, especially forthe children, it is the leading and immediate assignment. As the mosttypical nations in the Tibet, forced by the fast development of mainstreamculture, the social changes and the tendency of the ethnic fusion, theTibetans are bound to occurring kinds of mental impacts, such ascontradiction and conflict caused by the culture adaptation, cultureadaptation and self-identity. According to Marcia’s self-identity theory,the strategies and consequence utilized for individual’s formation of theself-identity can be operated by the exploration and commitmentdimensions. Considered the background of the society development,based on the Marcia’s self-identity theory, aimed at the children andadolescents’ self-identity development, from the perspective of therelation between the self-identity and ethnic identity development, theresearch attempt to explore the factors influenced the adolescents’self-identity development, development mechanic and the results. Intheory, the study can help us to clear the connotation and related theoryand the stage situation of the self-identity, integrate the process study ofthe self-identity, and then establish the development mechanic of theself-identity. In fact, it can help us to promote and intervene theadolescents’ self-identity development. Meanwhile, our research investigate the Tibetan adolescent, in order to have any effect on theTibet’s education, Tibetan adolescent’ peer interaction and the mentalhealth.Besides, according to the open investigation, covering the structuraland semi-structural interview and other methods, based on the study onthe scales at home and aboard and the items collection, we compiled theTibetan-Chinese bilingual scale-Tibetan adolescent ethnic identity scale.Then we utilized the Extend Objective Measure of Ego Identity Statusand the self-compiled11-24years old Tibetan-Chinese bilingual scale-Tibetan adolescent ethnic identity scale to investigate2094from juniorschool freshmen to college senior Tibetan adolescents. The result shows:(1)52%11-24years old Tibetan adolescent lie in identity moratorium;27.5%shows identity diffusion.(2) The score of the males’ identitydiffusion is clearly higher than that of females (56.4±11.9/55.8±9.9，p<0.01，53.9±14.0/50.6±12.8，p<0.05).(3)Tibetan youth’s self-identity inthe age variable with the development trend of the whole, the HighSchool in all grades, the score of the four states are relatively lower, theidentity diffusion and identity moratorium wavy and identity foreclosurein the overall shows downward trend, on the contrary, in the stage ofidentity achievement shows broadly upward trend.(4) According to theanalysis of variance, we found the gender and age variables showsremarkably differences in the Tibetan adolescents’ self-identity and ethnic identity.(5) Different family residence and father’s job shows greatdifferences among the Tibetan adolescents’ self-identity; and the classcomposition, Chinese proficiency and the number of Han nationalityfriends have influence on the Tibetan adolescents’ self-identity in somecertain.(6) There are significant differences between local Tibetanadolescents’ self-identity and the outside Tibetan adolescents’ self-identity,and the score of outside Tibetan adolescent is significantly higher than thescore of inside Tibetan adolescent; in the age variable, significantdifferences exist in the four states of local young Tibetans’self-identity,but for the outside Tibetan adolescents’ self-identity, there isonly one status has significant differences—the achievement stage.(7)According to the analysis of correlation, we found identity foreclosure ispositively related with the behavior dimension of ethnic identity andnegatively related with the cognitive dimension and the nation division;identity moratorium is positively correlated with the behavior dimensionof ethnic identity, themselves nation identity and nation division; identityachievement is positively correlated with the three dimensions of ethnicidentity, themselves nation identity and nation division.(8) According tothe analysis of stepwise multiple regression, we found identityachievement, identity foreclosure and diffusion self-identity condition insome certain can forecast the11-24years old Tibetan adolescents’ threedimensions situation of the ethnic identity and the nation division.