The contextual process of identity: A cultural study of sexual identity change as experienced by American -educated college students studying sexuality in the Netherlands

• Main Author: Alden, Peg Brigham
• Language: ENG
• Published: ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst 2001
• Subjects: Educational psychology|Developmental psychology|Bilingual education|Multicultural education
• Online Access: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI3012108

This qualitative study followed thirteen students from various American colleges and universities who participated in a College Semester Abroad Program focusing on Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Studies in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The purpose of the study was to see whether students' experiences of their own sexual identity shifted over the course of their four-month, cross-cultural experience and if so, to identify facilitating conditions and obstacles to identity changes. By using interviews, observations and students' written work, eleven shifts in sexual identity were noted, including shifts in feelings, cognition and practice. By reviewing pre-program and beginning-of-prograrn interviews and application material, students' identity profiles also showed a variety of sexual identity functions, some of which were congruent with Dutch culture and others which were dissonant. A direct relationship was found between the number of sexual identity shifts a student experienced during their stay in the Netherlands and the number of Dutch-dissonant identity functions which they brought with them from the United States. This study proposes that future research combine social constructionist theories of sexual identity with Piagetian theories of cognitive development in a new process model of sexual identity development.