More Than Meets the Eye: How Black and Minority Ethnic Care-Leavers Construct and Make Sense of Their Identity
Abstract
:1. Introduction
1.1. Identity Development
[Identity is] the child’s growing sense of self as a separate and valued person. It includes the child’s view of self and abilities, self-image and self-esteem, and having a positive sense of individuality. Race, religion, age, gender, sexuality and disability may all contribute to this. Feelings of belonging and acceptance by family, peer group and wider society, including other culture groups.(p. 19)
1.2. Looked-After Children and Identity
1.3. Cultural, Ethnic Identity and BAME Children in Care
1.4. Rationale for Research
1.5. Aims of Research
1.6. Research Questions
- How do BAME care leavers construct and make sense of who they are?
- How do BAME care leavers understand their experiences of being in care?
- How do BAME care leavers relate these experiences to their sense of who they are?
2. Method
2.1. Design
2.2. Participants
2.3. Recruitment
2.4. Ethical Approval
2.5. Interviews
2.6. Data Analysis
2.7. Quality Assurance
3. Results
3.1. My Journey: How I Became Me
3.2. Overcoming Adversity
Try to forget it. Cos you can’t do anything can you? You have to live with it. So try and put it out your mind, but it was always there. It was always back in there.(Aiden)
I thought she had good intentions at first, but I feel like after a while I got to see that it was just an act.(Jack)
3.3. Missing Childhood
So I never had a childhood. You think that when you grow up at the time you will have toys, and stuff, I never had that. I was working.(Aiden)
It’s like they would spend their money stupidly because it’s like they could ask them [parents] for a favour like you are payback or something. I can’t do that.(Aiden)
Before that I didn’t even know how to cook, didn’t know how to clean, didn’t know how to do my hair, still don’t now know how to do my hair. But yeah just the natural learnings that you will get when you’re growing up from your parents.(Claire)
I’m always going to be a child, there’s always going to be a fantasy world in my head, that’s not going to change. When I’m growing old, I’m still going to be a child.(Nina)
3.4. Constructing Family
And I also have my biological dad but we don’t talk about him. We can talk about him, but, I don’t mind talking about him, but I wouldn’t class him as family.(Marco)
I know now that I wasn’t treated the way I was supposed to be treated, if it was my mum and dad erm or my family blood.(Naomi)
I’ve always felt that when you’re a Bengali, when you’re from, with the Bengali’s, it’s a really nice culture, it’s really, really nice, when you’re in that family, it’s a family.(Nina)
My foster mum, she’s been just a mum, and she showed me what is the love of a mum.(Agata)
My sister was my weakness but she was also my strength, my sister can actually drive me crazy, like, being away from her made me crazy and being with her made me crazy too.(Nina)
[About a foster carer] Mm she’s a good woman. I’m not going to lie. She, she a, she was a good woman…Every now and then I think “how did you make it to be a foster carer?”(Naomi)
I had to hide behind different masks and personas, if you like, so I wasn’t being myself, I was just trying to hide my weak side, my vulnerable side.(Irfan)
3.5. Pivotal Moments
Once I had, I was, I was out. I had no money. I called [foster carer] and I asked for money. And she gave me the money from her pocket. Cos they usually give me money for the week from social services, she gave money from her pocket, she don’t have to do it, she done it. That was really something… I always remember.(Aiden)
I don’t think I’m Christian the way I used to be. Cos even the pastor, he was on their side, accusing me and everything. So after that, it was like, “no, you don’t serve god in a truthful way”. So um. That kind of like had an impact [on religious beliefs].(Naomi)
When I was travelling, when I was in the lorry, I was kind of like very unhappy. I was like, “why am I doing this?” “I bet I die”. But I was like, I will, I told myself “I’ll make this different”. I gave myself a time, I said by the time I’m 30 I will have everything I need.(Aiden)
That was probably like, the happiest day of my life, you know, it was something big; and from then on it was, you know, life started to become a lot better.(Irfan)
3.6. Identity as a Process
3.7. Survival/Defence Mechanisms
I probably just blocked out by trying to be so humorous all the time. Because then people would find it very hard to just guess that I’m just in care. They’ll be very shocked like “what, really? You’re in care?”(Irfan)
I don’t take anything to heart. I don’t take anything to heart. Don’t let nothing to affect me in a negative way. Yeah that’s me.(Naomi)
They really helped me because here is a charity organisation, people are not fake here, they’re doing it with their heart, they’re not going to get money from me, that much, as much as the foster carers were getting; being in foster care was not nice because everybody was doing it for the money.(Nina)
The first 7 years of my life [in Jamaica] was bliss. I was spoilt rotten as a child… I cannot remember what it was like in Jamaica. I think I completely blocked it.(Marco)
3.8. Search for Belonging
I didn’t feel comfortable coming out to socialise with the family, because she always made me feel I was outside of the family, even though I was there living in the household.(Jack)
So yeah it was nice to have the fact that we are from the same culture and that. I could have been placed with any, no disrespect it could have been a white family. Which is not really relatable to me.(Jack)
They have been very, very supportive. They have always sort of been there. They help me get into employment, onto my apprenticeship, and they always help me try to get back into education. It just felt like someone cares.(Claire)
I don’t want to be, even if I have my own family I don’t want my kids, I don’t want to be like 60 and my kids to leave me alone, like, I want them to be around me(Aiden)
I’m going to be one of those single parents with my adopted kids.(Marco)
3.9. Sense-Making
I’ve realised that with people, because I know a lot of people who had abusive relationships, they end up attracting those. I ended up attracting someone who was like my dad. So, for some reason, maybe because I was missing him, but in a different context, in a different relationship. So, I wanted some elements of my dad.(Nina)
I get my personality and where I come from. I know why am so animated, and I know I’m so hyperactive. Being bullied at home, being bullied at school, my way of navigating that was literally by acting my way through it. Oh, you’re going to bully me? I’m still a boss though, I’m going to pretend to be happy.(Marco)
[Addressing the researcher after she asked a question] Do you think you’d be able to answer it? What thing made you that?…Yeah, the journey, here, everything. Back in home, everything. Everything put me in the place where I’m at. I’m nothing now, but still, the place I am now. And I appreciate it a lot.(Aiden)
3.10. Who Am I? How I See Myself Now
3.11. I Am a Survivor
So yeah, it was tough, but that makes me strong and make me realise to do what I have to do, just to survive.(Agata)
Well it made me stronger. Because before I let him get away with it. Because I wanted a family, boyfriend. Didn’t want to do single mum thing and everything so I let it go.(Naomi)
But this year I got my stay now, so I feel like nothing‘s going to stop me. There’s no excuse and I have to do it.(Naomi)
I didn’t have a direction where I was going to go in life or what I wanted out of life. Education wasn’t going too well… I just felt lost. So I decided to take every opportunity that came my way.(Claire)
3.12. I Am Different
I feel like I’m sensible, because they have parents to back them up the certain things that I don’t.(Irfan)
I have English friends who have grown up here, who were born, who don’t know the pressure of things like I do, and they don’t work hard as much as I do. Cos they know, back in at the end of the day, they have somewhere to go.(Aiden)
Being in care I feel like there has been a lot of negatives towards being labelled as a foster child or relieving care child or whatever. Because I feel like people’s first thought is when I think of that is older probably mentally damaged, or something like that(Jack)
I’ll never forget Sarah went, “If I saw you, the black guy in an alleyway I would be scared”. And everyone just laughed, and me and Amy just looked at each other like “are you serious?”(Marco)
Even I was trying to change my name cos as soon as they see my name or my seen where I’m from, I believe they will try to ignore, they will try to not give the job to this race of people.(Aiden)
3.13. Helping Others
I try to support anyone. Even if I don’t know the person I will try to help(Irfan)
I love to help people. I don’t have much but I try to do what I can do.(Naomi)
I am definitely going to open a residential home for special needs, because, special needs, if the parents are not around, where do they go? They’re going to end up in a care home, and I’m not going to let that happen.(Nina)
I’m always thinking of my future to be… being helpful to other people, even, I don’t know, donate some money to charities or that kind of thing.(Aiden)
3.14. Bicultural Identity and Acculturation
Cos the Congolese love fashion, they love mixing colours, colourful colours and stuff. They like to be seen as unique. I think that’s what, I think I relate to that. And the music, yeah the music is more me. The fun stuff.(Naomi)
I’m proud to be Jamaican, I wasn’t for a long time, but I like embrace my Jamaican culture. But I class myself as British because when I have conversations with people that are literally fresh off the boat, we have two very different mind-sets.(Marco)
My culture. To be honest, what is my culture? I’ve kind of lost most of my culture.(Agata)
It goes goes goes goes the longer I’m out of my country. So you’ve kind of forgotten everything, you’ve forgotten how the people used to act back in the home. You’ve kind of forgotten everything about the culture, what people used to do, I’m a part of this country now.(Aiden)
4. Discussion
4.1. Limitations
4.2. Implications
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Pseudonym | Age (Age into Care) | Ethnicity | Current Contact with Birth Family | Reason Entered Care (Participant Report) |
---|---|---|---|---|
Agata | 24 (14) | Black African | None | Unaccompanied asylum seeker |
Jack | 21 (1) | Black British | None | Not disclosed |
Irfan | 25 (15) | Arab | Yes | Unaccompanied asylum seeker |
Nina | 23 (11) | Asian British | Yes | Domestic violence/parental mental health/death of parent |
Claire | 21 (14) | Black British | Limited | Parental mental health/neglect |
Marco | 24 (16) | Black British | Sister | Parental abuse |
Naomi | 21 (15) | Black African | None | Unaccompanied asylum seeker |
Aiden | 24 (15) | Arab | None | Unaccompanied asylum seeker |
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Lensvelt, I.; Hassett, A.; Colbridge, A. More Than Meets the Eye: How Black and Minority Ethnic Care-Leavers Construct and Make Sense of Their Identity. Adolescents 2021, 1, 36-53. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/adolescents1010004
Lensvelt I, Hassett A, Colbridge A. More Than Meets the Eye: How Black and Minority Ethnic Care-Leavers Construct and Make Sense of Their Identity. Adolescents. 2021; 1(1):36-53. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/adolescents1010004
Chicago/Turabian StyleLensvelt, Isabelle, Alexander Hassett, and Alicia Colbridge. 2021. "More Than Meets the Eye: How Black and Minority Ethnic Care-Leavers Construct and Make Sense of Their Identity" Adolescents 1, no. 1: 36-53. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/adolescents1010004