How are children's identities formed and mediated in and across various settings and cultures? Children's Studies at Harvard sought to address this question and others at its recent conference, "Youth, Identity, and Achievement." The organization Facing History and Ourselves cosponsored the Feb. 26-27 event.

The context of identity formation, the meaning of Americanization, and the influence of segregation and racism were highlighted by several speakers. In her study of Vietnamese children growing up in New Orleans, Min Zhou, an associate professor in sociology and Asian American studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that it is neither individual efforts, nor those of individual families, but the work of an entire community that influences the development and achievement of children growing up in low-income immigrant neighborhoods. Zhou found opportunity structures, ethnic social relations, and racial and class constraints to be key forces shaping a group's adaptation. Exposure to the wider American culture facilitated healthy development, Zhou concluded, particularly for those growing up in disadvantaged local communities.

Similarly, Diego Vigil, professor of anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a former public school teacher and youth worker, discussed his study of the formation of gang members' identities through street socialization. He believes street identities are often requisite for survival and argues that young people become gang members to fit into the limited spectrum of American society that they see in their local community, perhaps even adopting the culture of an ethnicity different from their own. Thus, their achievement orientation is directed toward the street hierarchy.

Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, professor at the Graduate School of Education, has found that children of immigrants are the fastest growing population in U.S. schools and that the vast majority of new immigrants are people of color who come from non-English speaking countries. Patterns of segregation by place of work, schooling, and neighborhood, which he believes are acute and intensifying, influence the academic achievement of children of immigrants. Without schooling, Suárez-Orozco believes, there is no chance of coming out of marginality today.

Professor Eurnestine Brown, an assistant professor of psychiatry and psychology, and senior research fellow for the Civitan International Research Center at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, and currently a visiting scholar at the Institute of Human Development at the University of California, Berkeley, examines middle- and low-income African-American families to study both what is and is not working well in these families. She has found several strengths common to African-American families -- a strong achievement and work orientation and close kinship ties -- and believes that family strengths like these have been fundamental to the survival, development, and stability of black families in hostile environments.

Current methodologies do not capture the complexity of our lived experiences, according to Kenyon Chan, department chair and professor of Asian American Studies at California State University, Northridge. He encouraged participants to develop new social science theories and methods and acknowledged the danger many feel in divulging their true feelings about race. He added that those with social dominance can mold their own identity, while others have their identity imposed upon them.

The importance of personal narrative and the humanities to the study of identity was also raised. Margot Stern Strom, director of Facing History and Ourselves, shared her organization's efforts to help students critically consider their role as citizens through a deep examination of history. Students learn to reflect on the choices individuals and groups made before, during, and after historical events; to consider the situation from multiple perspectives, and to evaluate the consequences of the action or inaction.

Children's Studies is an initiative of the Harvard Project on Schooling and Children. For more information, please contact Heather

McMillen at 496-4976, 126 Mt. Auburn St., Cambridge, MA 02138.