ABSTRACT
Examining the links between identity, culture, and learning has been a fundamental endeavor for scholars in education and psychology to better conceptualize how ethnic traditions and identity formation processes intersect in school achievement (Lee, 2003). Learning is often thought to primarily take place in home and school environments. However, much of what we learn comes from cultural traditions shaped by our national ideologies, ethnic heritages, and meaning making frameworks. These discernment processes both shape adaptive coping (i.e., contribute to individuals positive and negative responses to these learning experiences) and impact learning and identity formation, particularly in adolescence. The Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (PVEST) provides a conceptual strategy for understanding—from a developmental perspective—these links between intersections of practices and experiences in context (Spencer et al., 2012). Adolescents of various nationalities, racial backgrounds, and ethnic groups experience a degree of conflict and responsive adaptive processes as they negotiate the multiple facets of personal and ethnic identities (Thompson, Harris, & Clauss-Ehlers, 2013). Within this framework, a major goal of this chapter is to address learning as the processing of national narratives and ideologies in relation to the collective, civic, and occupational identities of adolescents. We make use of the PVEST theoretical framework in order to untangle the complex processes that shape its utility for research efforts intending to deepen understandings of learning as a process embedded within civic, occupational, and social identities shaped within a broader cultural context. We draw upon our understandings of learning as identity processes influenced by different cultural contexts, specifically making comparisons between the United States and Latin America. As our society progresses to include a more global and inclusive narrative, the study of identity, culture, and learning as interacting processes becomes increasingly salient for youth.
