Who am I?: A case study of a multicultural boy’s identity

Along with increasing local and global multiculturalism, many scholars are interested in understanding how multicultural children negotiate their identity and their ideological becoming in the sociocultural environment. This study (delves into) one 9-year-old Canadian-Korean boy’s understanding of his identity as a multicultural child while living in Seoul, South Korea. I used Bakhtin’s dialogic theory of language in this inquiry. I also used a narrative case study methodology to understand the diverse ways that he represents his sociocultural worlds by recounting his events or actions within and across cultures. I interviewed him in an in-depth way for three months. The main results were as follows. First, identity is a continuous, enacted, and negotiated process of becoming in different spaces and places. Second, one’s identity is strongly influenced by languages that one uses within his sociocultural contexts. Third, a child can be an active inquirer who voluntarily expresses, voices, and represents his diverse identities. These findings suggest that understanding a 9-year-old Canadian-Korean boy’s dynamic identity construction as a multicultural child is an important way to understand his diverse positionings, values, and beliefs in his social world. More qualitative inquiries of multicultural children and their voices are needed to better understand how multicultural children perceive, negotiate, and construct their identity in multiple sociocultural environments.