Identity Development of East Asian Female International Students with Implications for Second-Language Higher Education

Actual empirical research that explores East Asian female international students' identity development is lacking. Therefore, a qualitative study was conducted to investigate how five East Asian female international students' identities are developed in a second-language environment, the United States. Challenging the conceptual approach that defines identity as something that develops naturally, this study found that the participants' identities were developed mainly by the play of social contexts and individuals. Although most of the participants experienced what they perceived to be constraints on their identities imposed by the American ideology of cultural homogeneity, unlike the claim made by some researchers that marginalized individuals often passively identify with the host society and accept the negatively formulated identities attributed to them, the participants did not uncritically conform to the hegemonic expectations and their given identities. Based on the findings of the study, this paper also presents some suggestions for educators of second-language higher education.