BIGSSS Has a Double-Award Winner! › view all

BIGSSS alumna and affiliated postoc Regina Arant wins 2017's Bremer Studienpreis for the best dissertation in the social sciences and humanities! The prize was awarded by the Bremer Unifreunde and Vice Rector Prof. Andreas Breiter in Bremen's city hall on February 13.

The Bremer Studienpreis is already the second prize for Regina's dissertation after the Mixed-Methods Award by the Division Evaluation & Methods of the German Psychological Society (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Psychologie).

Congratulations, Regina!!

Dissertation Abstract

Acculturation research convincingly demonstrates that moving to a foreign country may not only cause adaptive changes in an individual’s home country identity but may as well initiate the identification with the receiving society. Nevertheless, the knowledge on how identity formation is influenced by the migration process itself and the extent to which it may differ for temporary migrants, such as sojourners, is still fragmented.

To extend existing research, this dissertation employs a longitudinal mixed methods approach. Quantitative longitudinal survey data were collected (N=869), targeting German high school exchange students at three points in time: (a) still in Germany, (b) shortly before the conclusion of their high school year abroad (34 different countries), and (c) three months after their return. A comparative control group of friends not going abroad (N=193) was surveyed at time points (a) and (c).

Additionally, the results of 24 semi-structured interviews conducted approximately one year after the exchange present insights into the meaning of the development and the maintenance of those identities over a total period of 2.5 years. The longitudinal design allows for the direct investigation of the developmental aspects of identity construction as well as the causal direction of effects. The results contribute to the understanding of home and host country identity negotiations as well as their interplay and the role European identity takes by investigating the impact of three triggering events and their qualitative meaning: the anticipation of the exchange, the actual transition to the students’ exchange destination, and the return to Germany.

The dissertation shows that, in contrast to adolescents who stay at home, national identity becomes a salient issue for exchange students and remains relevant after returning home. In contrast, host country identity rises and falls in conjunction with the sojourn, with specific developmental patterns for different destination regions.