Transforming experiences: Re-conceptualising identities and 'non-normative' childhoods

The research aims to contribute to current research and theoretical understandings of how family lives and childhood experiences help to constitute adult lives and to illuminate transnational family practices in ways that will help policy development.
The first two parts of the programme consist of reviews of literature on transnational and multi-ethnic families and on 'experience'. The third part is research on three sets of adults (3 strands) - those who: (1) came from the Caribbean to Britain to re-join their parents in the process of serial migration(N=53); (2) grew up in families of mixed ethnicity(N=41); and (3) sometimes took responsibility for their parents as translators(N=40). The data are predominantly qualitative and psycho-social, in treating psychological and social issues as inextricably linked.
<p>The Transforming Experiences Research project explored the relationships between adults’ childhood experiences and their current and future identities. It aimed to examine the ways in which these childhood experiences have impacted on their identities, and how any such impact is transformed over time.
This is done by examining different paths in which adults from different family backgrounds negotiate their identities as they re-evaluate earlier 'non-normative' experiences. It aims to advance knowledge of the factors that produce adult citizens who are 'unremarkable' in not requiring social work intervention despite having childhood experiences often viewed as non-ideal.

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