A relational model of understanding adult Korean adoptees' ethnic identity formation in the United States

Abstract

While adult Korean adoptees suffer from injustice that occurs out of sexism and racism, and that impacts ethnic identity formation destructively, this dissertation argues that expressing human agency through the action of responses to relationship is essential in constructing a healthy ethnic identity. Integrating the thought of Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki and John Shotter, this project maintains that an expression of human agency involves resistance against injustice and participation in new possibilities that take place in each moment in relationship. To live as persons who express human responsibility requires making choices and reconstructing ethnic identities.