An Investigation into the Relationship between African late Adolescents' Identity Formation and their Perceptions of dimensions of Family Functioning in a Rural Eastern Cape Setting

Abstract

Black adolescents, especially, experience the transformation process, which is currently in progress in South Africa, as a difficult challenge. The racial changes and demands in the country have an intense effect on the way young people's identities a re formed. Brighton-Cleghorn ( 1987) stated that it is in such instances where the family structure plays a vital role in the formation and structuring of the young adolescent's identity. Identity formation can be seen as a central developmental task during adolescence, according to Erickson's (1968) stage 5 of his psychosocial theory of personality development. Marcia's (1964, 1966) identity status approach has become one of the successful and most widely used methods in the studying of adolescent identity formation. Marcia's operationalisation of Erikson's concept of identity information, the identity statuses, was used in the present study. The identity statuses represent four ways (Identity Achievement, Identity Moratorium, Identity Foreclosure, Identity Diffusion) of dealing with the identity crisis towards the end of the adolescent years.