Siblings Yet not of the Same Suit: Self-Perception of Ethnic Identity Among Children of Russian-German Aussiedler Families

Abstract

The children of Russian-German Aussiedler families are this study’s focus of attention. Thus, the major aim of this study is to deal with differences between Aussiedler siblings in regard to the formation of their ethnic and linguistic identity. Hereby, two purposes are pursued: (1) to determine whether Aussiedler children resolve their identities in order to achieve a bicultural identity, or whether they identify themselves with one culture over the other, (2) to demonstrate which factors contribute to either a similar or a different development. Moreover, this thesis rests on some basic concepts of Language Biography Research, including also an introspective view of the author. Data for this study was collected through a qualitative case study by using semi-structured interviews with three sibling pairs, in total six participants. These were gathered by the snowball method. Accordingly, one-on-one interviews were conducted entirely in German and lasted from 20 to 30 minutes. The interviews were recorded with a digital voice recorder and transcribed afterwards. Data analysis was then conducted in several phases, including a simple description of the participants’ relationships, tendencies towards identity formation as well as a comparative analysis in order to find out about similarities and differences. On the basis of the results of this research, it can be concluded and confirmed that there is indeed a perceivable difference in the self-perception of ethnic identity among siblings of Russian-German Aussiedler families. Furthermore, it can be confirmed that the majority of this study’s participants rather choose a bilingual and bicultural identity than identify themselves with one culture over the other. Factors which contribute to a similar development are the shared environment, thus parenting, the language of environment and school and sometimes also a very close age gap. However, factors which lead to a different identity development are quite various. Although those are not very secure aspects, gender and age gap can be considered as possible reasons. Moreover, personality, birth order and the level of education also play a considerable role in identity formation. Most importantly, it has been found out that the social environment and interpersonal contacts contribute most and substantially to the formation of siblings’ identities.