Identity and Social Networks

Cynthia Baiqing Zhang examines the interaction between identity and the social network of relations through interviews with 60 U.S. graduate students from mainland China. She argues the students’ new religious and ethnic identities and old family and partner identities shape and are shaped by their networks.

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Through in-depth interviews with 60 U.S. graduate students from mainland China, Cynthia Baiqing Zhang explores how identity and social network influence each other and how identity shapes behavior. Zhang’s study concludes the sociocultural contexts in the host culture of the U.S. impacts religious identity acquisition and networks of social relation. Zhang further analyzes the ways in which the transfer from the racially/ethnically homogeneous China to the diverse U.S. informs the students’ Chinese ethnic identity and networks and how it transcends the divide between the Chinese and non-Chinese communities. Finally, Zhang argues the juggling of multiple identities requires changes in identity meanings and corresponding behavior on the part of the students.