“Doing the Indian thing”: The influence of contrasting cultural norms on the decision making and development of second-generation Asian Indian American college students

Abstract

Current research on Asian American college students articulates the impact of different aspects of life on the decision-making and development of Asian American college students. However, Asian Americans are comprised of people of many different ethnicities. Much of the research related to the Asian American population tends to highlight the experiences of East Asian Americans and often fails to disaggregate findings in a way that could accurately explain the unique life experiences of other Asian American ethnicities. The purpose of this study was to use social constructivist grounded theory to explore how contrasting cultural norms influence the decision-making and development of Asian Indian American college students. This study helps bridge a significant gap in the current body of research on the Asian Indian American. Asian Indian American college students are an understudied student population, and thus, they are poorly understood.The research questions that guided this study were: (1) What are key aspects of Asian Indian American students’ lives that influence how they think about American, Indian, and Indian American cultural norms? (2) How do these cultural norms influence the way in which Asian Indian American students make decisions related to their college experience and major life choices? Ten currently enrolled Asian Indian American college students at the University of Maryland participated in this study. Participants were interviewed twice. The first interview focused on life and family history, experiences during K-12 years, and more. The second interview focused on aspects of their understanding of Indian and American cultural identity. During the second interview, participants also presented an artifact they felt was meaningful to them, which represented an aspect of their identity they cherish. Key findings in this study highlighted the influence of family, identity salience of Indian identity, building a hybrid Indian American identity, decision making processes, and assertion of autonomy within participants’ lives inside and outside of college. A theory emerged from the data, which explains the influence of cultural norms on students’ lives and decision making.