The aim of the present study was to explore how young people negotiate and make meaning of their ethnic identities in two macro-contexts, the U.S and Sweden. The Master Narrative Framework (McLean & Syed, 2015) was used to explore how individual identities were negotiated in interaction with master narratives, which are culturally shared stories of what is expected or normative within a society. Studying how young people experience that their stories deviate from the master narratives, we sought to understand differences between Swedish and American youth in how they a) describe their self-defined ethnic identities and b) negotiate their personal ethnic narratives in relation to master narratives within the two macro-contexts.

Using a qualitative narrative approach, we analyzed narratives written by 59 immigrants (1st and 2nd generation) and nonimmigrants youth (age 16-25) from the U.S. and Sweden. The two samples were matched in terms of age, gender, immigrant status, and countries of origin. Results showed that the U.S. participants were more likely to define themselves using racial and multi-ethnic categories, whereasSwedish participants relied on national labels. U.S. participants showed clear evidence of deviations, but also found belonging insocial groups from those deviations, while Swedish participants showed less deviations and little evidence of group belonging.The results indicate a mismatch between societal level values and individual identities in both countries. While Sweden is a more multicultural society with an official aim of integration, either-or identities were described at the individual level. The U.S., on the other hand, is more of an assimilationist society and the U.S participants expressed being able to define themselves with integrated, multicultural immigrant identities. The findings highlight the contextual nature of identity development within an immigrant context.