Paper published on the role of dual identifiers in friendship formation.

Lexin Chen’s 1st paper of her dissertation was published in the Journal of Research on Adolescence. She shows that dual identifiers typically do not realize their potential to form interethnic friendships. Although they are popular among both students with and without a migration background, dual identifiers prefer mainly those who also have a migration background as friends.

Chen, L.; Stark, T. H.; Nijs, T.; & Jaspers E. (2026). How does ethnic minority youth’s dual self-identification affect the formation of inter-ethnic ties in friendship networks? Journal of Research on Adolescence.

Abstract

In an increasingly ethnically diverse Europe, this study examined the potential of dual identifiers, those identifying with both a national majority and an ethnic minority, such as German-Turkish individuals, to facilitate integration. As members of two groups, dual identifiers may be in the advantageous position to form more interethnic connections in ethnically diverse social networks. We propose that dual identifiers’ intergroup behavior and their attractiveness as friends depends on how they construct their dual identity, such as identifying with both identities equally (compartmentalization), identifying more with the majority group (dominance-majority), or more with the minority group (dominance-minority).

We analyzed three waves of German school data (averagely 1965 students per wave, 45% dual identifiers). Longitudinal social network analysis (stochastic actor-oriented models) indicated that dual identifiers primarily befriended peers from their mono-minority group rather than forming connections to both groups they belong to. Analyses that took the different constructions of dual identity into account further showed that (1) stronger national identification did not alter friendship preferences but increases acceptance by the majority group; (2) mono-majority identifiers treated dual and mono-minority identifiers similarly; and (3) different types of dual identifiers exhibited similar friendship patterns, suggesting identity construction did not significantly correlate with network preferences. These findings challenge assumptions that dual identifiers can connect different ethnic groups in inter-ethnic networks, highlighting the complexity of interethnic social ties.