How Parenting Facilitates Adolescents' Tricultural Identity Development: A Mixed Methods Collective Case Study of Tridimensionally Acculturating Black Jamaican Immigrant Families.

This article examines the role of maternal socialization in the tricultural identity development of Jamaican immigrant adolescents in the United States, who navigate tridimensional (3D) acculturation involving Jamaican, African American, and European American cultures. Using a mixed methods collective case study of seven Black adolescents (ages 14–18) and their Jamaican-born mothers during the COVID-19 and Whiteness pandemics, the study identifies four adolescent profiles—Triculturals, Reluctant Majority Culture Assimilators, Majority Culture Rejectors, and Minority Culture Assimilators—each characterized by distinct acculturation patterns, psychological adaptation, academic achievement, and maternal socialization strategies. Findings highlight that all adolescents maintained strong Jamaican private identities supported by authoritative or authoritative-adjacent maternal parenting, which fostered autonomy in navigating U.S. cultural affiliations, and that mothers employed multicultural socialization responsive to the dual pandemic context. The study underscores the complexity of tricultural identity construction in racially stratified contexts and the nuanced ways immigrant mothers facilitate their adolescents' cultural integration and adaptation.