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In Childhood and Society (1965), Erik Erikson describes adolescence as an identity formation phase. The child reaches adolescence with a long history of struggle and growth. Most important is the development of a sense of self, of personal identity. The goal of the present paper is to identify the identity construction process by “looked-after” youth (grown up in the child protection system). Based on James Marcia (1980), self is defined as an internal, self-constructed, dynamic organization of drives, abilities, believes and individual history. The research was developed around the question: how is personal identity build up by adolescents who grown up in the residential centre low individualized care, side by side with many alike? Data were analyzed based on 30 interviews with youngsters who lived in residential care and 6 interviews with care personnel. Results demonstrate the difficulties of young people to talk about their identities when they were not treated as individuals along their childhood. The paper points out the needs and difficulties of the interviewee related to social abilities and planning for the future.
Keywords: residential care, adolescent, identity
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