The Sense of Identity of Adolescents:

The Life After Disasters

Ella Suzanna

Presented in Malikussaleh International Conference on Multidisciplinary Studies

Lhokseumawe, 26-27 November 2017
 Background of The Study
The Impact of the Disasters:
13 years ago Aceh become a
1. About 2,242 children become
concern of most countries around the
orphans (UNICEF, 2005)
world because it went through 2
2. Many of the young survivors
major DISASTERS:
suffered from mental and
1. Extensive political conflict between
emotional problems (Hestiyanti,
Government of Indonesia and
2006; Dawsons, 2011; Hartini,
Free Aceh Movement (GAM) from
2010)
1976-2005
3. Some orphans had to live in
2. The Massive earthquake and
orphanage and Islamic Boarding
Tsunami on 26 December 2004
School (pesantren)

Research suggests that experiencing traumatic events can delay the normal developmental process in children, as they
have to accomplish all the developmental tasks in each stage of development whilst they are in traumatic condition (Nader,
2008)
Yet, each children has diverse ways in dealing with trauma
Children who have good coping skill along with good social support from their environment will likely to recover faster,
whereas children who have difficulties to manage their trauma will need longer time to recover (Price & Lento, 2001)
 Statement of the Problems
The Children are
Adolesccents Now
Development task:
The children survivors Sense of Identity
who were exposed to
armed conflict and The major task of Lack of Study
tsunami 13 years ago Adolescence phase
now become The importance of
is The formation of a Studies about sense
Adolescents/ this study
consistent and clear of identity among
Teenagers and Young sense of identity normal adolescents To investigate the sense of
Adults are countless, Identity of Acehnese
Adolescents - who have lived
whereas studies about under difficult situations (i.e.
it among disaster have no parents, live in
survivors are still very poverty, have past trauma)-
to see how they describe
limited themselves, whether the
trauma issues will still
emerge in their self-
descriptions or not, whether
their identity are different
from the normal
adolescents who have not
gone through the same
traumatic experiences in life
Research Objective Definition of Terms Definition of Terms

To describe the Sense of Identity: Adolescents:

adolescents
All the attributes that Those who aged
sense of identity
the adolescents eighteen to twenty who
perceive about were exposed to war
themselves related to and tsunami
their experiences in the approximately 12 years
past, present, and ago and are currently
future studying in pesantren

The Research
Method
Research design: the current study employed a qualitative research method to collect and analyzed the
data

Location: this research was conducted in two pesantren in Banda Aceh and Lhokseumawe
Participants: 18 adolescents (aged 18-20 years old) who live in those two pesantren, who had directly
experienced one or both disasters

Data collection: (1) semi structured interviews with the adolescents, (2) journal entries, and (3) interview with
the school teachers and religious teachers
 Result and discussion
Description About
Self
They describe themselves as
being more mature and
independent.
Means that they are more
mature in managing emotions,
become more sensitive about
the environment, enhance more
positive emotion and behavior,
as well as have more life
experiences.
They also indicate themselves
as independent because they
could manage problems by
themselves, acomplish many
tasks autonomously and
deciding their preference on
their own
Although they had experienced
several severe traumatic events
(e.g. witnessing parents death,
enduring war related violence,
drowning in the water), currently
trauma issues is not found to be
the central to their description of
self
Description Future
Orientation
Most Adolescents have clear vision about
their goals in the future, which is related to
their preferred occupation, and they certainly
appear to know how to achieve their goals.
The findings in this study support the idea that
most participants who have clear picture
about their future, usually use positive
thinking and problem solving coping method if
they have difficulties (Kroger, 2004)
The adolescents in this study is also found to
have great sense of religiosity, and have
encouragement by their significant others as
well. This support the previous study which
reported that religiosity and spirituality provide
much contribution to adolescents identity
formation (Cobb, 2007), and therefore they
have achieved full identity status (Ahmed,
2003)
The religious identity is served as a standard
to select an apropriate occupation in their life
and to define what they become in the future.
They will think deeply before making a choice,
whether the job contradicts or not with the
Islamic way of life
Evaluation of Self
and Others
When asked to describe their identity if
compared to other adolescents, the
participants in this study stated that they
are different. They felt different in terms
of knowledge, morality, autonomy,
economic status, and family condition.
It is interesting how the findings in this
study differ from Harters (2006) study
that focused the most influential factor
that contributes to the adolescents self-
evaluation is physical appearance.
Meanwhile, none of the Acehnese
adolescents participated in this study
mentioned about the importance of
physical appearance in their evaluation
of self.
Moreover, most of them revealed about
how they feel better than other teenagers
at their age. They feel more positive in
terms of having more Islamic knowledge,
are protected from peers bad influences,
and having good and polite behavior due
to living in pesantren.
Conclusion
The eighteen participants in this study are the adolescents who are in the process of
developing their self identity like any other adolescents.
But they are not exactly like the ordinary adolescents. They are adolescents who have
gone through several severe traumatic experiences. They have experienced the loss of
parents, the closest family, and other relatives.
They are also adolescents who have to live in limited resources even deprivation. And
they also face other daily hassles as experienced by other young people at their age.
Nevertheless, they are different. Because, they have been able to overcome all the
difficulties they face, although requiring great efforts and through uneven pathways as
well.
Although there are one or two teenagers who feel inadequate, they strive for life and
they do not easily give up.
There are a lot of factors that help them to survive and eventually manage to function
well in life, i.e. a strong belief in God, the feeling of gratitude and thankfulness for
whatever happened to them and continuous encouragement from others around them.
But the most important thing that makes them able to thrive from the hardship is 'hope'.
Hope for parents happiness, hope to have a better life in the future, and hope to be able
to help other young children who are less fortunate than them.
Those kinds of things that make them feel that their identity is different from other
adolescents in the world. This makes them indeed resilient
THANK YOU