REGULAR ARTICLE Syncretic Ethnic Identities in Dilemmatic Fields: Constructing and Reconciling Ethnic Differences in Schooling Jan Gube 1 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019 Abstract This paper integrates dilemmatic field and dialogical self theory to explain ethnic identity as a temporal and cultural construct through shifts in I-positions. The integration of dilemmatic field and dialogical self theory foregrounds the contours of ethnic identity shifts. Such contours emerge in I-positions at multiple contextual levels when a person leverages and transcends supportive and conflicting collective voices, a developmental task representing the negotiation of social criteria in constructing identities. This paper exemplifies how cultural resources—enacted through encounters of cultural differences—contribute to movements in I-positions across institutions that contribute to the reconciliation of an outlier identity. This outlier identity, I propose, is a different but not necessarily a marginalized cultural position. With reference to a participant-produced visually-mediated narrative and thematic analysis, this paper unveils four I-positions mediated by experiences in a schooling trajectory. I conclude by proposing the theoretical implications of these I-positions that link dilemmatic field and dialogical self. I do so by offering clarity to the claim that identities are creative, adaptive, tensioned, transformed and reproduced temporally, thereby underscoring a syncretic I-position in culturally diverse institutional environments. Keywords Dilemmatic field . Dialogical self . Ethnic identities . Ethnic minorities Introduction “Dilemmas are what makes us humans, are the space of freedom in which normalization and normativity do not have full power, as they do not admit the full defeat of the opposite” (Tateo 2018a, p. 10). Integr Psych Behav https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-019-09497-0 * Jan Gube cgube@eduhk.hk 1 The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China