Adolescent Indo-Trinidadian girls' aspirations suggest simultaneous adherence to and departure from demands of 'appropriate' womanhood. Their views reflect a crosscutting range of reasons for which girls are valued and the pleasures of succeeding at belonging in divergent spaces. The challenge of finding the 'right' balance creates feelings of ambivalence about managing competing imperatives. Girls' work out tensions among ideals both across and within different spheres of their lives and may, therefore, differently negotiate divergent spheres and to hold to particular ideals that, nonetheless, they contest in practice.

There appear to be shifting combinations of 'appropriate' assertion and accommodation. Girls' aspirations, in areas such as education, employment, marriage and family, suggest that mixed and ambiguous messages convey values of equality and 'choice' while compelling girls to seek approval through notions of 'responsibility' and by 'appropriately' balancing 'feminine' and 'masculine' qualities. They also reveal how expanded opportunities have shaped girls' considerations regarding their future roles and identities.