Ethnic and Racial Identity in Adolescence: Implications for Psychosocial, Academic, and Health Outcomes

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Abstract

The construction of an ethnic or racial identity is considered an important developmental milestone for youth of color. This review summarizes research on links between ethnic and racial identity (ERI) with psychosocial, academic, and health risk outcomes among ethnic minority adolescents. With notable exceptions, aspects of ERI are generally associated with adaptive outcomes. ERI are generally beneficial for African American adolescents' adjustment across all three domains, whereas the evidence is somewhat mixed for Latino and American Indian youth. There is a dearth of research for academic and health risk outcomes among Asian American and Pacific Islander adolescents. The review concludes with suggestions for future research on ERI among minority youth.

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The Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure: A New Scale for Use with Diverse Groups

J. Phinney (1992)

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The influence of ethnic discrimination and ethnic identification on African American adolescents' school and socioemotional adjustment.

Carol A Wong, Jacquelynne Eccles, Arnold Sameroff (2003)

Do experiences with racial discrimination at school predict changes in African American adolescents' academic and psychological functioning? Does African American ethnic identity buffer these relations? This paper addresses these two questions using two waves of data from a longitudinal study of an economically diverse sample of African American adolescents living in and near a major East Coast metropolis. The data were collected at the beginning of the 7th grade and after the completion of the 8th grade. As expected, experiences of racial discrimination at school from one's teachers and peers predicts declines in grades, academic ability self-concepts, academic task values, mental health (increases in depression and anger, decreases in self-esteem and psychological resiliency), and increases in the proportion of one's friends who are not interested in school and who have problem behaviors. A strong, positive connection to one's ethnic group (our measure of ethnic identity) reduced the magnitude of the association of racial discrimination experiences with declines in academic self-concepts, school achievement, and perception of friends' positive characteristics, as well as the association of the racial discrimination experiences with increases in problem behaviors.