Developing an integrated self: Academic and ethnic identities among ethnically diverse college students.

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the development of college students' major selection and whether and how this choice is associated with their developing ethnic identities. Ninety ethnically diverse college students were interviewed in their first, sophomore, and senior years. Mixed-method analyses revealed 5 theoretically consistent pathways of how students configured their ethnic identities and majors over time: low awareness, consciousness-raised, high awareness, integrating, and compartmentalized. These pathways were differentially related to students' ethnicities and majors, suggesting that students' identity experiences are moderated by their chosen majors. The results of this study underscore the contribution of a longitudinal, life-span, approach to identity development for understanding the diversity in identity pathways during college. The findings also have implications for practical purposes, particularly for advising, counseling, and curriculum development.

A two-factor model of ethnic identity exploration: Implications for identity coherence and well-being.

“…Linking ethnic identity processes to a larger sense of identity is consistent with a recent movement to understand ethnic identity within the broader context of identity development (Schwartz, Zamboanga, Weisskirch, & Rodriguez, 2009;Syed, 2010). The effect sizes for the association between the ethnic identity exploration dimensions and general identity coherence and confusion were moderate at best.…”

Ethnic identity, identity coherence, and psychological functioning: Testing basic assumptions of the developmental model.

“…Descriptive statistics for study variables and bivariate correlations among study variables for all three studies are provided in Tables 1 and 2. We tested our research questions through examining a series of path models using full information maximum (Muthén & Muthén, 2007-2010. The analysis consisted of three models.…”

“…Although somewhat counterintuitive, Erikson's (1968) theory indicates that development in specific identity domains (e.g., ethnicity) drives an overall sense of identity, not vice versa, a theoretical proposition that has been supported in subsequent empirical assessments (e.g.. Schachter, 2004;Skorikov & Vondracek, 1998;Syed, 2010). If ethnic identity is a core aspect of ethnic minorities' overall identity, then the degree to which ethnic identity exploration and commitment are predictive of psychological functioning would likely be accounted for by the fact that ethnic identity contributes to a generally coherent identity.…”

An integrated developmental model for studying identity content in context.

“…The processes we highlight throughout the model follow from the Eriksonian concept of identity configurations (Hammack, Thompson, & Pilecki, 2009;Schachter, 2004;Syed, 2010).…”