Development of a support for Black Lives Matter measure among racially–ethnically diverse college students

Abstract

This paper developed and validated a new measure of support for the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement among a racially–ethnically diverse sample of college students. The measure focuses on the movement’s principles of Black liberation, intersectionality, and alliance building. Participants included 1934 college students (75% female) from a large public Southwestern university. The factor structure was supported by exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, resulting in an 18‐item measure, Support for Black Lives Matter, with two underlying factors. Black Liberation includes 12 items representing support for BLM because of awareness of and challenging structural inequality and racism experienced by Black individuals. Intersectional Values includes six items representing support for BLM because it embraces and affirms marginalized populations within the Black community, especially disabled Blacks, queer Blacks, Black women, and Black families with children. Evidence of criterion‐related validity was demonstrated with racial group differences in support of BLM factors. Evidence of convergent validity was supported by significant positive correlations between support for BLM factors and critical consciousness (including awareness of racism, classism, and heterosexism), and negative correlations between support for BLM factors and subtle racist attitudes toward Blacks. Measurement invariance was evident between White, Black, Asian American, Latinx, and Multiracial participants. Implications and suggestions for use of the new measure are discussed.

Asian American college students’ support for Black Lives Matter: Role of internalizing the model minority myth and critical reflection.

“…Responses were measured on a 5-point Likert-type scale (1 = Strongly Oppose to 5 = Strongly Support ). Internal reliability estimates in the original validation study were .94 for BLM-Black Liberation and .92 for BLM-Diversity Values among racial minority college students, including Asian Americans (Yoo et al, 2021).…”

“…The Support for BLM Measure-Short (Yoo et al, 2021) is a 12-item measure including two subscales that assess support for goals of the BLM movement: BLM-Black Liberation and BLM-Diversity Values . BLM-Black Liberation (6 items) measured support for BLM because the movement raises awareness and challenges the structural inequality and racism experienced by Black individuals (e.g., “The Black Lives Matter movement argues there is a disproportionate impact of state and police violence on Black lives”).…”

Sexual Identities and Reactions to Black Lives Matter

“…ANES unfortunately does not offer a “queer” option for a sexual identity marker, even though queer identified individuals seem to challenge racial identities more than people who accept the lesbian or gay classifications (Goldberg et al, 2020 ; Worthen, 2020 ). The use of a scale that captures the approval of the intersectional goals of BLM might alter perceptions of BLM among sexual minorities (Yoo et al, 2021 ). Finally, a study of intersecting racial-sexual identities could be informative because LGB and heterosexual people of color might have different relationships to the Black community than White people of their same sexual identity (Battle & Harris, 2013 ; Sarno, et al, 2015 ; VanDaalen & Santos, 2017 ).…”

“…There is some evidence that Black and Latinx Americans identified as lesbian, gay, or bisexual at slightly higher rates than white individuals (Bridges & Moore, 2018 ; Herek et al, 2010 ) and Black and Latinx queer people protested racism more often than Black and Latinx heterosexuals (Battle & Harris, 2013 ; Terriquez, 2015 ). White individuals generally preferred traditional racial rules and expressed more reservations over BLM (Hamel et al, 2020 ; Yoo et al, 2021 ), while Black people generally joined more BLM protests than whites (Arora & Stout, 2019 ; Holt & Sweitzer, 2018 ; Intravia et al, 2018 ; Riley & Peterson, 2020 ). Other studies suggested that Latinx and Asian-American sentiments were somewhere between the Black/White divide (Corral, 2020 ; Kilgo & Mourão, 2019 ; Yellow Horse et al, 2021 ) and that the increased percentage of racial minorities among LGB populations might produce greater LGB support of BLM.…”

“…Perceptions of BLM can also be related a person’s understanding of heterosexism and heteronormativity. College students are often more supportive of BLM when they notice high levels of discrimination against lesbians and gay people (Yoo et al, 2021 ). Antiracist sensibilities can also vary by person’s sexual identity.…”