Profiles of Adolescent Identity at the Intersection of Ethnic/Racial Identity, American Identity, and Subjective Social Status

Abstract

Ethnic/racial minority adolescents face the task of forming an identity in relation to their ethnic/racial group as well as to American society, while also developing awareness of their social status relative to salient social groups. Whereas previous studies have investigated individual social identity dimensions or examined how objective measures of ethnicity/race and socioeconomic status intersect, studies that take a holistic and person-centered approach to considering various configurations of multiple social identities with subjective measures have been less common. The current study addresses these gaps and explores profiles of ethnic/racial identity, American identity, and subjective social status among ethnic/racial minority adolescents. Next, differences in discrimination experiences, mental health and academic outcomes across these profiles were examined. Three distinct identity profiles emerged from the data-"weakly identified," "high ethnic/racial identity moderate American identity," and "moderate ethnic/racial identity and American identity." The "weakly identified" demonstrated the highest levels of past discrimination experiences and depressive symptoms, while the "moderate ethnic/racial identity and American identity" group reported the lowest levels of school engagement. Interpretation of the profiles and associated outcomes and implications are discussed.

Developmental Interplay between Ethnic, National, and Personal Identity in Immigrant Adolescents

“…Future research should also examine identity development processes across multiple contexts as permitted by ecological-momentary sampling. Another promising avenue for future research centres on using person-centred approaches, as opposed to variable-centered ones on which the present study relied, to represent distinct constellations of personal, ethnic, and national identity during adolescence (Cheon et al, 2020).…”

The role of ethnic–racial and national identities on U.S. Latino adolescents’ global identity coherence and adjustment.

“…For ethnic–racial minoritized youth, identity formation involves efforts to integrate into their global, general sense of identity (“global identity,” hereafter) their social identities that are derived from their ethnic–racial group memberships (i.e., ethnic–racial identity [ERI]), and their connection to the country in which they reside (i.e., national identity; Jugert et al, 2020; Knight et al, 2018). Furthermore, developing an ERI and a national identity has been positively associated with psychosocial adjustment (Cheon et al, 2020; Meca et al, 2017). However, the extent to which these two social identities simultaneously inform youth’s global identity coherence and, in turn, youth’s psychosocial adjustment is unclear.…”

‘White Child Gone Bankrupt’—The Intersection of Race and Poverty in Youth Fathered by UN Peacekeepers

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