Toward a New Understanding of Ethnic‐Racial Settings for Ethnic‐Racial Identity Development

Abstract

The purpose of this conceptual article is to advance theory and research on one critical aspect of the context of ethnic-racial identity (ERI) development: ethnic-racial settings, or the objective and subjective nature of group representation within an individual's context. We present a new conceptual framework that consists of four dimensions: (1) perspective (that settings can be understood in both objective and subjective terms); (2) differentiation (how groups are defined in a setting); (3) heterogeneity (the range of groups in a setting); and (4) proximity (the distance between the individual and the setting). Clarifying this complexity is crucial for advancing a more coherent understanding of how ethnic-racial settings are related to ERI development.

Linking self and society: Identity and the immigrant experience in two macro-contexts

“…Such studies have great utility as they can help to identify the aspects of acculturation that are common across contexts and those that are specific to a given context. Some relevant studies have attempted to draw links between societal and individual level factors, using "objective" markers of societal context (see Syed, Juang, & Svensson, 2018). For example, Yağmur and van de Vijver (2012) examined acculturative processes of Turkish immigrants in four countries that differed in terms of attitudes and policies related to immigrants and/or diversity, testing for differences in individual-level attitudes across the four countries.…”

School track and ethnic classroom composition relate to the mainstream identity of adolescents with immigrant background in Germany, but not their ethnic identity

“…A limited number of studies have examined the role of peers in cultural identity, indicating that friendships and peer networks affect adolescents' ethnic identity (e.g., Santos, Kornienko, & Rivas-Drake, 2017;Syed & Juan, 2012) and mainstream identity (e.g., Agirdag et al, 2011;Schulz & Leszczensky, 2016). Recent accounts emphasise the importance of the ethnic makeup of contexts in cultural identity formation (Syed et al, 2018) and propose that the ethnic composition of the school context affects students' school adjustment (Graham, 2018). Several aspects characterise the ethnic composition of a classroom.…”

“…Recently, scholars call to take greater account of social contexts in research on cultural identity (Echols, Ivanich, & Graham, 2018;Seaton, Quintana, Verkuyten, & Gee, 2017;Syed, Juang, & Svensson, 2018;Umaña-Taylor et al, 2014). Previous work found different aspects of social contexts to be linked with cultural identity, including experiences of perceived rejection and discrimination by the larger society (Suárez-Orozco, Motti-Stefanidi, Marks, & Katsiaficas, 2018;Verkuyten & Yildiz, 2007) and of ethnic socialisation in the family (Phinney, Romero, Nava, & Huang, 2001;Umaña-Taylor, Bhanot, & Shin, 2006).…”

“…Similarly, students with specific cultural identities could select into classrooms with specific ethnic makeups 2 , for instance, due to the clustering of students with particular cultural identities and ethnicities in neighbourhoods. Moreover, peers become an increasingly important source of social influence during adolescence (e.g., Osterman, 2000) and current accounts view the ethnic composition of social contexts as crucial for cultural identity formation (for an overview, see Syed et al, 2018). Hence, the ethnic makeup of their classroom could affect adolescents' cultural identity (Graham, 2018), but theoretical accounts make dissentient suggestions on the direction of effects and in terms of the aspect of ethnic composition (e.g., the proportion of co-ethnics or the ethnic diversity) they view as most important.…”

Changes in Turkish- and resettler-origin adolescents’ acculturation profiles of identification: A three-year longitudinal study from Germany

“…A possible solution for future work would be to extend quantitative analyses by mixed-methods approaches to more fully examine content and meaning of ethnic minority adolescents' identity choices (cf. Syed, Juang, & Svensson, 2018).…”