A Lifespan Model of Ethnic-Racial Identity Development

• In Event: 1-130 - A Lifespan Perspective of Ethnic-Racial Identity: Underlying Myths, Conceptual Expansions, and Opportunities for Application

Integrative Statement

Existing theory and research on ethnic-racial identity (ERI) has focused on adolescence (Umaña-Taylor et al., 2014), with few attempts to extend specific ERI models to adulthood (e.g., Parham, 1989; Worrell, 2008) or to a prequel version of ERI during childhood (Bernal, Knight, Garza, Ocampo, & Cota, 1990; Quintana, 1998). Given that existing models tend to focus on one developmental period, it is unclear how the dimensions of ERI unfold, as well as the factors that inform these processes over time. To address these gaps, the current paper presents a lifespan model of ERI from infancy into adulthood that includes a description of the dimensions of ERI that emerge across developmental periods, as well as the individual, contextual, and developmental factors that inform the identity-relevant experiences and meaning-making associated with ERI development across the lifespan (see Figure).

To chart the progression of development across the lifespan, we hypothesize that ethnic-racial priming during infancy prompts nascent awareness of ethnicity and race that becomes differentiated across childhood and through adulthood into different dimensions of ERI. We propose that the dimensions of ERI are both implicit and explicit, and involve attitudes, behaviors, knowledge, affiliation, and awareness. Across different developmental periods (i.e., infancy, early childhood, middle childhood, adolescence, and adulthood), the specific aspects of these five dimensions are prompted and shaped by a complex interplay of contextual and individual factors. Contextual factors (e.g., family, neighborhood, peers; Bronfenbrenner, 1979) interact with individual factors (e.g., social class, gender, race, ethnicity, skin tone; Garcia Coll et al., 1996) that have important social and sociological meaning.

A complex interplay of ecological factors outside the individual but within their context, along with the social meanings attached to the individual’s social addresses and personal characteristics, create identity-relevant experiences. Individuals make meaning of the identity-relevant experiences with their developmental (i.e., perceptual and cognitive) capacities. As the infant transitions into childhood and into adolescence and adulthood, the developmental capacities expand, which allows the developing individual to use more complex processes to make meaning of their identity-relevant experiences. Although the cognitive capacities may impose constraints on what meaning can be made from the identity-relevant experiences, we also propose that as individuals’ developmental capacities mature, they may revisit the identity-relevant experiences and dimensions they built in previous developmental periods, and engage in more complex forms of meaning-making and subsequent adjustment in their ERI.

By proposing a lifespan conceptual model of ERI, the current paper will highlight the developmental periods that are most underdeveloped and in need of future research. The model will highlight existing gaps in terminology, measurement, and dimensions of ERI that become clearer when laid out across the lifespan, as opposed to exclusively one developmental period. It is our goal that the introduction of this model will unite disparate work that has occurred in developmental silos, and stimulate future research and programming on ERI across the lifespan.

Authors

• Chelsea L. Derlan, Virginia Commonwealth University
  Presenting Author

• Christy Michelle Byrd, North Carolina State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Stephen Quintana, University of WI
  Non-Presenting Author

• Catherine Anicama, University of California, Berkeley
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jason Dyer, UC Santa Cruz
  Non-Presenting Author

• Adriana Umaña-Taylor, Harvard University
  Non-Presenting Author