A mixed-methods school-based exploration of diverse adolescents’ ethnic/racial identities and related academic and interpersonal experiences

• In Event: Ethnic Racial Identity

Abstract

Developmental research about adolescents’ ethnic-racial identities (ERIs) has primarily used quantitative methods and focused on youth of color, whose positive feelings about their ethnicity/race (i.e. affirmative private regard) is a resiliency tool for coping with discrimination and promotes school success (Rivas-Drake et al., 2014). We know less about how diverse youth in shared school contexts, including White youth, experience their ERIs in their own words, how adolescents experience constructs that have been quantitatively linked to ERI such as academic success and academic stress, and how adolescents describe their ERIs in relation to peer experiences. Using Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a foundation, that implores researchers to examine how the perpetuation of White “perspectivelessness” contributes to White privilege and systemic racism, we examined ERIs among a diverse group of high-achieving high school students in shared school environments (Crenshaw, 1988; Harris et al., 2012). We asked (1) how do adolescents describe their ERI centrality and regard, and how might these experiences differ between White adolescents and adolescents of color?, (2) how do adolescents experience academic stress and barriers to academic success in relation to ERI?, and (3) how do adolescents experience interpersonal peer experiences related to ERI at school including racism?
Data from 76 in-depth adolescent interviews (64.7% female, Mage = 15.78 years) were analyzed using mixed qualitative-quantitative methods, which included inductive thematic analysis and statistical comparisons of how code applications varied across two groups of interest. Theme one revealed that White students displayed lower ERI centrality (χ2 = 9.43, p = .002), higher affirmative public regard (χ2 = 12.05, p < .001), and more mixed private regard (χ2 = 6.93, p = .008), which included colorblind and critically conscious language. Adolescents of color displayed higher ERI centrality, more affirmative private regard (χ2 = 12.05, p < .001), and more non-affirmative public regard (χ2 = 5.83, p = .01). Theme two revealed that all students described their ERIs as neutrally or positively impacting academic success, most commonly due to academically transferable skills (e.g. language skills) and ethnicity/race-specific values (e.g. resilience); none saw their ERI as a barrier to academic achievement. Theme three revealed that students of color were more likely to report peer-directed racism at school (χ2 = 3.60, p =.058) than White students.
We found meaningfully divergent ERI experiences among adolescents of color and White adolescents at school. We provide novel qualitative information elucidating previously supported and markedly different ERI centrality and regard patterns among adolescents of color and White adolescents, including CRT concepts among White adolescents. We also contribute to the literature with qualitative findings about why high-achieving adolescents view their ERIs as neutrally impacting or facilitating their academic success. Adolescents’ school experiences underscore the importance of conceptualizing ERI as contributing to both academic and social experiences, the latter of which includes peer-directed racism. Attending to the ways in which racism is perpetuated, including through colorblind beliefs among peer groups, is of upmost importance to prevention of racism in schools and to support positive adolescent ERI development.

Authors

• G. Alice Woolverton, Suffolk University
  Presenting Author

• Amy Kerivan Marks, Wellesley College
  Non-Presenting Author