Ethnic Identity, Network Centrality, and School Climate

• In Event: 2-180 - Links Between Ethnic-Racial Identity, Intergroup Relations, & Academic Adjustment: Explanations From Social Network Perspectives

Integrative Statement

Ethnic and racial identity (ERI) has been positively associated with youth outcomes (Umaña-Taylor et al., 2014). The peer context has been shown to influence the development of ERI through features such as the diversity of one’s friend group (Rivas-Drake et al., 2017) and friend’s ERI levels (Santo et al., 2017). Yet, there is evidence to suggest that beyond the features of an individual’s immediate peer group their position within the larger grade-wide network may play an important role in social outcomes, such as ERI (Neal, 2007). Therefore, the current study asks how network centrality moderates the association between ERI and school climate.
Data are from 168 7th grade students in two middle schools located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Two percent of the students self-identified as Arabic/Middle Eastern, 15% as Black, 9% as Latinx, 10% as mixed race, 7% as Native American, 51% as White, and 7% as “other”. Students completed surveys in the fall and spring for a larger study on peer relationships in racially diverse schools. Interpersonal interactions were assessed with items from the school interracial climate scale (e.g., “I talk to students from groups other than my own only when I have to”; Gaertner et al., 1994). Ethnic identity was assessed with the revised Multigroup Ethnic Identity measure (MEIM-R; Phinny & Ong, 2007), which includes two dimensions: exploration (e.g., “I have often talked to other people in order to learn more about my ethnic group”) and commitment (e.g., “I feel a strong attachment towards my own racial/ethnic group”). Friendship nominations were used to calculate fall social network centrality using eigenvector centrality, which measures one’s influence within the network through their connections (Bonacich, 1972). A series of linear regression models, controlling for gender and school, assessed associations between ethnic identity and school climate; network centrality was tested as a moderator of the associations.
Fall ERI exploration and network centrality scores were negatively associated with spring reports of school interracial climate; there was no main effect for ERI commitment. There was a significant interaction between network centrality and both ERI exploration ( = 0.658, p = 0.007) and ERI commitment ( = 0.737, p = 0.010). Plotting the interactions revealed similar patterns of moderation (Figures 1 and 2). For students less central to the grade-wide network higher levels of ERI commitment and exploration were associated with lower interracial climate scores. In contrast, for students more central in the network higher levels of ERI commitment and exploration were associated with higher interracial climate scores.
Aligning with previous research, findings suggest ERI remains an important protective factor for students central in the grade-wide network. But as students become less connected to their peers increasing levels of ERI may serve to alert students to disparities within the school climate without providing necessary relational supports to process such experiences. Results suggest that in order to create equitable learning environments for students the relational context in which ethnic and racial identity is being explored needs to be considered and supported.

Authors

• Haley E Johnson, University of Virginia - Curry School of Education
  Presenting Author

• Miray D. Seward, University of Virginia
  Non-Presenting Author

• Joanna Williams, University of Virginia
  Non-Presenting Author