Perspectives of Racial-Ethnic Identity Formation

Structural Racism and the Study of Ethnic-Racial Identity

The study of ethnic-racial identity within the field of developmental psychology has undergone a series of transformations in response to a growing awareness of the social-structural and historical contexts and related challenges adolescents face in negotiating this task. Several perspectives have emerged, with each providing unique insights and generating relevant empirical findings.

Three major contributions are:

• Phinney’s model of ethnic identity formation (Phinney, 1990), based on Marcia’s developmental process dimensions of exploration and commitment;
• Extended bioecological models inspired by Bronfenbrenner, including Spencer’s PVEST (Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory), and Garcia Coll and colleagues’ Integrative Model for the Study of Developmental Competencies in Minority Children;
• Multidimensional conceptualizations, which focus on the content and structure of ethnic-racial identity.

Phinney’s model of ethnic identity formation

Phinney’s model of ethnic identity formation is based on Erikson’s and Marcia’s model of identity formation (Phinney, 1990; Syed & Juang, 2014). Through process of exploration and commitment, individuals come to understand and create an ethnic identity. Phinney suggests three stages or statuses with regard to ethnic identity:

1. Unexamined Ethnic Identity. Adolescents and adults who have not been exposed to ethnic identity issues may be in the first stage, unexamined ethnic identity. This is often characterized by a default preference for the dominant culture, or where the individual has given little thought to the question of their ethnic or cultural heritage. This is similar to diffusion in Marcia’s model of identity. Included in this group are also those who have adopted the ethnicity of their parents and other family members with little thought about the issues themselves, similar to Marcia’s foreclosure status (Phinney, 1990).
2. Ethnic Identity Search. Adolescents and adults who are exploring the customs, culture, and history of their ethnic group are in the ethnic identity search stage, similar to Marcia’s moratorium status (Phinney, 1990). Often some event “awakens” a teen or adult to their ethnic group: perhaps a personal experience with prejudice, a highly profiled case in the media, or even a more positive event that highlights the contributions of someone from the individual’s ethnic group. Teens and adults in this stage will immerse themselves in their ethnic culture. For some, “it may lead to a rejection of the values of the dominant culture” (Phinney, 1990, p. 503).
3. Achieved Ethnic Identity. Those who have actively explored their culture are likely to have a deeper appreciation and understanding of their ethnic heritage, resulting in progress toward an achieved ethnic identity (Phinney, 1990). An achieved ethnic identity does not necessarily imply that the individual is highly involved in the customs and values of their ethnic culture. One can be confident in their ethnic identity without wanting to maintain the language or other customs. The development of ethnic identity takes time, with about 25% of youth from ethnic minority backgrounds having explored and resolved these issues by tenth grade (Phinney, 1989). The more ethnically homogeneous the high school, the less adolescents explore and achieve an ethnic identity (Umana-Taylor, 2003). Moreover, even in more ethnically diverse high schools, teens tend to spend more time with their own group, reducing exposure to other ethnicities. This may explain why, for many, college becomes the time of ethnic identity exploration. “[The] transition to college may serve as a consciousness-raising experience that triggers exploration” (Syed & Azmitia, 2009, p. 618). Colleges can facilitate this process by requiring ethnic studies courses as part of their core curricula, and by supporting ethnic studies programs and student centers organized around ethnic affiliation.

Extended bioecological systems models, inspired by Bronfenbrenner.

There are two of these models, the first being the Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (PVEST), developed by Margaret Beale Spencer (2006). PVSET is an identity-focused developmental theory that situates identity formation within the social context, where risk and protective factors act as supports or stressors and create individual vulnerability, based on social position and personal experiences, as well as culture. Individuals play an active role in coping with their perceptions and vulnerability and forming identities that make sense in response to their experiences. PVEST is a model of overlapping and interacting systems. PVEST includes the role of individual experiences and perceptions and active responses and sense-making, and the reciprocal effects of the individual on their context and future experiences.

• The Integrated Model of Garcia-Coll and colleagues incorporates the social and contextual factors of position and structure, risk and promotion, and emphasizes the role of adaptive cultures and the family context, as well as individual child characteristics, in the production of various competencies as positive developmental outcomes for minoritized children and youth (García Coll, Lamberty, Jenkins, McAdoo, Crnic, Wasik, & Garcia, 1996). The Integrated Model includes ethnic-racial identity as both a component of adaptive cultures and as an important positive outcome of development. A large body of research over several decades has applied these extended bioecological models to the study of marginalized, minority, and immigrant youth, and produced solid empirical evidence of the importance of contextual factors and individual responses, as well as evidence of the benefits of strong ethnic-racial socialization and identity (Hughes, Watford, & Del Toro, 2016).

Multidimensional conceptualizations

Multidimensional conceptualizations of ethnic-racial identity have their roots in attempts to create scales to measure ethnic-racial identity. A productive approach has been the five dimensions described by Sellers and colleagues, who developed a questionnaire measure of Black racial identity for use in studies of antecedents, consequences, and optimizing social programs and interventions (Sellers, Smith, Shelton, Rowley, & Chavous, 1998). This approach focuses on the structure and content rather than on the development of ethnic-racial identity. The five dimensions described by Sellers and colleagues are:

1. Centrality or the importance of ethnic-racial identity to self-definition;
2. Salience or importance of ethnic-racial identity in the situation;
3. Public regard or perceptions of others evaluations of one’s ethnic-racial group(s);
4. Private regard or self-evaluations of one’s own ethnic-racial group(s); and
5. Ideology or beliefs about how the group(s) should behave.

Differences have arisen in how these dimensions have been applied to different racial and ethnic groups and how they are considered to be related to developmental processes. For example, the Ethnic Identity Scale, which is widely used in the study of multiple ethnicities, includes two subscales, namely, exploration and resolution, that assess the developmental process of identity, and a third subscale, affirmation, that assesses evaluative identity content (Umaña-Taylor, Yazedjian, & Bámaca-Gómez, 2004).

The Ethnic and Racial Identity in the 21st Century Study Group undertook a comprehensive review and reconceptualization of racial and ethnic identity that resulted in the publication of a new integrative multidimensional conceptualization (Umaña-Taylor, Quintana, Lee, Cross, Rivas-Drake, Schwartz, Syed, Yip, & Seaton, 2014). This new perspective includes the multiple dimensions of both identity content and developmental processes and is applicable to both racial and ethnic categories. An important contribution of the 21st Century Study Group was to combine the concepts of ethnic identity and racial identity into a single hyphenated construct, referred to as ethnic-racial identity. Historically, the concept of race has been applied to the study of US-born blacks and whites, but it has become clear that racial categories are socially constructed when specific characteristics and group affinities are “racialized.” Ethnicity, on the other hand, is a concept applied to a multitude of groups of people with shared cultural heritage, values, traditions, and sometimes language, and is transmitted across generations.

Both race and ethnicity have consequences for social experience and psychological development. They are often overlapping and interdependent. The hyphenated term ethnic-racial identity indicates that both race, as racialized categories within society, and ethnicity, as cultural heritage, are relevant and that they are closely related in terms of similar processes and outcomes. This perspective underscores the principle of intersectionality in that it highlights the specificity of ethnic-racial identities as particular combinations of racialized characteristics, ethnicity, cultural background, and immigration status (Crenshaw, 1989, 1991). It would suggest, for example, that Black adolescents night have very different identities (along with experiences and treatment) if they come from families who have lived in the US for centuries, compared to recent Jamaican or Haitian immigrants. This perspective encourages researchers to acknowledge and examine the wide heterogeneity inside groups that, up to now, may have been combined into categories like “Black,” “Latinx,” or “Asian American.”