Stages of Ethnic Identity Development in Minority Group Adolescents

TLDR

The study used in-depth interviews and questionnaire measures with 91 American‑born tenth‑grade students from Asian‑American, Black, Hispanic, and White backgrounds in integrated urban high schools, coding minority participants into one of three ethnic identity stages. Approximately half of minority students were in diffusion/foreclosure, a quarter in moratorium, and a quarter had achieved ethnic identity, with the achieved group showing the highest ego identity and psychological adjustment, and the developmental process was similar across groups despite differing specific issues.

Abstract

Stages of ethnic identity development were assessed through in-depth interviews with 91 Asian-American, Black, Hispanic, and White tenth-grade students, all American born, from integrated urban high schools. Subjects were also given questionnaire measures of ego identity and psychological adjustment. On the basis of the interviews, minority subjects were coded as being in one of three identity stages; White subjects could not be reliably coded. Among the minorities, about one-half of the subjects had not explored their ethnicity (diffusion/foreclosure); about one-quarter were involved in exploration (moratorium); and about one-quarter had explored and were committed to an ethnic identity (ethnic identity achieved). Ethnic-identity-achieved subjects had the highest scores on an independent measure of ego identity and on psychological adjustment. The process of identity development was similar across the three minority groups, but the particular issues faced by each group were different.