Levels of Ethnic Self-Identification and Social Context

Abstract

The present study examines three forms of ethnic self-identification among Dutch and Turkish children age 10-13 in relation to their school class. We distinguish between three forms: ethnic self-definition, ethnic self-evaluation, and ethnic group introjection. First, the results showed a cumulative dimension of identification: Ethnic group introjection was a higher level of identification than ethnic self-evaluation; both were higher than ethnic self-definition. Second, multilevel analysis showed that salience of ethnicity in self-descriptions was more context-dependent than ethnic self-evaluation, whereas we found no context effects for ethnic group introjection. Furthermore, Turkish children were more likely to refer to their ethnicity in self-description and to indicate a positive ethnic self-evaluation in classes with a high percentage of Turkish members. In contrast, Dutch children were less likely to refer to their ethnicity in self-description when the percentage of Dutch class-mates was high.