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Ethnic Identity in Diverse Schools: Preadolescents’ Private Regard and Introjection in relation to Classroom Norms and Composition

  • Empirical Research
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Abstract

Ethnic identity plays a key role in the normative development of children and adolescents, and efforts to provide a positive and safe environment for ethnic identity benefit from an understanding of its context-dependency. Following the social identity perspective, we add to research on ethnic identity by considering the role of the classroom context and by conceptualizing ethnic identity in terms of two key dimensions. Specifically, the present study aims to investigate the role of the classroom context for ethnic private regard (positive ethnic self-feelings) and for the under-researched construct of ethnic introjection (subjective self-group merging). These two dimensions of ethnic identity were examined in 51 Dutch school classes among grade 4–6 students (N= 573; Mage = 10.77, SD = 1.02; 54% girls) of Dutch, Turkish and Moroccan ethnic background. We focused on teachers’ multicultural norms and classmates’ evaluation of the ethnic in-group (peer group norms) in combination with the ethnic class composition. It was found that ethnic introjection was empirically distinct from ethnic private regard, and that the former dimension depended on the classroom context more than the latter. Multicultural teacher norms affected minority preadolescents’ private regard positively, but only when the share of in-group classmates was low. Positive peer group norms of in-group classmates strengthened students’ introjection, while those of out-group classmates lowered it. The findings indicate that ethnic identity research will be enhanced by more fully considering the conceptual and contextual implications of the social identity perspective.

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Notes

  1. Mplus was unable to deal with missing values in the dependent variables. 16 of the 27 cases were excluded primarily due to missing values on ethnic private regard and/ or ethnic introjection. FIML estimation to deal with missing values in only the remaining 11 cases would have complicated our models unnecessarily. Little’s MCAR test indicated that missing values on items were completely at random (χ2(90) = 59.739, p = 0.994).

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Authors' Contributions

All authors developed the study concept, participated in its design and were involved in drafting the manuscript. N.G. performed the statistical analysis and wrote the first full drafts of the manuscript; J.T. supervised the data collection, participated in the statistical analysis, and provided input on the drafts; M.V. re-worked the theoretical introduction and parts of the discussion. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Funding

This research was made possible by the Young Scholars’ Research Grant received from the Jacobs Foundation by the second author.

Data Sharing and Declaration

The dataset generated and the analysis of the current study are not publicly available but are deposited at the safe storage facility of the University and they are available from the second author on request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Social and Cultural Psychology, University of Leuven, Tiensestraat 102 – box 3727, 3000, Leuven, Belgium

    Nadya Gharaei

  2. Ercomer, Department of Interdisciplinary Social Science, Utrecht University, Langeveld building, room G 1.10, Heidelberglaan 1, 3584, CS, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Jochem Thijs & Maykel Verkuyten

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  1. Nadya Gharaei
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  2. Jochem Thijs
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  3. Maykel Verkuyten
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Correspondence to Jochem Thijs or Maykel Verkuyten.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Passive parental consent was obtained, and all students included in the study participated voluntarily.

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Gharaei, N., Thijs, J. & Verkuyten, M. Ethnic Identity in Diverse Schools: Preadolescents’ Private Regard and Introjection in relation to Classroom Norms and Composition. J Youth Adolescence 48, 132–144 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-018-0881-y

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