A Gendered Understanding of Ethnic Identity, Ethnic Self-Labels and Their Effect in a Group of Urban Minority Youth

Latoya Shand, University of Texas at Austin
Elizabeth Gershoff, University of Texas at Austin

This study, using a diverse sample of 908 adolescents (52% females; 38% Latino, 31% Black, 12% White, and 19% of another race) aged 12 to 20 years in New York City, examined the relations among gender, ethnic identity and ethnic self-labels, as well as their individual and joint effects on psychosocial outcomes (perceived self-concept, self-reported grades and conduct disorder symptoms). Results suggest that the salience of ethnic identity does not vary by ethnic self-labels. Additionally, males and females experience similar relations among ethnic identity, ethnic self-label and psychosocial outcomes. However, some key differences exist. The subcomponents of ethnic identity, group exploration and esteem, have dissimilar effects for males and females. Group exploration and ethnic identity scores were positively related to higher self-reported grades for females but not males. For males, a higher ethnic group esteem score was related to a higher perceived social competence score.