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Ethnic and Racial Identity, Educational Implications

Ethnic and racial identity are closely related but distinct, socially constructed concepts. Ethnic identity is a sense of belonging to a particular ethnic group, in which one shares values, beliefs, traditions, language, and, in some cases, behaviors with others in the group. One's sense of belonging is influenced by interactions with ethnic in-group and out-group members. Racial identity is an aspect of one's self-definition, based on parentage and influenced by physical characteristics, such as skin color; shape of eyes, nose, and lips; and texture of hair. It is important to distinguish identification from categories or classification. Although there are many ethnic and racial classifications or categories into which individuals can be placed based on some outward manifestations, identity signals self-definition in the mind of an individual.

Ethnic and racial identity are important to diversity in education for at least three reasons: First, researchers have found positive correlations between academic success factors and students' explorations of ethnicity and race within the school context. Specific positive effects or benefits of ethnic identity development include a sense of psychological well-being, and positive influence on academic success factors such as attendance, motivation, engagement, and persistence. Second, ignoring ethnic and racial identity in the education can impair the learning of students for whom ethnic and racial identity are important. Third, while not all individuals with unclarified ethnic and racial identities commit hate crimes, federal hate crimes experts have found that unclarified ethnic and racial identities are characteristics in the profiles of perpetrators of hate crimes. This entry summarizes selected major theoretical conceptualizations of ethnic and racial identity and reviews ways in which teachers can be prepared, personally and professionally, to support students' ethnic and racial identities.

Conceptualizations of Ethnic and Racial Identity

A focus of social science research from the beginning of the 20th century, ethnic and racial identity figured prominently and decisively in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case that outlawed de jure segregated schooling in the United States. Social scientists continue to investigate ethnic and racial identity and their potential for improving academic outcomes for students at all levels of schooling.

Most models of ethnic and racial identity describe the development of individuals through stages or changes in status. Some models purport to describe stages or statuses of development that members of any racial or ethnic group experience. Another category of ethnic and racial identity models focuses on people of color. Yet other ethnic and racial identity models are racial or ethnic group specific. Nigrescence, a seminal model of racial identity development, describes the racial identity development of Blacks, moving from a position in which race is unimportant to a recognition of the significance of race personally and socially, accompanied by a commitment to Black people. The White racial identity theory describes a process of abandoning racism and White superiority and developing definitions of Whiteness that recognize the value of all races and that seek to learn from them. The Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity explains that racial identity is influenced not only by racial centrality but by one's private and public regard for one's racial group. One typology of ethnic identity depicts an individual's movement from a narrow focus on one's ethnic group to an awareness of—and appreciation for—multiple ethnic groups and their contributions to the global society. Ethnic identity scholars have identified an ethnicity-related “crisis” that spurs development from no awareness of ethnicity, through a period of exploration of ethnicity, to a commitment to an ethnic identification.

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