A Person-Centered Approach to Understand Black Students’ Racial-Academic Identities: An Examination of Predictors and Outcomes
Open Access
- Author:
- Boggs, Saskia
- Graduate Program:
- Psychology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 14, 2019
- Committee Members:
- Dawn P. Witherspoon, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Dawn P. Witherspoon, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Johnathan E. Cook, Committee Member
K. Suzy Scherf, Committee Member
Mayra Y. Bámaca-Colbert, Outside Member - Keywords:
- african-americans
identity development
positive black psychology
racial identity
academic identity
adolescence
school transitions
school racial climate
school academic climate
middle school
high school
academic outcomes
academic attainment
psychosocial wellbeing
self-esteem
optimism
black youth
youth of color
students of color
socioeconomic diversity - Abstract:
- The content of collective identities (e.g., racial identity, academic identity) falls on multiple dimensions in multiple domains. To date, much emphasis has been placed on characterizing patterns of these dimensions for racial identity; very limited work has also explored patterns of these dimensions with academic identity. Additional research suggests that racial and academic identities may be related, and collectively important in characterizing the experience of youth of color in general, and Black/African American youth in particular. Further, some research suggests shared predictors that may matter for both identities (e.g., school academic and racial climate), as well as outcomes that both identities may influence (e.g., academic performance and attainment, psychosocial wellbeing). Thus, in the present study I characterized profiles of the multidimensional content of joint racial-academic identities among 491 socioeconomically diverse African American adolescents (Nboys = 251, Ngirls = 240). I also described how middle school-based race- and academic-related experiences informed later patterns of joint identity content, as well as how these joint identities informed both academic (i.e., GPA, persistence/attainment) and psychosocial wellbeing (i.e., self-esteem, positive future outlook) outcomes. Using a sample of socioeconomically diverse Black adolescents from the 1990s, I identified four profiles of joint racial-academic identity. Gender, along with various elements of middle school racial and academic climates, informed profile membership. Strongest predictors of profile membership included youth perceptions of their middle school teachers’ preference for White students and students who get good grades; meaningfulness of middle school curricular content also mattered. The largest profile by far consisted of youth who positively identified with elements of both their racial and academic identities; these youth also had the most positive academic (high school grades, academic attainment post-high school) and psychosocial outcomes (positive outlook toward the future, self-esteem). Other profiles included identity-alienated youth, youth who focused on education at the expense of their racial identities, and youth who were academically disengaged; academic and psychosocial outcomes varied by all profiles, with jointly- and/or academically-identified youth generally displaying the most positive outcomes, and disidentified youth generally displaying weaker or more negative outcomes.