Racial Self-Categorization in Adolescence: Multiracial Development and Social Pathways |
Racial Self-Categorization in Adolescence: Multiracial Development and Social Pathways
Child Development
Volume 77, Number 5, September/October 2006
Pages 1298–1308
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00935.x
Steven Hitlin, Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of Iowa
J. Scott Brown, Associate Professor of Gerontology, Scripps Research Fellow
Miami University, Oxford, Ohio
Glen H. Elder, Jr.
Carolina Population Center
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Research on multiracial individuals is often cross-sectional, obscuring the fluid nature of multiracial selfcategorization across time. Pathways of racial self-identification are developed from a nationally representative sample of adolescents aged 14 – 18, measured again 5 years later. A significant proportion of multiracial adolescents change racial self-identification across time. Youth who ever report being multiracial are 4 times as likely to switch self-identification as to report consistent multiracial identities. Across this time, more multiracial adolescents either add a racial category (diversify) or subtract one (consolidate) than maintain consistent multiracial self-categorization. Exploratory multinomial analyses show few differences between these pathways on select psychological and social characteristics. Results lend quantitative support to qualitative studies indicating the fluidity of racial self-categorization.
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Tags: Child Development, Glen Elder, Glen H. Elder, J. Scott Brown, Steven Hitlin