Race, Context, and Privilege: White Adolescents' Explanations of Racial-Ethnic Centrality

• NCJ Number: 226019
• Journal: Journal of Youth and Adolescence Volume: 38 Issue: 2 Dated: February 2009 Pages: 139-152
• Author(s): Jennifer M. Grossman; Linda Charmaraman
• Date Published: February 2009
• Length: 14 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This mixed-methods exploratory study examined the diverse content and situated context of White adolescents’ explanations of the level of importance they placed on their race and/or ethnicity and the role of school composition and parental education in adolescents’ reports of racial-ethnic centrality.

Abstract

The study findings confirm earlier research in showing the relative lack of importance of race-ethnicity to White adolescents. It also documents the wide range of meanings that White students attribute to their racial-ethnic centrality, which challenges a simplified perception of White racial identity as uniformly disengaged. The findings suggest a more complex diversity within White racial-ethnic identity. The findings show that contexts may contribute to the importance White high school students give to their racial/ethnic identity. Specifically, higher levels of parents’ formal education predicted lower levels of racial-ethnic centrality, suggesting that socioeconomic class may be one of the factors that shape the importance of race and ethnicity for adolescents’ identities. Future research should explore the dynamics of family status and privilege linked to parental education in influencing the importance attributed to racial/ethnic identities. The sample used in this study was part of a larger research study on adolescent racial and ethnic identity and self-definition among monoracial and mixed-ancestry youth (Tracy et al., 2008). A total of 1,793 adolescents in 3 schools participated in the study. The current study focused on the 781 White, non-Hispanic students. The three participating schools in the New England area consisted of a White-minority, predominately Latin high school; a White-majority high school of mainly Irish, Italian, and Jewish ancestry; and a White-minority, multicultural high school in a middle-income suburb. Each student completed a questionnaire with questions on age, gender, mother’s and father’s educational levels, racial-ethnic identification, and the importance of his/her racial-ethnic background. 4 tables and 50 references