Explore the vast range of titles available.

Although ethnic and racial identity (ERI) are central to the normative development of youth of color, there have been few efforts to bring scholars together to discuss the theoretical complexities of these constructs and provide a synthesis of existing work. The Ethnic and Racial Identity in the 21st Century Study Group was assembled for this purpose. This article provides an overview of the interface of ERI with developmental and contextual issues across development, with an emphasis on adolescence and young adulthood. It proposes a metaconstruct to capture experiences that reflect both individuals' ethnic background and their racialized experiences in a specific sociohistorical context. Finally, it presents milestones in the development of ERI across developmental periods.

One point of intersection in ethnic and racial identity research is the conceptual attention paid to how positively youth feel about their ethnicity or race, or positive ethnic–racial affect. This article reports results of a series of meta-analyses based on 46 studies of this dimension and psychosocial, academic, and health risk outcomes among ethnic and racial minority youth. The overall pattern of results suggests that positive ethnic–racial affect exhibited small to medium associations (r range = |.11| to |.37|) with depressive symptoms, positive social functioning, self-esteem, well-being, internalizing, externalizing, academic achievement, academic attitudes, and health risk outcomes. Implications for theory and research about the role of positive ethnic–racial affect among youth growing up in an increasingly diverse society are discussed.

The construction of an ethnic or racial identity is considered an important developmental milestone for youth of color. This review summarizes research on links between ethnic and racial identity (ERI) with psychosocial, academic, and health risk outcomes among ethnic minority adolescents. With notable exceptions, aspects of ERI are generally associated with adaptive outcomes. ERI are generally beneficial for African American adolescents' adjustment across all three domains, whereas the evidence is somewhat mixed for Latino and American Indian youth. There is a dearth of research for academic and health risk outcomes among Asian American and Pacific Islander adolescents. The review concludes with suggestions for future research on ERI among minority youth.

This article takes stock of research methods employed in the study of racial and ethnic identity with ethnic minority populations. The article is presented in three parts. The first section reviews theories, conceptualizations, and measurement of ethnic and racial identity (ERI) development. The second section reviews theories, conceptualizations, and measurement of ERI content. The final section reviews key methodological and analytic principles that are important to consider for both ERI development and content. The article concludes with suggestions for future research addressing key methodological limitations when studying ERI.

We review evidence of racial discrimination as a critical and understudied form of adversity that has the potential to impact stress biology, particularly hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis activity. We highlight ethnic racial identity (ERI) as a positive regulatory influence on HPA axis activity, as indexed by levels of salivary cortisol. In past research by our group, Black individuals with high adolescent discrimination had low adult cortisol levels (hypocortisolism). Here, we present new analyses showing that ERI, measured prospectively from ages 12 through 32 in 112 Black and white individuals, is related to better-regulated cortisol levels in adulthood, particularly for Black participants. We also describe ongoing research that explores whether the promotion of ERI during adolescence can reduce ethnic–racial disparities in stress biology and in emotional health and academic outcomes.

The socialization of cultural values, ethnic identity, and prosocial behaviors is examined in a sample of 749 Mexican-American adolescents, ages 9-12; M (SD) = 10.42 years (. 55); 49% female, their mothers, and fathers at the 5th, 7th, and 10th grades. Parents' familism values positively predicted their ethnic socialization practices. Mothers' ethnic socialization positively predicted adolescents' ethnic identity, which positively predicted adolescents' familism. Familism was associated with several types of prosocial tendencies. Adolescents' material success and personal achievement values were negatively associated with altruistic helping and positively associated with public helping but not their parents' corresponding values. Findings support cultural socialization models, asserting that parents' traditional cultural values influence their socialization practices, youth cultural values, and youth prosocial behaviors.

Key findings from the various studies of this special section of Child Development are that ethnic identity is embedded in a positive proximal interpersonal context in adolescence and that the links between ethnic identity and the interpersonal context seem to become stronger from the beginning of early adolescence on. Remarkably, the (longitudinal) studies do not show that ethnic identity is a better predictor of developmental outcomes or that it can be better predicted in minority groups than in majority groups. I use one of the articles to demonstate that a longitudinal prediction model is different from a developmental sequence model. Finally, an extension of the present measures of ethnic identity is proposed. This extension would allow for a thorough investigation of the saliency of ethnic identity and its interplay with other identity domains during adolescent development.

This study examined racial socialization processes among 94 African American parents of third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade children as they were predicted by children's ethnic identity exploration and unfair treatment as well as by parents' ethnic identity and discrimination experiences. Findings indicated that children's ethnic identity exploration and parents' perceptions that their children had been treated unfairly by an adult because of their race were both significantly associated with the frequency of messages to children regarding discrimination (Preparation for Bias). Parents' perceptions of children's unfair treatment from an adult and children's perceptions that they had been treated unfairly by peers were significantly associated with parents' cautions and warnings to children about intergroup relations (Promotion of Mistrust). Moreover, the influence of parents' perceptions on Promotion of Mistrust were especially pronounced when children also reported unfair treatment from adults. Children's identity exploration and unfair treatment were not associated with parents' emphasis on ethnic pride, heritage, and diversity (Cultural Socialization/Pluralism). Thus, findings suggest that parental factors are most central in the racial socialization messages that children receive. However, children's perceptions of discrimination and information seeking regarding their own history appear to have some influence on parental messages about race.