A Contextual Examination of Ethnic-Racial Identity and Critical Consciousness among Diverse College Students

Moffitt, Ursula E, Evanston IL

Investigators

Abstract

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Leoandra Onnie Rogers at Northwestern and Dr. Margarita Azmitia at University of California Santa Cruz, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist examining the role of the sociopolitical context in the development of ethnic-racial identity and critical consciousness among college-going young adults. The current sociopolitical climate is fraught and can be psychologically taxing for everyone, though its implications are more dire for some individuals than others. Since 2016, the number of reported hate crimes has risen sharply (FBI, 2018). On university campuses, violence against marginalized groups has also increased (Watt, Costa, & Quiason, 2018). In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, racism against Asian Americans has spiked (Coates, 2020) and Black, indigenous, and other minoritized individuals are getting sick and dying at disproportionate rates (Dyer, 2020). A better understanding is needed of how young adults from diverse ethnic-racial and political backgrounds alternately endorse, accept, or resist such events in both the local and national contexts. How are their responses situated within their sense of identity and their views on the world? If young people engage with sociopolitical events online or in person, what does this look like and what meaning do they draw from it? This project investigates these questions, linking the micro-level of daily life with the macro-level of the sociopolitical climate, examining the development of college-going young adults’ identities, beliefs, and behaviors in context. This project focuses specifically on critical consciousness (CC), a construct originally developed by Paolo Freire (1970), which includes an awareness of and resistance to societal inequity. Both CC and clarity about one’s ethnic-racial identity (ERI) can buffer the negative effects of discrimination (Diemer, Rapa, Park, & Perry, 2016; Yip, Wang, Mootoo, & Mirpuri, 2019) and link to myriad positive outcomes, including academic achievement and wellbeing (El-Amin et al., 2017; Rivas‐Drake et al., 2014). ERI and CC have rarely been investigated in tandem, however, and their development remains understudied among college students (Mathews et al., 2019). This project addresses this empirical gap using a longitudinal, mixed-methods approach, with data collection occurring at four time points across the 2020-2021 academic year. Survey data will be analyzed using person-centered longitudinal transition analysis (LTA), first creating clusters based on responses to ERI and CC measures, then examining who is likely to be in which cluster, who changes, and how these changes relate to additional variables such as political conservatism and sense of belonging. Additionally, open-response prompts will be gathered for ten day periods, asking participants to describe their engagement with and make meaning about real-time events. Responses will be analyzed using narrative methods, illuminating within- and between-person differences. This mix of methods and analyses allows for a rich investigation of ERI and CC development in context, advancing theory and promoting equity-oriented outcomes among young people with diverse identities and experiences. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.