Ethnicity and Ethnic-Racial Identity during Adolescence: Intervention and Contexts

Abstract

Ethnicity and ethnic-racial identity are important aspects of adolescent development in an increasingly globalized and multicultural world. This thesis aims to further the understanding of how adolescents in Sweden experience ethnicity being addressed across multiple contexts, and to evaluate different aspects of an intervention targeting ethnic-racial identity development. Central to the thesis is the Identity Project, an eight-session, school-based intervention designed to promote ethnic-racial identity exploration and resolution among adolescents. Study I examined whether individual differences in personality traits and meta-traits moderated adolescents’ responsiveness to the intervention. A total of 509 adolescents participated in the intervention study (Mage = 16.28; SDage = 0.80; migration background = 51%; female = 66%). Results revealed that adolescents with higher extraversion, a trait linked to socialization and external reward-seeking, as well as plasticity, a meta-trait linked to adaptability and exploration, benefited most from the intervention, but also that gender moderated some of the interactions between personality traits and intervention effectiveness. These findings point to the significance of individual differences in intervention efficacy, and suggest that interventions targeting identity development would benefit from being adapted to better reach all adolescents; including the introverted or less plastic ones. Study II included the same participants, but instead investigated the intervention’s effects on adolescents’ outgroup and diversity attitudes: evaluations, feelings, and engagements with individuals and lifestyles perceived as different or external from their own. The study also tested whether effects varied by migration background or educational program. Findings showed high and stable, or slightly declining, attitudes, with ethnic-racial identity exploration and resolution covarying with attitude change at only one time point. The results thus revealed that adolescents in Sweden typically hold positive attitudes toward outgroups and cultural diversity, but also challenge the notion that increased ethnic-racial identity exploration leads to positive outgroup and diversity attitudes. Study III used a focus group methodology and thematic analysis to explore adolescents’ experiences of how ethnicity is addressed in three contexts of their everyday lives: in school, on social media, and in sports. A total of 21 adolescents participated in six focus groups (Mage = 14.5; SDage = 0.5; migration background = 54%). Results indicate that ethnicity was addressed differently in different areas of the adolescents’ lives: Classrooms were considered important spaces for addressing ethnicity, but stereotype usage was also common in the school context; social media was perceived as a context where one encountered hateful remarks, but also a place where one could share positive ethnic and cultural narratives; and sports was a context in which the adolescents proposed that ethnicity does not, and should not, matter as much as in other contexts. Together, the results showcase that addressing ethnicity with perspective and afterthought can build understanding and lead to rewarding experiences, but can also do harm when addressed without reflection. With different contexts equaling different experiences, the study also highlights a need for contextual sensitivity when researching ethnicity and ethnic-racial identity. In summary, this thesis demonstrates how individual factors, such as personality traits, play an important role as antecedents in identity-related interventions. It challenges the idea of positive attitude change as a cascading effect of the Identity Project intervention, and illustrates adolescents’ own experiences of how ethnicity is addressed in three contexts of their everyday lives. Taken together, these findings suggest the need for further development concerning not only how to adequately address ethnicity in the Swedish context but also how to effectively promote positive ethnic-racial identity development through interventions.