Coloring Racial Fluidity: How Skin Tone Shapes Multiracial Adolescents’ Racial Identity Changes

Racism and its ramifications are salient societal-level factors that detrimentally affect African American youth and families. Few studies have investigated how African American youth experience discrimination within families and society and colorism’s impact on racial identity, despite extensive racial discrimination research. We assessed whether the perceptions of African American youth of their skin tone affected their racial identity, familial functioning, and everyday discrimination, using the National Survey of American Life–Adolescent Supplement data. We found no significant relationships among skin tone perception, racial identity, familial functioning, or everyday experiences of discrimination. Conversely, age and gender differences were significant predictors of racial identity, family functioning, and discrimination reports. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings for social work practice.

Download Full-text

“There Are Stereotypes for Everything”: Multiracial Adolescents Navigating Racial Identity under White Supremacy

Social Sciences ◽

10.3390/socsci11010019 ◽

2022 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 19

Author(s):

Courtney Meiling Jones ◽

Leoandra Onnie Rogers

Keyword(s):

Racial Identity ◽

Identity Development ◽

Emerging Adults ◽

White Supremacy ◽

The United States ◽

Identity Status ◽

Multiracial Identity ◽

Peak Period ◽

Multiracial Adolescents ◽

Multiracial Youth

Despite the enduring popular view that the rise in the multiracial population heralds our nation’s transformation into a post-racial society, Critical Multiracial Theory (MultiCrit) asserts that how multiracial identity status is constructed is inextricably tied to systems and ideologies that maintain the white supremacist status quo in the United States. MultiCrit, like much of the multiracial identity literature, focuses predominantly on the experiences of emerging adults; this means we know little about the experiences of multiracial adolescents, a peak period for identity development. The current paper uses MultiCrit to examine how a diverse sample of multiracial youth (n = 49; Mage = 15.5 years) negotiate racial identity development under white supremacy. Our qualitative interview analysis reveals: (a) the salience of socializing messages from others, (b) that such messages reinforce a (mono)racist societal structure via discrimination, stereotyping, and invalidation, and (c) that multiracial youth frequently resist (mono)racist assertions as they make sense of their own identities. Our results suggest that multiracial youth are attentive to the myriad ways that white supremacy constructs and constrains their identities, and thus underscores the need to bring a critical lens to the study of multiracial identity development.

Download Full-text

The Development and Validation of a Colorism Scale

Journal of Black Psychology ◽

10.1177/0095798417690054 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 43 (7) ◽

pp. 740-764 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Richard D. Harvey ◽

Rachel E. Tennial ◽

Kira Hudson Banks

Keyword(s):

Racial Identity ◽

Impression Formation ◽

Total Sample ◽

The United States ◽

Self Esteem ◽

Skin Tone ◽

Parental Socialization ◽

Good Reliability ◽

Practical Applications ◽

Development And Validation

Two studies were conducted to develop and then validate a scale to measure the construct of Colorism. While colorism is a long discussed phenomena within the Black community in the United States, there have been virtually no attempts to measure the degree to which individuals embrace it. The In-Group Colorism Scale (ICS) was developed to assess the degree to which skin tone variation is important across five essential domains: Self-Concept, Affiliation, Attraction, Impression Formation, and Upward Mobility. The scale was empirically tested and then replicated using two distinct national samples of Black Americans (total sample of 783 participants). The ICS proved to have both good reliability and good structural validity. Moreover, the ICS proved to be significantly related to other important constructs such as parental socialization, skin tone, self-esteem, stereotypes, racial identity, and socioeconomic status. The implications of the ICS for both research and practical applications are discussed.

Download Full-text

Multicultural Assessment of Personality and Psychopathology in the United States: Still Art, Not Yet Science, and Controversial

European Journal of Psychological Assessment ◽

10.1027/1015-5759.14.1.62 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 14 (1) ◽

pp. 62-70 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Richard H. Dana

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Racial Identity ◽

The United States ◽

Therapeutic Assessment ◽

Culturally Competent ◽

Research Attention ◽

The Status ◽

Training Research ◽

Multicultural Assessment ◽

Personality Description

This paper describes the status of multicultural assessment training, research, and practice in the United States. Racism, politicization of issues, and demands for equity in assessment of psychopathology and personality description have created a climate of controversy. Some sources of bias provide an introduction to major assessment issues including service delivery, moderator variables, modifications of standard tests, development of culture-specific tests, personality theory and cultural/racial identity description, cultural formulations for psychiatric diagnosis, and use of findings, particularly in therapeutic assessment. An assessment-intervention model summarizes this paper and suggests dimensions that compel practitioners to ask questions meriting research attention and providing avenues for developments of culturally competent practice.

Download Full-text