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Longitudinal Associations between Ethnic/Racial Identity and Discrimination among Asian and Latinx Adolescents

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Abstract

The numbers of Asian and Latinx adolescents are growing fast in the United States. While their ethnic/racial identity and experience of discrimination have been found to play important roles in their development, current scholarship has only begun to understand their longitudinal relationships. Moreover, most of the existing studies have examined these associations only at the between-person level. To address these gaps, the current study examined both between- and within-person longitudinal associations between ethn−ic/racial identity (exploration, commitment, private regard, and centrality) and discrimination over a 3-year period among a total of 241 adolescents (Asian: n = 139, Latinx: n = 102; female: 65.96%; M age = 15.27, SD = 0.66). The within-person approach using the random-intercept cross-lagged panel models explained the associations better than the between-person approach using the cross-lagged panel model. Specifically, reciprocal within-person longitudinal associations were found between discrimination and developmental dimensions of ethnic/racial identity (exploration and commitment) for Asian adolescents and content dimensions (private regard and centrality) for Latinx adolescents. These findings imply the usefulness of within-person longitudinal designs in understanding the associations between ethnic/racial identity and discrimination. Implications for potential similarities and differences in the longitudinal associations between ethnic/racial identity development and the experience of discrimination for the two groups are discussed.

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Authors’ Contributions

YMC reviewed the literature, conducted statistical analyses, and drafted the manuscript; TY designed and supervised the original data collection, helped to draft the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Funding

This research was supported by a grant awarded to TY and J. Nicole Shelton of Princeton University from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (1 R01 HD055436). The YMC was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (1 R21 HD 088818) awarded to TY.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Fordham University, 441 East Fordham Rd., Bronx, NY, 10458, USA

    Yuen Mi Cheon & Tiffany Yip

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Cheon, Y.M., Yip, T. Longitudinal Associations between Ethnic/Racial Identity and Discrimination among Asian and Latinx Adolescents. J Youth Adolescence 48, 1736–1753 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-019-01055-6

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