Developing the Australian Racism, Acceptance, and Cultural-Ethnocentrism Scale (RACES)

Abstract

Existing Australian measures of racist attitudes focus on single groups or have not been validated across the lifespan. To redress this, the present research aimed to develop and validate a measure of racial, ethnic, cultural and religious acceptance — the Australian Racism, Acceptance, and Cultural-Ethnocentrism Scale (RACES) — for use with children, adolescents and adults. Interviews and focus groups were conducted with 30 adolescents in Victoria, Australia, to develop the instrument, which was pilot tested with eight children. The novel 34-item scale consists of three subscales (Accepting Attitudes — 12 items; Racist Attitudes — 8 items; Ethnocentric Attitudes — 4 items) and a 10-item measure of social desirability. The instrument was tested with 296 Victorian school children, 182 adolescents and 120 adults from the Australian community, with data modelled and analysed utilising classical test theory and item response theory. Estimates of internal consistency reliability and factorial, construct, convergent and discriminant validity support the measure. The instrument is the first general attitudinal measure of racial, ethnic, cultural and religious acceptance to be designed and scientifically validated within the Australian context. RACES can be utilised across the lifespan to evaluate attitudes towards all racial, ethnic, cultural and religious groups. RACES has potential to be widely utilised to evaluate anti-racism and pro-diversity interventions implemented within schools and throughout the community, enabling the development of a strong evidence base for initiatives to reduce community levels of racism. However, future research is needed to confirm the psychometric properties and establish the temporal stability of the scale prior to dissemination throughout Australia.

The Australian Racism, Acceptance, and Cultural-Ethnocentrism Scale (RACES): item response theory findings

“…From December 2011 to March 2012, a qualitative study was conducted among young Australians on their conceptualisations of and experiences with racism, to generate sufficient data to form the basis of a scale (detailed elsewhere; [ 31 ]). This study demonstrated a consistent explanatory model for understanding racism across groups [ 36 ]. The qualitative data, which provided insight into Australian lay understandings of racism [ 31 ], were supplemented and complemented by an extensive and comprehensive literature review on the conceptual racism literature and existing instruments, to create the preliminary measure.…”

“…In addition, 402 community individuals aged 15 years or older also participated. Adolescents and adults from six of the seven Australian states and territories participated in the research (for details see: [ 36 ]). It was considered important to examine the children, adolescents, and adults separately due to differences in their general developmental stage [ 40 – 42 ] and the level of crystallisation of their racial attitudes [ 43 ].…”

“…Less attention has been paid to racist attitudes held by individuals. Even so, over 100 instruments exist which assess explicit racist attitudes and 24 are available to evaluate perceived racism [ 14 , 18 ]. Most of these have not been appropriately validated, the tools often fail to meet minimum standards required for scientific attitude scales (fewer than 5 % of studies address a sufficient range of reliability and validity indices for the instrument to be considered valid), and they are often used indiscriminately.…”

“…As a result, anti-racism programs are rarely well evaluated. To redress this, an explicit measure of racial, ethnic, cultural, and religious acceptance – the Australian Racism, Acceptance, and Cultural-Ethnocentrism Scale (RACES; [ 36 ]) – was developed with children, adolescents, and adults from various racial, ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds.…”

“…The items underwent expert review for appropriateness, comprehensiveness, redundancy, and clarity, and were consequently pilot tested utilising cognitive interviewing techniques with children to ensure comprehensibility regardless of age. The instrument was evaluated longitudinally and cross-sectionally with school children, adolescents, and adults drawing upon Classical Testing Theory (CTT; [ 36 ]). As we illustrate below, estimates of internal consistency reliability, 1 in addition to factorial, 2 construct, 3 convergent, 4 and discriminant validity 5 support the measure.…”