Ethnic-racial identity in Europe: Adapting the identity project intervention in five countries

“Mostly White, heterosexual couples”: Examining demographic diversity and reporting practices in relationship science research samples.

“…The descriptor “Chinese participants” with no further elaboration does not tell us (a) whether the person has an Asian racial/ethnic background or is a non-Asian citizen of China or (b) how well individual racial/ethnic groups within China are represented within the sample. Additionally, in some countries, race and ethnicity information is not commonly collected and use of the term “race” is avoided, in some cases as a “colorblind” effort to address historical issues of discrimination (Juang et al, 2022). In contexts like those, individuals’ migration background and heritage can be one major way of defining who is minoritized (Juang et al, 2022; Simon, 2017).…”

“…As a result, to avoid this exclusionary labeling pattern and maintain clarity about which aspect of participants' background they are referring to, researchers might instead choose to report more specific information, such as participants' heritage, migration background status, and generational status (Vietze et al, 2022). For an insightful exploration of measuring constructs related to race/ethnic identity across different regional contexts, we recommend researchers consult Juang et al (2022)'s discussion of adapting a U.S.-based race/ ethnicity intervention to five different countries in Europe.…”

Promoting adolescent adjustment by intervening in ethnic-racial identity development: Opportunities for developmental prevention science and considerations for a global theory of change

“…The first team to explore the possibilities for adaptation was led by Dr. Linda Juang and her team at the University of Potsdam in Germany. With a relatively younger age group of seventh graders (i.e., 12-13 years of age), they found promising results regarding the intervention's potential to impact students' attitudes toward engaging across ethnoracial difference (Juang et al, 2021(Juang et al, , 2022. Their work offers valuable insights into the ways in which we can consider the racialization of identities in different cultural contexts.…”

“…Theoretically, there is strong support for a global theory of change. Generally, developmental scholars (e.g., Erentaitė et al, 2018;Juang et al, 2022;Umaña-Taylor et al, 2014) agree that identity development is a universal developmental task and that engaging in exploration and resolution of one's multiple identity domains leads to a more integrated sense of self (i.e., global identity cohesion-operationalized as greater identity synthesis and less confusion; Rosenthal et al, 1981), which promotes positive psychosocial adjustment (Erikson, 1968). Moreover, there is some empirical support for a global theory of change of identity formation (e.g., Hatano & Sugimura, 2017;Luyckx et al, 2013).…”

“…We can also look to the cross-cultural adaptation process of the IP by scholars in Norway, Sweden, Italy, and Greece to expand our vision of the types of adaptations that are feasible in distinct cultural contexts, consider what aspects of the intervention can be universally applied, and identify what aspects require more of a deep structure adaptation to be applicable to the cultural context (see Juang et al, 2022). Generally, this transnational collaborative work has demonstrated that with careful attention to theory that takes into account the sociohistorical context, coupled with the intentional use of both emic and etic approaches to cross-cultural adaptation (Juang et al, 2022), it is possible to design and implement culturally relevant interventions guided by a common theory of change across countries that are characterized by vastly different sociohistorical contexts and yet share the experience of a socially constructed racialization of people according to sociocultural demographic characteristics. This preliminary work can serve as a heuristic for advancing independent, but related, programs of research that collectively promote and help to build a more global developmental science by identifying universally salient developmental assets.…”