Personality Characteristic Adaptations: Multiracial Adolescents' Patterns of Racial Self-Identification Change

Abstract

For multiracial adolescents, forming a sense of self and identity can be complicated, even at the level of classifying themselves in terms of racial group membership. Using a Race Self Complexity (Winston et al., 2004) theoretical framework, this study used an open-ended question to examine the racial self-identification fluidity of 66 adolescents during the 7th, 8th, and 11th grades. This sample included 22 Black/White 1 multiracial adolescents, as well as a matched sample of 22 Black and 22 White adolescents. Seventy-three percent of the multiracial adolescents changed their racial self-identification in the form of two time change patterns with a number of consolidating and differentiating racial self-identification variations. There was no change for the monoracial adolescents. These results suggest that within the lives of multiracial adolescents, the process of racial self-identification may be a personality characteristic adaptation to the meaning of race in American society that may change across time, place, and role.People tend to want to label me one or the other. To make me say I'm one or the other is like making me deny one of my parents and part of myself. It's like making me deny who I am, because I'm not White and I'm not Black-I am both.

Multiracial Identity, Color‐Blind Racial Ideology, and Discrimination: Professional Counseling Implications

“…For the purpose of this study, multiracial was used as a broad term to include anyone identifying as two or more races and to be consistent with the literature purporting that race is a socially constructed label (Giamo et al, 2012; Terry & Winston, 2010). As a result, the inclusionary criteria for participation in this study were for participants to self‐identify as either biracial or multiracial and to be at least 18 years of age.…”

Association of Contextual Factors with Drug Use and Binge Drinking among White, Native American, and Mixed-Race Adolescents in the General Population

“…The challenges that Mixed-Race children and adolescents face are characterized mainly by elevated levels of family discord, alienation from mainstream racial/ethnic groups, and identity confusion (Doyle & Kao 2007; Terry & Winston 2010; Udry et al 2003). However, because of the relative paucity of research on Mixed-Race populations and the scarcity of studies that examine ecological and contextual factors associated with their developmental trajectories, much can be surmised but little can be known about the underlying mechanisms of contextual factors that impact Mixed-Race adolescents’ substance use problems.…”

Multiracial Americans: Racial Identity Choices and Implications for the Collection of Race Data

“…A growing number of studies also reveal that racial identity is contextual and dependent upon time and space (Brown 2001; Brunsma and Rockquemore 2001; Collins 2000; Crothers and K’Meyer 2007; Doyle and Kao 2007; Harris and Sim 2002; Hitlin, Brown, and Elder 2006; Mahtani 2002; Miville et al. 2005; Renn 2000; Rockquemore and Brunsma 2002a, 2008; Rockquemore and Laszloffy 2005; Root 1990; Scales‐Trent 1995; Tashiro 2002; Terry and Winston 2010; Twine 1996).…”