ABSTRACT Ethnic-racial identity (ERI) is an important aspect of youth development and has been well studied for the last several decades. One issue less discussed is how the construct of ERI translates across different countries and cultures. The purpose of our paper is to describe the sociohistorical context of Germany and implications for the study of ethnic-racial identity in Europe. We discuss the German adaption of the Identity Project, an 8-week school-based ethnic-racial identity exploration intervention developed in the United States. We use this as a concrete example of how we thought through the focal construct of ERI to figure out how and whether it is a salient social identity category for youth in Germany where, in response to the history of racially motivated genocide, discussions of “race” are taboo. Digging into the ways ERI may not be directly transferable to different contexts can help us understand its nature as a socially constructed identity with real-life implications. Our hope with this paper is to further discussion, question our conceptualizations, and acknowledge how a detailed understanding of sociohistorical contexts is needed for the study of ERI.

中文翻译：

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在“种族”是禁忌的背景下理解种族认同

摘要 民族-种族认同（ERI）是青年发展的一个重要方面，在过去的几十年里得到了很好的研究。一个较少讨论的问题是 ERI 的构建如何在不同的国家和文化之间转化。我们论文的目的是描述德国的社会历史背景以及对欧洲民族种族认同研究的影响。我们讨论了德国对身份项目的改编，这是一项在美国开发的为期 8 周的以学校为基础的民族-种族身份探索干预措施。我们用这个作为一个具体的例子，说明我们如何通过 ERI 的焦点结构来思考它如何以及是否是德国青年的一个突出的社会认同类别，作为对出于种族动机的种族灭绝的历史的回应，关于“种族”是禁忌。深入研究 ERI 可能无法直接转移到不同环境的方式可以帮助我们理解其本质是一种具有现实生活意义的社会建构身份。我们希望这篇论文能够进一步讨论，质疑我们的概念化，并承认对于 ERI 的研究需要对社会历史背景的详细理解。