Abstract
Ethnic-racial identity formation has significant consequences for positive youth development. Existing findings support the efficacy of the Identity Project, a school-based ethnic-racial identity intervention, when delivered by researchers; however, effectiveness of the program when delivered by teachers is unknown. This study examined changes in adolescents’ (N = 180; 42.2% male, 50.6% female, 6.7% another gender identity; Mage = 14.11, SD = 0.33; 38.3% Latinx, 33.9% White, 15.0% Black, 9.4% Asian American, 3.3% another ethnoracial background) ethnic-racial identity exploration as a function of their teachers’ implementation of the Identity Project. Findings indicated that ethnic-racial identity exploration significantly increased from pretest to posttest, and this did not vary based on familial ethnic-racial socialization, student-teacher ethnoracial match/mismatch, gender, immigrant status, or ethnoracial background. This study provides preliminary evidence that U.S. educators can be trained to efficaciously implement the Identity Project with high school students and, furthermore, that this approach to program dissemination may not only facilitate scale-up but also result in greater gains for adolescents relative to research-led implementations.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The term ethnic-racial is used throughout this article to acknowledge the intersecting nature of ethnicity and race in the psychological process of forming an identity based on individuals’ sometimes-overlapping lived experiences that are shaped by their ethnic and racial group memberships (Umaña-Taylor et al., 2014). In addition, the term ethnic-racial is used to acknowledge the experiences of individuals belonging to social identity groups that have been socially constructed as ‘ethnic’ (i.e., Latinx/Hispanic; Humes et al., 2011), but whose lived experiences reflect a racialized othering effect (Massey, 2014).
Although the Identity Project consists of 8 sessions that are delivered once per week, implementation took place over a 10-week period because of two non-consecutive school holiday weeks that interrupted the weekly implementation. Thus, pretest was administered in Week 1, Identity Project sessions were delivered during Weeks 2 through 11, and the posttest was administered in Week 12.
The response option was “Latino or Hispanic (for example: Mexican, Guatemalan, Salvadoran, Colombian, etc.);” however, the term Latinx is used in the current article to promote terminology that recognizes gender as non-binary.
The mean of T1 family ethnic socialization was set to zero, given that the variable was centered and thus the mean was already equal to zero. Applying this constraint to the fully saturated model allowed for 1 df for these nested model comparisons.
To ensure accurate effect size comparisons for researcher-led implementations, which were based on experimental designs and therefore included comparison to a control group, Hedge’s g (equivalent to Cohen’s d for samples greater than 20) was calculated for the two prior published studies and the current study with pre- and post-test means only considering youth in the intervention group (i.e., repeated measures); see Morris and DeShon (2002) for a review of effect size equivalence considerations. Thus, the effect sizes reported here differ slightly from effect sizes reported in Ceccon et al. (2023) and Umaña-Taylor, Douglass et al. (2018), which were based on experimental results comparing intervention and control group differences.
References
Alim, S., & Paris, D. (2017). What is culturally sustaining pedagogy and why does it matter? In Paris, D., & Alim, H. S. (Eds.), Culturally sustaining pedagogies: Teaching and learning for justice in a changing world (pp. 1–24). Teachers College Press.
Alim, H. S., Paris, D., & Wong, C. P. (2020). Culturally sustaining pedagogies: A critical framework for centering communities. In Suad Nasir, N., Lee, C. D., Pea, R., & Mckinney de Royston, M. (Eds.), Handbook of the cultural foundations of learning (pp. 261–276). Routledge.
Aronson, B., & Laughter, J. (2016). The theory and practice of culturally relevant education: A synthesis of research across content areas. Review of Educational Research, 86(1), 163–206.
Battey, D., Leyva, L. A., Williams, I., Belizario, V. A., Greco, R., & Shah, R. (2018). Racial (Mis)Match in Middle School Mathematics Classrooms: Relational Interactions as a Racialized Mechanism. Harvard Educational Review, 88, 455–482.
Benson, T. A., & Fiarman, S. E. (2021). Unconscious bias in schools: A developmental approach to exploring race and racism (rev. ed.). Harvard Education Press.
Benson, P. L., Scales, P. C., Hamilton, S. F., & Sesma, A. (2006). Positive youth development: Theory, research and application. In RM Lerner (Ed.), Theoretical models of human development. Volume 1.
Bonilla, S., Dee, T. S., & Penner, E. K. (2021). Ethnic studies increases longer-run academic engagement and attainment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(37), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2026386118.
Castro-Schilo, L., & Grimm, K. J. (2018). Using residualized change versus difference scores for longitudinal research. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 35(1), 32–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407517718387.
Ceccon, C., Schachner, M. K., Lionetti, F., Pastore, M., Umaña-Taylor, A. J., & Moscardino, U. (2023). Efficacy of a Cultural Adaptation of the Identity Project Intervention Among Adolescents Attending Multiethnic Classrooms in Italy: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Child Development, 94, 1162–1180. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13944.
Choi, Y. (2013). Teaching Social Studies for Newcomer English Language Learners: Toward Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. Multicultural Perspectives, 15, 12–18.
Christianakis, M. (2011). Hybrid texts: Fifth graders, rap music, and writing. Urban Education, 46, 1131–1168. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085911400326.
Delale-O’Connor, L., & Graham, D. L. (2018). Teachers’ talk about race and caregiver support: “You can NEVER be too sure about parents”. Urban Education, 54, 499–534. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085918806941.
Douglass, S., & Umaña-Taylor, A. J. (2015). A brief form of the Ethnic Identity Scale: Development and empirical validation. Identity: An International Journal of Theory and Research, 15, 48–65. https://doi.org/10.1080/15283488.2014.989442.
Egalite, A. J., & Kisida, B. (2018). The Effects of Teacher Match on Students’ Academic Perceptions and Attitudes. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 40, 59–81.
Erikson, E. H. (1968). Youth and crisis. WW Norton & Company.
Gay, G. (2000). Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice. New York: Teachers College Press.
Huguley, J. P., Wang, M. T., Vasquez, A. C., & Guo, J. (2019). Parental ethnic–racial socialization practices and the construction of children of color’s ethnic–racial identity: A research synthesis and meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 145, 437–458.
Humes, K. R., Jones, N. A., & Ramirez, R. R. (2011). Overview of Race and Hispanic Origin: 2010. 2010 Census Briefs, issued March, 20111, C2010BR-02. Washington, DC.
Karataş, S., Eckstein, K., Noack, P., Rubini, M., & Crocetti, E. (2023). Meeting in school: Cultural diversity approaches of teachers and intergroup contact among ethnic minority and majority adolescents. Child Development, 94(1), 237–253.
Ladson-Billings, G. (1994). The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children (1st ed.). Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Marsiglia, F. F., Dustman, P., Harthun, M., Ritland, C., & Umaña-Taylor, A. J. (2017). Community based effectiveness trials as a means to disseminate evidence based and culturally responsive behavioral health interventions. Health & Social Work, 42, 108–116.
Massey, D. S. (2014). The Racialization of Latinos in the United States. In SM Bucerius & M Tonry (Eds), The Oxford Handbook of Ethnicity, Crime, and Immigration (online ed.). Oxford Academic. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199859016.013.002.
McArdle, J. J., & Hamagami, F. (2001). Latent difference score structural models for linear dynamic analyses with incomplete longitudinal data. In Collins, L. M., & Sayer, A. G. (Eds.), New methods for the analysis of change (pp. 139–175). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/10409-005.
Meeus, W. (2011). The study of adolescent identity formation 2000–2010: A review of longitudinal research. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 21, 75–94. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7795.2010.00716.x.
Moffitt, U., & Rogers, L. O. (2022). Studying ethnic-racial identity among White youth: White supremacy as a developmental context. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 32, 815–828.
Morris, S. B., & DeShon, R. P. (2002). Combining effect size estimates in meta-analysis with repeated measures and independent-groups designs. Psychological Methods, 7(1), 105–125. https://doi.org/10.1037/1082-989X.7.1.105.
Muthén, L. K., & Muthén, B. O. (1998–2017). Mplus User’s Guide. Eighth Edition. Los Angeles, CA: Muthén & Muthén.
Nojan, S. (2020) Why ethnic studies? Building critical consciousness among middle school students. Middle School Journal 51(2), 25–35. https://doi.org/10.1080/00940771.2019.1709259.
Okonofua, J. A., Walton, G. M., & Eberhardt, J. L. (2016). A vicious cycle: A social-psychological account of extreme racial disparities in school discipline. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11, 381–398. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616635592.
Paris, D. (2021). Culturally sustaining pedagogies and our futures. The Educational Forum, 85, 364–376. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131725.2021.1957634.
PEN America (2022). PEN America Index of Educational Gag Orders. PEN.org. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Tj5WQVBmB6SQg-zP_M8uZsQQGH09TxmBY73v23zpyr0/edit#gid=1505554870.
Rodriguez, J. L., Bustamante Jones, E., Peng, V. O., & Park, C. D. (2004). Promoting Academic Achievement and Identity Development among Diverse High School Students. High School Journal, 87(3), 44–53.
Satterthwaite-Freiman, M., Umana-Taylor, A. J., Martinez-Fuentes, S., & Sladek, M. R. (2024). Examining teachers’ culturally sustaining pedagogical practices during and after their implementation of an ethnic-racial identity curriculum. Manuscript in progress.
Schachner, M. K., Holscher, S., Moscardino, U., Ceccon, C., Juang, L., & Pastore, M. (2023). Adolescent cultural identity development in context: The dynamic interplay of the Identity Project with classroom cultural diversity climate in Italy and Germany. Manuscript submitted for publication.
Sladek, M. R., Umaña-Taylor, A. J., Wantchekon, K. A., McDermott, E. R., & Updegraff, K. A. (2021). Contextual moderators of a school-based ethnic-racial identity intervention: The roles of family ethnic socialization and ethnic-racial background. Prevention Science, 22, 378–385. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-020-01166-8.
Sladek, M. R., Umaña-Taylor, A. J., McDermott, E. R., Rivas-Drake, D., & Martinez-Fuentes, S. (2020). Testing invariance of ethnic-racial discrimination and identity measures for adolescents across ethnic-racial groups and contexts. Psychological Assessment, 32, 509–526. https://doi.org/10.1037/pas0000805.
Steinberg, L. (2005). Cognitive and affective development in adolescence. Trends in cognitive sciences, 9(2), 69–74.
Sterrett, E. M., Jones, D. J., McKee, L. G., & Kincaid, C. (2011). Supportive Non-Parental Adults and Adolescent Psychosocial Functioning: Using Social Support as a Theoretical Framework. American Journal of Community Psychology, 48, 284–295. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-011-9429-y.
Sleeter, C., & Zavala, M. (2020). Transformative ethnic studies in schools: Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Research. New York: Teachers College Press.
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behaviour. In Worchel, S., & Austin, W. G. (Eds.), The psychology of intergroup relations (Vol. 2). New York, NY: Nelson Hall.
Umaña-Taylor, A. J. (2011). Ethnic Identity. In Schwartz, S. J., Luyckx, K., & Vignoles, V. L. (Eds.) Handbook of Identity Theory and Research (pp. 791–809). New York: Springer.
Umaña-Taylor, A. J. (2018). Intervening in cultural development: the case of ethnic-racial identity. Development & Psychopathology, 30, 1907–1922. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579418000974.
Umaña-Taylor, A. J. (2023a). Promoting adolescent adjustment by intervening in ethnic-racial identity development: Opportunities for developmental prevention science and considerations for a global theory of change. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 47(4), 352–365. https://doi.org/10.1177/01650254231162614.
Umaña-Taylor, A. J. (2023b). Leveraging Ethnic-Racial Identity Development in Schools to Promote Ethnic-Racial Equity. Manuscript submitted for publication.
Umaña-Taylor, A. J., & Douglass, S. (2017). Developing an ethnic-racial identity intervention from a developmental perspective: Process, content, and implementation. In Cabrera, N. J., & Leyendecker, B. (Eds.), Handbook of positive development of minority children and youth (pp. 437–453). Springer.
Umaña-Taylor, A. J., Douglass, S., Updegraff, K. A., & Marsiglia, F. (2018). Small-scale randomized efficacy trial of the Identity Project: Promoting adolescents’ ethnic-racial identity exploration and resolution. Child Development, 89, 862–870. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12755.
Umaña-Taylor, A. J., Kornienko, O., Douglass Bayless, S., & Updegraff, K. A. (2018). A universal intervention program increases ethnic-racial identity exploration and resolution to predict adolescent psychosocial functioning one year later. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 47, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-017-0766-5.
Umaña-Taylor, A. J., Quintana, S. M., Lee, R. M., Cross, W. E., Rivas-Drake, D., & Schwartz, S. J., Ethnic and Racial Identity in the 21st Century Study Group. (2014). Ethnic and racial identity during adolescence and into young adulthood: An integrated conceptualization. Child Development, 85, 21–39. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12196.
Umaña-Taylor, A. J., & Rivas-Drake, D. (2021). Ethnic-racial identity and adolescents’ positive development in the context of ethnic-racial marginalization: Unpacking risk and resilience. Human Development, 65(5-6), 293–310. https://doi.org/10.1159/000519631.
Umaña-Taylor, A. J., Yazedjian, A., & Bámaca-Gómez, M. Y. (2004). Developing the Ethnic Identity Scale using Eriksonian and Social Identity perspectives. Identity: An International Journal of Theory and Research, 4, 9–38.
Verhoeven, M., Poorthuis, A. M. G., & Volman, M. (2019). The Role of School in Adolescents’ Identity Development. A Literature Review. Educational Psychology Review, 31, 35–63. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-018-9457-3.
Villavicencio, A., Conlin, D., & Pagan, O. (2023). Research-practice partnerships in pursuit of racial justice in schools: Navigating a hostile sociopolitical climate. Educational Policy, 37, 250–275. https://doi.org/10.1177/08959048221130353.
Wang, M. T., & Eccles, J. S. (2012). Social support matters: Longitudinal effects of social support on three dimensions of school engagement from middle to high school. Child Development, 83, 877–895.
Waxman, O. B. (2022). Anti-‘Critical Race Theory’ Laws Are Working. Teachers Are Thinking Twice About How They Talk About Race. Time Magazine, June 30, 2022. Retrieved from https://time.com/6192708/critical-race-theory-teachers-racism/.
Yarnell, L. M., & Bohrnstedt, G. W. (2018). Student-Teacher Racial Match and Its Association With Black Student Achievement: An Exploration Using Multilevel Structural Equation Modeling. American Educational Research Journal, 55, 287–324.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the students, teachers, and school administrators that made this study possible. We are grateful to members of the AERID (Adolescent Ethnic-Racial Identity Development) Lab at Harvard University who contributed to the research process. Finally, we acknowledge support from the European Association for Developmental Psychology for the ongoing collaboration of the Identity Project Global study group.
Funding
This research was supported by the William T. Grant Foundation (Reducing Inequality EGID: 189853; PI: Umaña-Taylor); two fellowships from the National Science Foundation SBE Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (Grant No. 1911722; PI: Safa; Grant No. 1911398; PI Sladek); and the Society for Research in Child Development, Early Career Scholar Research Award (PI: Safa). Any opinion, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agencies.
Data Sharing and DeclarationThe data analyzed during the current study are not publicly available but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. The study hypotheses and analyses were pre-registered via the Open Science Framework (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/W6NPC).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
AJU-T conceived the research questions and drafted the manuscript; MRS contributed to conceptualization of the research questions, conducted the statistical analyses, and helped to draft the manuscript; MDS contributed to conceptualization of the research questions and helped to draft the manuscript. All authors collaborated to secure funding, conceive the larger study, manage data collection, and read and approve the final manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare no competing interests.
Ethical Approval
This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Harvard University and the participating school district. The research was performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments.
Informed Consent
All study participants provided active parental consent and youth assent for participation.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Umaña-Taylor, A.J., Sladek, M.R. & Safa, M.D. Teachers’ Implementation of the Identity Project Is Associated With Increases in U.S. High School Students’ Ethnic-Racial Identity Exploration. J. Youth Adolescence (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-024-01955-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-024-01955-2