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Using the Race Model Inequality to Quantify Behavioral Multisensory Integration Effects
Published on: May 10, 2019
Racial self-categorization in adolescence: multiracial development and social pathways
Steven Hitlin1, J Scott Brown, Glen H Elder
1Department of Sociology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA. steven-hitlin@uiowa.edu
Abstract:
Research on multiracial individuals is often cross-sectional, obscuring the fluid nature of multiracial self-categorization across time. Pathways of racial self-identification are developed from a nationally representative sample of adolescents aged 14-18, measured again 5 years later. A significant proportion of multiracial adolescents change racial self-identification across time. Youth who ever report being multiracial are 4 times as likely to switch self-identification as to report consistent multiracial identities. Across this time, more multiracial adolescents either add a racial category (diversify) or subtract one (consolidate) than maintain consistent multiracial self-categorization. Exploratory multinomial analyses show few differences between these pathways on select psychological and social characteristics. Results lend quantitative support to qualitative studies indicating the fluidity of racial self-categorization.
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