"You Think About Your Identity a Lot": Ethnic-Racial Identity and Diversity, in Context

Context is important to how youth develop and experience their ethnic-racial identity (ERI), but few empirical studies of ERI measure context beyond the demographic composition of settings. This study examines how youth experiences of their ERI in interactions with peers of different ethnic-racial backgrounds are shaped by the organizational context and content of interactions.

I draw on ethnographic interviews with participants in the United States at a high school debate program, an activity historically dominated by white males but with increasing participation of minoritized youth. I use a sensemaking lens to examine how youth in my study (N = 8; age 13-18; 2 male, 5 female, 1 nonbinary; 4 Asian American, 1 Black, 2 Latinx, 1 White) understand the salience of and public regard for their ethnicity-race in interactions during debate competitions.

The combination of the ethnic-racial composition of settings and the content of interactions influenced ERI salience. Youth made sense of public regard for their ethnic-racial group from both peers' responses to their expressions of ERI and the validation or invalidation they received from those with authority in the organization.

These findings demonstrate the importance of examining organizational norms and power that uphold or interrupt white supremacy as a critical part of the context around ERI development. The data also show that gender, social class, and other social identities were intertwined with ethnicity-race in youth's sensemaking, pointing to the need for more qualitative research that captures intersectional identities.