As U.S. adolescents become more ethnically diverse, all youths' social and academic success depends in part on their experiences with diverse peers in school. Among those from ethnic or racial minority backgrounds, having a strong Ethnic-Racial Identity is predictive of positive social and academic outcomes. Ethnic-Racial Identity (ERI) refers to a person's beliefs about and understanding of their own ethnicity or race and how their ethnicity or race relates to their sense of self. The TIDES (Teen Identity Development and Education Study) Project is a longitudinal study that focuses on examining the role that peer relationships play in adolescents’ ERI development. This research uses social network modeling to investigate not only how adolescents' own ERI shapes their experiences but also how the ERIs of their peers impacts their development. The study will provide important new insights into how adolescents' ERI unfolds and how adolescents' interactions with each other support positive educational outcomes during the high school years. Another unique feature of this study is that data collection will take place in two sites – one in Arizona and one in Michigan. This design will enable our research team to investigate whether the processes under study unfold similarly across these different geographical regions of the U.S. for youth from diverse ethnic-racial backgrounds.
Adriana Umaña-Taylor (Harvard Graduate School of Education)
Deborah Rivas-Drake and Allison Ryan (University of Michigan)
David Schaefer (University of California, Irvine)
Funding Source: National Science Foundation