Exploring self-ethnic label selection in Latino/Hispanic origin adolescents

La'Kishia Denise Harris, Tennessee State University

Abstract

Ethnic Identity is cited as a key to self-identity and identity development. Labels including Hispanic, Hispano, and Latino were described in some studies as global because they did not reflect a person's ancestral origin. Label preferences were found by some researchers to be related to geographic location. Mexican-origin adolescents are a Latino subgroup of particularly large numbers who have shown the benefit of strengthened identities (Phinney et al., 2001; Schwartz, Zamboanga, & Jarvis, 2007). This mixed method study explored self-ethnic label selection and the meaning assigned to ethnic labels by adolescent students whose country of origin is Latin American (eg. Mexico, Guatemala). Participates were given short activity and focus group in which they answered open-ended questions about their own identities (ethnic, racial, gender, relational, etc.) and about how they believe that they would be characterized, in terms of identity, by their teachers and by other students at their school.

Subject Area

Secondary education|Latin American Studies|Personality psychology|Cognitive psychology|Hispanic American studies

Recommended Citation

La'Kishia Denise Harris, "Exploring self-ethnic label selection in Latino/Hispanic origin adolescents" (2014). ETD Collection for Tennessee State University. Paper AAI1557659.
https://digitalscholarship.tnstate.edu/dissertations/AAI1557659

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