Stability and Change in Private and Public Ethnic Regard Among African American, Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Chinese American Early Adolescents

Over the past 20 years, researchers have demonstrated that ethnic identity in adolescence is multifaceted and dynamic, encompassing a number of aspects of content and self-definition. The present study examines private regard (i.e., youths' positive evaluations of their ethnic group) as well as public regard, which refers to their perceptions of others' evaluations of the group. The primary objective of the present study was to examine stability versus change in private and public regard among an ethnically diverse sample of early adolescents as they progressed through middle school. Using data from a longitudinal investigation of 6th graders, we found that private regard was stable over time and quite positive for all groups. In addition, while Chinese American youths' public regard tended to increase over time, African American, Puerto Rican, and Dominican youths' public regard decreased across the middle school years. Implications for ethnic identity theory are discussed.