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Ethnic‐Racial Identity and Friendships in Early Adolescence
Author(s) -
RivasDrake Deborah,
UmañaTaylor Adriana J.,
Schaefer David R.,
Medina Michael
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/cdev.12790
Subject(s) - friendship , psychology , ethnic group , longitudinal study , developmental psychology , diversity (politics) , adolescent development , similarity (geometry) , identity (music) , social psychology , statistics , physics , mathematics , artificial intelligence , sociology , anthropology , computer science , acoustics , image (mathematics)
The current study examined how adolescents' ethnic‐racial identity (ERI) informed the demographic diversity of their friendship network (Goal 1) and the extent of similarity between adolescents' and their friends' ERI (Goal 2). Participants were sixth and seventh grade students ( N = 353; M age = 11.88, SD = .73; 50% girls; 29% African American, 31% White, 13% Latino) in the Midwestern U.S. Results from longitudinal cross‐lagged models (Goal 1) indicated that having more diverse friendships at T2 was associated with greater T3 ERI exploration among all youth. In addition, boys who reported higher ERI resolution at T1 had more diverse friendships at T2. Furthermore, findings from longitudinal social network analyses (SNA; Goal 2) suggested that influence drove similarity between adolescents and their friends in ERI exploration and resolution.