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Ethnic and University Identities across the College Years: A Common In‐Group Identity Perspective
Author(s) -
Levin Shana,
Sinclair Stacey,
Sidanius Jim,
Van Laar Colette
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.618
H-Index - 122
eISSN - 1540-4560
pISSN - 0022-4537
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-4560.2009.01601.x
Subject(s) - ethnic group , superordinate goals , identity (music) , social psychology , ideology , psychology , perspective (graphical) , social identity theory , sociology , social group , political science , politics , anthropology , computer science , physics , artificial intelligence , acoustics , law
The common in‐group identity model advocates the creation of a superordinate group identity in order to reduce conflict between members of different ethnic subgroups. This study demonstrates that a university identity can serve as an effective common in‐group identity for students from different ethnic groups. Longitudinal data were collected from an ethnically diverse sample of university students at the end of each year of college. Although ethnic identification tended to be correlated with status‐legitimizing orientations and ideologies in a way that reinforces ethnic‐status differences (i.e., these variables tended to be positively related for Whites but less so for ethnic minorities), the status‐legitimizing variables were largely unrelated to university identification during each year in college. The longitudinal data also allowed us to examine these relationships over time. The relationships between ethnic and university identification and status‐legitimizing orientations and ideologies did not change. Ethnic and university identities are discussed in terms of the common in‐group identity model.