The development of awareness of racism in adolescents of color over 4 years of high school.

Abstract

This mixed methods, longitudinal study considered the developing awareness of racism of adolescents of color over 4 years of high school. A series of latent growth models were fit to consider participating adolescents' (n = 643) developing awareness of interpersonal and institutional forms of racism over five waves of surveys. Additionally, four waves of interviews with a subset of adolescents (n = 70) were analyzed through a multistep process consistent with qualitative research methods that seek to balance etic/outsider and emic/insider perspectives Participating adolescents demonstrated significant, linear growth in their awareness of interpersonal and systemic forms of racism between middle and late adolescence. Participating adolescents also most frequently cited examples of racism in the systemic domain of power to demonstrate their understanding of racism, and their invocation of examples of systemic racism grew more frequent as they advanced through high school. The present study revealed that, on average, adolescents' awareness of racism increases significantly between middle and late adolescence, but also that there is considerable heterogeneity in the ways that adolescents of color recognize and understand racism.