Ethnic Identity, Chinese National Identity, and Intergroup Attitudes of Adolescents from an Ethnic Autonomous Region in China

ABSTRACT

We compared the differences and explored the associations between ethnic identity and Chinese national identity, and the intergroup attitudes of adolescents from the Yi, Han, and Mongolian ethnicities in a Yi ethnic autonomous region in China. The participants (N = 1830, 50% female) were middle school students (n = 910, M_age = 13.51) and high school students (n = 920, M_age = 17.71). We found (a) significant ethnic differences between the high school students in the subscales of behavior, self-identification, and achievement; (b) that the three ethnic groups exhibited nonsignificant differences in their perceptions of Chinese national identity; (c) a positive association between ethnic identity and Chinese national identity for the adolescents across ethnicities; (d) a positive association between ethnic identity and intergroup attitudes for the Yi adolescents only; and (e) that Chinese national identity was positively associated with intergroup attitudes for the Yi and Han adolescents and for the Mongolian middle school students, but not for the Mongolian high school students. This suggests that age and context play central roles in shaping the ethnic and national identities of adolescents in such regions, and those who grow up in an inclusive environment are more likely to develop positive intergroup attitudes.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnic identity
• national identity
• intergroup attitudes
• adolescents
• ethnic autonomous regions in China

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Prof. Liu Pei, Prof. Victor Fung, Dr. Koji Matsunobu, Dr. Chungyim Lau, and Dr. Yang Yang for their suggestions and thoughtful feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.