A Brief Form of the Ethnic Identity Scale: Development and Empirical Validation

Abstract

Theory and research have long indicated that ethnic-racial identity is a complex and multifaceted construct. However, there is a paucity of brief, easily administered measures that adequately capture this multidimensionality. Two studies were conducted to develop an abbreviated version of the Ethnic Identity Scale (EIS) and to explore its psychometric properties in the United States. In Study 1, the use of item-reduction techniques with a sample of adolescent Latinos (n = 323) resulted in a 9-item brief version of the EIS (EIS-B), including subscales of Exploration, Resolution, and Affirmation; furthermore, longitudinal analyses provided initial support for the construct validity of the subscales. In Study 2, the factor structure of the EIS-B was examined among an ethnically diverse sample of college students (n = 9,492), and findings provided support for strong measurement invariance across ethnic groups for the EIS-B. Together, findings from both studies provided preliminary evidence for the validity and reliability of the EIS-B as a brief measure of the multidimensional construct of ethnic-racial identity, and indicated that the EIS-B assessed ethnic-racial identity in a comparable manner to the original version of the scale.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank the youth who took part in the studies that we describe in this article. We also thank the following collaborators for their contributions to the respective studies: Investigators of the Multisite University Study of Identity and Culture (MUSIC), and graduate research assistants, undergraduate research assistants, and school partners of the Following Latino Adolescents' Resilience in Educational Settings (FLARES) Project.

Notes

¹ERI has been proposed as a metaconstruct that captures ethnic heritage experiences in addition to experiences that an individual has as a member of an ascribed racial group in the United States (Umaña-Taylor et al., 2014). Consistent with this, we refer to ERI when reviewing previous research that has referred to either ethnic or racial identity.

²Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (K–8), Monitoring the Future, National Annenberg Survey of Youth, National Latino and Asian American Study, National Survey of Adolescents in the United States, National Survey of Black Americans, National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Children and Young Adults.