The Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure – Revised (MEIM-R): Psychometric evaluation with adolescents from diverse ethnocultural groups in Italy

Abstract

The Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure – Revised (MEIM-R) is an extensively used questionnaire assessing ethnic identity. However, studies on its measurement characteristics in the European context are lacking. The current study addressed this gap by investigating the MEIM-R psychometric proprieties across multiple ethnocultural groups in Italy. Participants were 1445 adolescents (13–18 years) of Italian, East European, and North African origin. Results showed that the MEIM-R has good internal consistency. Multigroup confirmatory factor analyses revealed configural and metric invariance, i.e., an equal, correlated two-factor structure (ethnic identity exploration and commitment) and equal factor loadings across groups. Scalar invariance, i.e., equal item intercepts, was found only for the commitment scores that showed no group differences in latent factor mean levels. Partial structural invariance was evidenced, with the factor covariances varying across groups. These findings suggest that the MEIM-R is a valuable tool to assess the correlates of ethnic identity, although further research is needed.

Keywords:

• MEIM-R
• ethnic identity
• measurement invariance
• adolescents
• Italy

Acknowledgements

The authors are extremely grateful to Anthony D. Ong for granting permission to use the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure – Revised (MEIM‐R) in our research. We also would like to thank the American Psychological Association (APA) and SAGE Publications for the permission to use their copyrighted materials. For sake of clarification, we report the following details regarding the permission process. In this study, we initially referred to the MEIM-R items as presented in ‘Conceptualization and measurement of ethnic identity: Current status and future directions’, by J. S. Phinney, and A. D. Ong, A. D., 2007, Journal of Counseling Psychology, 54, p. 276. Copyright 2007 by the American Psychological Association. However, this paper reported that the items of the MEIM-R were adapted from ‘The Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure: A new scale for use with diverse groups’, by J. S. Phinney, 1992, Journal of Adolescent Research, 7, pp.172–173. Copyright 1992 by SAGE Publications. Our final adapted and translated Italian version of the MEIM-R used 5 items from the Phinney and Ong’s paper (2007), while replacing one item with another reported in the previous Phinney’s work (1992). In light of this, we first requested and obtained permission from the APA Permissions Office. This permission was contingent on also obtaining permission from both one of the authors and SAGE Publications. Thus, we then requested and obtained permission from Anthony D. Ong. Finally, after contacting SAGE permissions representative, we acknowledged that our use of the material fell under STM permission guidelines, as also confirmed by Taylor and Francis offices.

Notes

1 In providing the explanations, we referred to the unstandardized intercept values of MEIM-R items 1 (2.010 for Italians and 2.574 for East Europeans and North Africans) and 5 (3.138 for East Europeans and 2.647 for Italians and North Africans) as resulting from the partial scalar invariance model (Model 2P in Table 2).