Measuring bicultural ethnic identity among American Indian adolescents: A factor analytic study

Based on the premise that ethnic identity provides a fruitful approach to e xploring issues related to ethnicity, an empirically based strategy was use d to develop a measure of ethnic identity among American Indian adolescents . Because American Indians live in two worlds a bicultural approach was dra wn an to measure the degree that respondents identified with Indian culture and with the mainstream or White culture An exploratory factor analysis wa s used to examine the structure of ethnic identity among Indian adolescents and the resulting models were tested with confirmatory factor analysis. A scale for measuring bicultural ethnic identity was developed and the reliab ility and validity of the scale was assessed.