ETHNIC AND AMERICAN IDENTITY AS PREDICTORS OF SELF-ESTEEM AMONG AFRICAN-AMERICAN, LATINO, AND WHITE ADOLESCENTS

In order to examine ethnic and American identity as predictors of self -esteem among adolescents we surveyed 669 American-born high school st udents (372 Latinos, 232 African Americans and 65 Whites). participant s completed measures of self-esteem, ethnic identity, American identit y, attitudes toward other groups, and demographic variables. Multiple regression analyses of self-esteem were carried out separately for eac h ethnic group using ethnic and American identity, other-group attitud es, gender, age, socioeconomic status, and grade point average as pred ictors. Results indicated that for all groups ethnic identity was a si gnificant predictor of self-esteem. For the White students only Americ an identity was a strong predictor of self-esteem and was highly corre lated with ethnic identity. Other predictors varied across ethnic grou ps. Although ethnic identity was a significant predictor of self-estee m, it accounted for a relatively small proportion of the variance, sug gesting the importance of other influences on self-esteem.