Children develop a sense of their own ethnic identity earlier than previously thought, and children with a strong ethnic identity are more prone to interact with children of other ethnicities, according to new research by Professor of Education Cynthia Garcia Coll.
Garcia Coll and Amy Marks MS'05 PhD'07, adjunct assistant professor of human development, published their findings in the September issue of the International Journal of Behavioral Development, together with researchers from Howard University and the University of Illinois at Chicago.
In 2001, Garcia Coll completed a three-year study of second-generation immigrant children aged 6-12, then continued to track the children as they grew older. She tracked the children's perception of their own ethnic identity by asking them to select labels, such as "Portuguese-American" or "white," to describe themselves, according to a University news release.
The study began in 1998 with about 400 children of Cambodian, Portuguese and Dominican immigrants living in Providence and East Providence, Garcia Coll said.
She said she chose those groups because of the diverse experiences of their immigration to the United States, including Cambodian "refugees coming to Providence with a particular experience in the 1980s," as Providence was a federally designated location for such immigrants, Portuguese from the Azores who have been coming to Providence since the 19th century because "they are fisherman and their families have been coming for so many generations" and Dominicans coming "back and forth over time between New York and here."
Garcia Coll said she thinks "immigration is a topic we are struggling with in the United States," and her study could help Americans better understand how the process affects the children of immigrants.
Researchers encountered some surprises in conducting the study, Garcia Coll said. Interviews were offered to both the children and their parents in either English or the parents' native language, and though many of the parents took the interview in their native language, none of the children did.
Another surprise was that while previously ethnic identity was thought to be developed in adolescence, the study found that "as early as six years of age, kids are dealing with issues of ethnic identity," Garcia Coll said. As the children grew older, they started to use more encompassing identity labels and hyphenated identities, such as "Dominican-American," rather than specific nationalities.
Marks, an assistant professor of psychology at Suffolk University in addition to her post at Brown, said an important part of the study was that there weren't comparisons between different social groups, such as looking at the relative development of ethnic identity in Cambodian versus Portuguese children. Instead, conclusions were based on social and economic resources available to the specific group.
For example, Marks said, the Cambodians, "despite fewer economic and social support available," did "disproportionately well" academically, which she called the "immigrant education paradox."
Christina Perkins '08, a psychology concentrator, worked with Marks and Garcia Coll on the study. Perkins said she believes this "study can further this area of research" to possible practical applications, and that with the data researchers can "learn about students and education," as well as about "what angle positive influences can have" in the lives of these children.
