Ethnicity, Ethnic Identity, and Competence Formation: Adolescent Transition and Cultural Transformation

As a point of transition, adolescence is heavily influenced by what comes before in addition to the effects of current experiences. It also undergirds the expected quality of the adult outcomes that follow. This transition occurs in particular contexts. When the effects of race and ethnicity are factored in, significant symbolic and structural variations become evident in both the quality of problems encountered and the objective outcomes experienced across settings (e.g., school and peer group). For African American and other ethnic minority group adolescents, the patterned nature evident for some (e.g., teen pregnancy, youth incarceration, male aggression, school failure) has influenced both the types of research questions pursued, the specific scientific studies conducted, the interpretations of empirical data made, and the policies initiated from research findings. The pursuits of young people and the developmental stages these pursuits represent are quite different from those expected of adults. Thus, it is critical to examine ethnic minority youth from a perspective that considers both their unique structural and symbolic experiences. Generally, the nature of these experiences has important implications for the critical identity processes that occur during the adolescent stage. However, given adolescents' unique developmental placement and dependency status, their experiences must be disentangled from those of adults. The issue of an interactive ethnic influence on identity and competence processes during adolescence is under-studied and frequently misunderstood. Relative to the social sciences, DeVos and Romanucci-Ross (1982, p. vii) note that many methods of classification within societies have been stressed. From kinship systems of simple preliterate, prein-