Childhood and Adulthood Predictors of Critical Consciousness

Critical consciousness (CC) is a multidimensional construct that describes a person’s attitudinal and behavioral orientation to structural and systemic social injustice. Although research on CC has grown in recent years, we still know relatively little about how life experience and social identity predict CC dimensions in adulthood. To help address this gap, U.S. adults ( n = 360) completed an online survey regarding experiences of nurturance and adversity in childhood, discrimination and multicultural exposure in adulthood, and CC outcomes (reflection, action, sociopolitical efficacy, and militarism). Half of the sample had “structurally privileged” demographic characteristics (i.e., White, heterosexual, non-Latinx/Hispanic, not transgender, non-disabled, and mid to high socioeconomic status) while the other half had at least one “structurally marginalized” demographic characteristic. Path analyses showed that having more structurally marginalized characteristics predicted perceived discrimination and several CC outcomes, but there was also evidence of a perceived “reverse-discrimination” effect among the structurally privileged group. Further, both nurturing and adverse childhood experiences predicted multicultural experience, which in turn predicted all components of CC in both groups. These results suggest several complex developmental pathways of CC that would benefit from additional longitudinal study.