PSYCH 620 Week 2 Racial, Ethnic and Gender Identity Models Example

Somali, Black, Muslim, American and a Young Woman: Applying Identity Models to One Phoenix Teenager's Questions

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

PSYCH/620: Multicultural and Social Issues in Psychology

Week 2 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The young woman, her family and the youth program are composites written for a model paper; research findings come from the sources listed.

Identity models describe how people come to understand their membership in racial, ethnic and gender groups. Each model offers useful concepts, but people's lives rarely fit a single model. This paper applies several identity models to a young woman in my agency's youth leadership program, with her permission and with identifying details changed.

The Young Woman

Hodan is nineteen. She was born in a refugee camp in Kenya to Somali parents and arrived in Phoenix with her family at age six. She graduated from a public high school, works part time at a pharmacy and attends community college, hoping to become a nurse. She wears a headscarf. In our mentoring conversations, she described feeling pulled in several directions. At school, classmates and teachers saw her as African American and expected her to share experiences she did not have. Some relatives say she is becoming "too American" because she speaks English at home and wants to delay marriage. At work, customers sometimes comment on her headscarf or ask where she is "really from." Recently she joined a Black student union at her college and found unexpected belonging there.

Ethnic Identity: Exploration and Commitment

Phinney (1992) developed the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure to assess ethnic identity across groups, based on the idea that ethnic identity includes a sense of belonging and affirmation, ethnic behaviors and practices and a process of exploration and achievement, in which people examine what their ethnicity means and arrive at a secure understanding of it. Phinney's work drew on Erikson's and Marcia's ideas about identity formation and found that ethnic identity was related to self-esteem among adolescents and young adults from several groups.

Hodan is actively exploring. She has begun reading about Somali history, attends a weekly Somali women's gathering with her aunt and questions some family expectations while affirming her heritage. In Phinney's terms, she is moving through exploration toward an achieved, secure ethnic identity, one that she defines for herself rather than simply inherits.

Acculturation: Combining Two Worlds

Berry (1997) used acculturation to mean the shifts in customs and in individual minds that happen once two cultures live side by side. Two choices sit at the center of Berry's account: how much of the culture one grew up in to keep, and how much to take part in the new country's life. Crossing those choices gives four patterns. Keeping both is integration. Dropping the old culture to blend in is assimilation. Holding the old culture while keeping apart from the new society is separation. Losing touch with both is marginalization. Berry noted that integration is often associated with better adaptation, but that the strategies available depend on the attitudes of the larger society.

Hodan is pursuing integration: she keeps her faith, language and family ties while pursuing education and work in the wider community. Her relatives' worry that she is "too American" reflects an intergenerational gap in acculturation, common in immigrant families, in which children adapt faster than parents.

Racial Identity: Becoming Black in America

Ethnic and racial identity are related but distinct. Hodan's ethnic heritage is Somali; in the United States, she is also racialized as Black, regardless of how she sees herself. Sellers et al. (1998) proposed the Multidimensional Model of Racial Identity, which describes racial identity through four dimensions: salience, how relevant race is to self-concept in a particular situation; centrality, how much race is a core part of identity across situations; regard, how positively one feels about being Black and how one believes others view Black people; and ideology, beliefs about how Black people should act. The model emphasizes that identity varies among individuals and situations rather than following a single sequence.

For Hodan, race was not central for most of her life; she thought of herself as Somali and Muslim. Experiences of being treated as Black, including being followed in stores, increased race's salience, and joining the Black student union increased its centrality. Her private regard is positive, and she describes a growing sense of shared experience with African American classmates, alongside differences in history and culture.

She did not choose to be seen as Black; she is choosing what being Black means to her.

Gender and Faith

Hodan's experience as a young woman shapes every other identity. Family expectations about marriage and caregiving fall more heavily on her than on her brothers. Her headscarf makes her religious identity visible and exposes her to comments her brothers do not face. Yet she describes her headscarf as her own choice and a source of pride. Models of gender identity that focus only on gender in isolation, or that assume Western norms of gender expression, would miss these interactions.

Intersectionality

Cole (2009) gave psychologists three working questions for intersectional research: whom does a category quietly include and leave out, how does inequality shape it and what do people in different categories share? Cole emphasized that social categories such as race, gender and class are not simply additive but jointly shape experiences, and that attention to structural inequality is essential.

Applying these questions to Hodan shows why single models fall short. She is included within categories, Black, Muslim, immigrant and woman, that are often studied separately, and the people who define each category may not have someone like her in mind. Inequality shapes her experiences in combined ways: comments at work target her as a Muslim woman, while being followed in stores reflects racial profiling. And she finds similarities across categories, such as shared experiences of being treated as a foreigner with Latina coworkers.

Where the Models Fall Short

Stage models imply a sequence that Hodan's experience does not follow; her racial identity became salient late, and her ethnic exploration moves back and forth with life events. Models developed with U.S.-born groups may not capture immigrant experiences. And each model, used alone, isolates one identity. Together, they provide useful concepts, but her own account of herself remains the most important source.

Identity Over Time

Hodan's account also shows that identity is not settled at nineteen. Her sense of being Black grew through experiences at college; her relationship with Somali traditions changed when her grandmother arrived from Nairobi and moved in with the family last year; her plans for marriage and career shift as she watches older cousins balance both. Each model captures a slice of this movement, but none predicts where she will be at twenty-five. That uncertainty is not a weakness in her development; it is what an open, exploring identity looks like from the outside.

Implications for Our Youth Program

The analysis suggests several supports. Our program can offer spaces where young people can explore multiple identities, including conversations with Somali American professionals who have combined heritage and careers. Mentors can avoid assuming which identity matters most in a given situation and ask instead. Family workshops can address intergenerational acculturation gaps, helping parents and young adults understand each other. And our agency can share information about responding to discrimination at work and school.

Conclusion

Hodan's identity includes Somali heritage, Black racial identity, Muslim faith, American upbringing and womanhood. Models of ethnic identity, acculturation and racial identity each illuminate part of her experience, and intersectionality shows how these parts combine. Supporting young people like Hodan means making room for all of who they are.

References

Berry, J. W. (1997). Immigration, acculturation, and adaptation. Applied Psychology, 46(1), 5-34. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-0597.1997.tb01087.x

Cole, E. R. (2009). Intersectionality and research in psychology. American Psychologist, 64(3), 170-180. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014564

Phinney, J. S. (1992). The multigroup ethnic identity measure: A new scale for use with diverse groups. Journal of Adolescent Research, 7(2), 156-176. https://doi.org/10.1177/074355489272003

Sellers, R. M., Smith, M. A., Shelton, J. N., Rowley, S. A. J., & Chavous, T. M. (1998). Multidimensional model of racial identity: A reconceptualization of African American racial identity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2(1), 18-39. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0201_2