Embracing the skin you are in: Examining the relationship between ethnic pride and self-esteem among young African American women

Purpose: To determine the association between ethnic pride and self-esteem among young African American women.

Methods: From June 2005 to June 2007, young African American women (N=701), ages 14-20, were recruited from either a county health department STD clinic, hospital-based clinic, or Planned Parenthood clinic to participate in a sexual risk-reduction intervention for African American adolescents. The current analyses are based on data from the baseline assessment. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize the sociodemographics of the participants and ethnic pride. Further analyses examined the differences between groups (those with high ethnic pride vs those with low ethnic pride as determined by a median split) on sociodemographic variables, and measures of self-esteem, perceived racial discrimination, general health, and depressive symptomatology.

Results: Ethnic pride was assessed using a 10-item scale (a = .67; range 9-45) modified from the Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity. Forty-five percent of participants had high ethnic pride scores (M = 34.62, SD = 4.99). Adolescents who had higher ethnic pride were significantly more likely to also have higher levels of self-esteem (p < .001). No association was found for the other measures examined.

Conclusions: While the present findings do not indicate that there is a relationship between ethnic pride and health outcomes, they do provide evidence of an association between this construct and self-esteem. There is also some evidence for the use of this shorter scale in future research within this population.