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Ethnic-racial identity affirmation: Validation in Aboriginal Australian children

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posted on 2019-01-01, 00:00 authored by D M Macedo, P R Santiago, R M Roberts, L G Smithers, Yin ParadiesYin Paradies, L M Jamieson
© 2019 Macedo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Introduction Positive attitudes towards ethnic-racial identity (ERI) is a key factor in Aboriginal Australian children’s development. The present study aims to offer evidence of construct and criterion validity, reliability, and measurement invariance of a brief measure of Aboriginal children’s ERI affirmation. Methods Data was from 424 children aged 10–12 years (mean 10.5 years; SD 0.56) participating in the 8th wave of the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC). Information on ERI was obtained from 4 child-reported items. Sociodemographic characteristics and child social and emotional outcomes were caregiver-reported. A factorial structure was tested by Confirmatory Factor Analysis. The estimation method was weighted least squares with mean and variance adjusted test statistic (WLSMV). For reliability verification, the ordinal α and Ω hierarchical α were assessed. For construct validity, a generalized linear model with log-Poisson link estimated the association between ERI and children’s social and emotional outcomes. We hypothesized that children with positive ERI would have lower behavioural and emotional difficulties. Results We found evidence of excellent fit for a unidimensional model of ERI affirmation after adjusting for correlated uniqueness between items 1 and 3 (χ2(2) = 0.06, p = 0.80; RMSEA = 0.000 [90% CI 0.000–0.080], p = 0.088; CFI = 1.000). Internal consistency reliability was considered adequate (ordinal α = 0.83; Ω hierarchical α = 0.72). The unidimensional model was shown to be invariant among boys and girls (Δχ2 (4) = 6.20, p = 0.18; ΔCFI = 0.000). Higher ERI was associated with lower risk of problematic scores (>17) on the SDQ (Risk Ratioa = 0.91, 95% CI 0.64, 1.29). Discussion The four LSIC items perform as a brief measure of Aboriginal children ERI affirmation among boys and girls. Results contribute much needed evidence for LSIC’s ongoing success and to future research on Aboriginal children’s development and wellbeing.

History

Journal

PLoS ONE

Volume

14

Issue

11

Article number

e0224736

Pagination

1 - 14

Publisher

Public Library of Science (PLoS)

Location

San Francisco, Calif.

eISSN

1932-6203

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

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