“What does being Latino/Latina/Latinx mean to you?”: A Thematic Analysis of Oregon Latinx Students and Their Ethnic Identity

16 pagesThe current study uses inductive thematic analysis to derive themes from responses to an open-ended question. This study was set in Oregon where 23% of k-12 students are Latinx (Gill et al., 2019). Data for the present study, collected in spring of 2019, is written responses to the question "What does it mean to you to be Latina/o/x?" Participants were 495 Latinx high school students attending a one-day leadership conference. Themes present in open-ended responses represent all levels of the ecological model (Bronfenbrenner, 1977) and include themes of internal characteristics, interpersonal interactions, and sociocultural influences and codes such as culture, pride, community, family, language, and resistance that inform how Latinx youth conceptualize their ERI. Exploration of relationships between themes of pride, a component of positive regard and ethnic racial identity (ERI), academic achievement, and participation in M.E.Ch.A. (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlán) revealed a significant relationship. between M.E.Ch.A. participation and responses coded for pride in which students that participated in M.E.Ch.A. were more likely to respond to the open-ended question in a way that would be coded for pride. The exploration of relationships was done with chi square tests