Moving beyond race : examining the multidimensional self-concept of African-American college students

textThis study examined the multidimensional self-concept of African-American college students to determine whether Black racial identity, defined by Nigrescence theory, provides a valid means for predicting both global self-worth and domainspecific aspects of self-concept. The study had four key findings. First, the set of Black racial identity attitudes significantly predicted most domains of self-concept. Secondly, the specific predictive ability of the Black racial identity subtypes contradicted hypothesized relations of a positive association between immersion and internalized attitudes and self-concept. Preencounter and encounter attitudes accounted for the significant variance in most self-concept domains. Thirdly, the unexpected nature of the predictive ability challenged assumptions of Nigrescence theory. Lastly, the positive relation between internalized attitudes and the selfconcept domain of social acceptance emphasized the relation between social support and self-concept. Overall, the findings reinforced the need for multidimensional conceptualizations of both racial identity and self-concept.Educational Psycholog