Sanchez Gabriel R, Vargas Edward D
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center for Health Policy at the University of New Mexico, MSC02 1645, 1 University of New Mexico, 1909 Las Lomas NE, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA.
Center for Women's Health and Health Disparities Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison, IRP, 1180 Observatory Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
Polit Res Q. 2016 Mar;69(1):160-174. doi: 10.1177/1065912915624571. Epub 2016 Jan 14.
Scholarship in the area of group identity has expanded our understanding of how group consciousness and linked fate operate among racial and ethnic minority populations in the United States. What is yet to be tested is whether the measures employed adequately capture the multi-dimensional theoretical constructs associated with group consciousness across racial and ethnic populations. To address this question we make use of the 2004 National Political Study (n=3,339) and apply principle components analysis and exploratory factor analysis to assess whether measures used for both group consciousness and linked fate are interchangeable, as well as whether these measures are directly comparable across racial and ethnic populations. We find that the multidimensional approach to measuring group consciousness is a sound strategy when applied to African Americans, as the dimensions fit the African American experience more powerfully than is the case for Non-Hispanic Whites, Hispanics, and Asian populations. Our analysis suggests that scholars interesting in exploring group identity among the African-African population have fewer analytical concerns in this regard than those working with other populations where the underlying components associated with group consciousness appear to be operating differently.
群体认同领域的学术研究拓展了我们对于群体意识和连带命运在美国种族和少数民族群体中如何运作的理解。尚未得到检验的是，所采用的测量方法是否充分涵盖了与不同种族和族裔群体的群体意识相关的多维度理论结构。为了解决这个问题，我们利用了2004年全国政治研究（n = 3339），并应用主成分分析和探索性因素分析来评估用于群体意识和连带命运的测量方法是否可互换，以及这些测量方法在不同种族和族裔群体之间是否具有直接可比性。我们发现，测量群体意识的多维度方法应用于非裔美国人时是一种合理的策略，因为这些维度与非裔美国人经历的契合度比非西班牙裔白人、西班牙裔和亚裔群体更高。我们的分析表明，与研究其他群体的学者相比，对探索非裔群体中群体认同感兴趣的学者在这方面的分析顾虑较少，因为在其他群体中，与群体意识相关的潜在成分似乎运作方式不同。
