A Longitudinal Mixed-Methods Analysis on Asian American and Latinx Young Adult’s Critical Consciousness

Critical consciousness describes how marginalized people learn to analyze their social conditions (critical reflection), develop beliefs about their ability to create social change (critical motivation), and engage in action with the goal of creating a more just society (critical action; Diemer & Rapa, 2016). This study used longitudinal, mixed-methods, and person-centered analytic approaches to accomplish the following aims: (1) define and describe underlying groups of young adults who similarly endorse dimensions of critical consciousness during older adolescence and emerging adulthood; (2) examine relationships between young adults’ contextual resources, sociocultural factors, and critical consciousness class membership at different developmental stages and changes across time; (3) use longitudinal interview data to corroborate the quantitative results. Latent Transition Analysis results suggest a four-class model of critical consciousness comprised of the “Low Critical Consciousness”, “Critical, Inefficacious, Disengaged”, “Efficacious, Action-oriented”, and “High Critical Consciousness” classes. Multinomial logistic regression results suggest that greater parent and peer political socialization and engagement, racial discrimination, and ethnic identity were associated with membership in more critical or engaged classes. Mixed-methods analysis of participants’ qualitative and quantitative results reveal cases of match and mismatch between their respective class’s pattern of critical consciousness and discussions of sociopolitical engagement. This study has implications for expanding theory and research to better understand critical consciousness development among young people of color.