A dissertation proposal submitted and approved in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy.

Start Date: Topic approved January 1998
End Date: End of academic year 1999/2000

Organization: University of California, Los Angeles.

Committee/Supervisor(s): Romeria Tidwell (Chair) - UCLA; Walter Allen - UCLA; C. Valadez - UCLA; Val Rust - UCLA; Maykel Verkuyten (ex officio) - Utrecht University
Other sponsors: UCLA Graduate Division, Office of the Dean

Description: (including abstract and methodology): This study will investigate ethnic identity among the Surinamese adolescents in the Netherlands and examine if there is a connection between Surinamese ethnic identity and psychological well-being, specifically self-esteem.
Studies have found a correlation between ethnic identity and self-esteem, showing that a strong and secure ethnic identity is generally associated with high self-esteem (Phinney, 1990). The finding are consistent with social identity theory (Tajfel, 1974) and with research on adolescent self-identity or as Erikson (1968) named it, ego-identity. Adolescent ego-identity research provides some foundation for the current research on ethnic identity. Understandable since during the same period of ego-identity development members of ethnic minority groups may have the additional task of coming to terms with their ethnicity (Spencer & Markstrom-Adams, 1990). Research findings seem to bare this out, however, a vast majority of research on ethnic identity has been conducted in the United States on more traditional ethnic groups, primarily African-Americans, Hispanic-American, and Asian-American (Phinney, 1990).

This study will look at a non-United States ethnic minority group, Surinamese in the Netherlands, and is driven by the belief that there are shared components to ethnic identity and its development among groups, regardless of their physical location.

Hypotheses:

1. There exist among the Surinamese adolescent population a relationship between ethnic identity and self-esteem.
2. Subjects who are acculturated will tend to have higher self-esteem compared to those who are not.
3. Those Surinamese adolescents who classify themselves as Dutch within the assimilated groups will have higher self-esteem than those who classify themselves as Surinamese.
4. The demographic variation of respondents within any one ethnic identity sub-category should be similar to the variation in the other categories.
5. The concept of ethnic identity exist, as measured by the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM) among the Surinamese adolescent population.

The collected data will be collected and analyzed using inferential statistics. There are only two exceptions to this. The fifth hypothesis, regarding the presence of ethnic identity among the Surinamese, will be tested using a simple descriptive statistics, like frequency counts. This will be based on the results of the MEIM. The other exception is the first hypothesis, the relationship between ethnic identity and self-esteem. This will be tested using another descriptive statistic, correlation, in addition the inferential statistics of ANOVA and ANCOVA. The dependent variable, so to speak, will be self-esteem, while ethnic identity, as measured by the MEIM and the "Dutch Cultural Scale", will be the independent variable.