ETHNIC MINORITY YOUTH LITERATURE

ETHNIC MINORITY YOUTH LITERATURE
The literature on ethnic minority youth is vast but has
many methodological flaws. Most discussions are
based on a European American, middle-class refer-
ence that neglects the experiences of minorities. When
there is discussion of minority youth, it is often in
comparison to European American youth, which does
not allow for the formation of ideas and theories per-
tinent to these groups, but rather considers their devel-
opment secondary to a dominant cultural experience.
Furthermore, the literature often confounds the effects
of ethnic categorization with that of socioeconomic
status (SES). Minority youth from lower SES groups
are often compared with European American youth
with higher SES. Most studies do not record the SES
of the children they study, and when they do, the
Ethnic Minority Youth———195comparisons between minority and European
American youth are often unequal or uncontrolled.
Study of minority youth also takes place almost exclu-
sively in urban, low-income samples without compar-
ison groups. It is difficult to conclude whether the
outcomes presented in most studies stem from either
ethnic or socioeconomic background, and this diffi-
culty precludes generalizable conclusions about eth-
nic minority youth. Keeping this in mind, below are
some important characteristics of each of the four
minority youth population