Collective self-esteem is defined as the aspect of identity that relates to how one evaluates the value or worth of the social group to which they belong (Luttanen and Croker, 1992). For African American youth, little research has been conducted to understand how they assess the value or worth they place on their ethnic social grouping as opposed to their racial identity (Hecht, Jackson, & Ribeau, 2003). Moreover, African American scholars for decades have theorized about the importance of applying African centered frameworks to ground community solutions for these youth. Drawing from both the African centered and collective self-esteem literature, the purpose of the present study is to develop a measure of collective self-esteem derived from an African framework to examine its relationship with African American youths’ ethnic identity perceptions. The first phase of the study consisted of a content analysis to generate a pool of items derived from Bantu philosophical text. The second phase consisted of cognitive interviewing to understand the mental processing of African American youth answering the developed items. In the final phase, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted to identify the factor structure of the tested items. A single factor was identified, which was strongly correlated with African American youth perceptions of ethnic belonging further supporting that self-perceptions amongst African American youth is associated with how they positively or negatively perceive their ethnic identity.

This study is an exploratory phenomenological study regarding experiences of bullying among African American male adolescents (AAMAs) and their parents/guardians. Given the population of interest, a critical framework was used. The critical framework included critical race theory (CRT), Black feminist thought (BFT), and altruism born of suffering (ABS). According to the 2015 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, AAMAs in high school reported lower levels of bullying victimization at school and online compared to all other student groups in their data. This study was designed as a mixed-methods study with a strong qualitative component and a supplementary quantitative portion. The sample included 16 AAMAs and one parent/guardian per youth (N = 32).

The findings were organized into themes for the three areas of study: perceptions of bullying (i.e., emotion, entertainment, fighting, structure, and home life), responses to bullying (i.e., self-preservation, suffering, passivity, and standing up for other people), and barriers/supports of prosocial active bystandership of bullying (i.e., barriers, education, and taking action). The quantitative results indicated that all of the participants observed bullying (N = 32), almost all of the participants had been bullied (n = 29) and a strong majority (n = 25) experienced racialized suffering. The results of a matched pairs t-test of factor one of the Colorblind Racial Attitudes Scale (CoBRAS) and factor five the Bystander Intervention of Bullying and Racial Harassment Scale (BIBRS) indicated these measures may not be a good fit for this population.