The Development and Evaluation of the Intersectional Consciousness Scale (ICS) in Adults and Emerging Adults

Background: Several recent and current events bring to the forefront the impact of intersecting and overlapping systems of oppressions and inequities. An intersectionality lens can help us better attend to these overlapping systems of oppression. Intersectionality perspectives argue that multiple systems of oppression intersect to shape individual’s lives by perpetuating certain inequities and affordances (Crenshaw, 1989; Collins, 1989, Combahee River Collective, 1977, Davis, 1983; hooks, 1981; Lorde, 1984). Capitalizing on theoretical research on the integration of critical consciousness with intersectionality (Godfrey & Burson, in press), we present a new scale capturing intersectional consciousness.

Methods: Participants for this study included 402 individuals recruited online using various online techniques to increase participation of diverse individuals. Their mean age was 28.05, 35.8% had not completed college, 30% identified as men. Using the MacArthur subjective social status scale 51% reported being middle-to-low income. In terms of race/ethnicity, 9% identified as African American, 16.9% as Asian American, 42.8% as White, 28.9% as Latinx, and 11.4% as other race/ethnicity. For the purposes of better understanding the structure of this scale in an emerging adult sample relative to an adult sample, we split the sample by age.

The 22 items constituting the ICS scale were created via an iterative process that involved experts, members of the community, and auditors. Participations were provided an overarching prompt that stated: The term "oppression" refers to things like racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, etc, that maintains inequalities among groups of individuals in America. "Experiencing multiple forms of oppression" means experiencing more than one of these oppressions.Subscales included: (1) Awareness of intersecting oppressions, (2) Efficacy regarding intersecting oppressions, (3) Actual low-risk actions to address intersecting oppressions, (4) Willingness to engage in high-risk action to address intersecting oppressions.

Results: Using the emerging adult sample, we ran an exploratory factor analysis using principal axis factoring and direct oblimin (Tabachnick & Fiddell 2007). Results revealed that there was a clear four factor structure to this data. These results were shown to be stable in a sample of 190 with a Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value of .89 and communalities exceeding .5 and a parallel analysis of 500 random samples with a cutoff of 95% confirmed a four factor structure (MacCallum, Widaman, Zhang, & Hong 1999). Following standards for item deletion, we did not have to delete any items; all items loaded at .4 or above in each respective factor (e.g., Worthington & Whittaker, 2006).

Using the adult sample, results from a confirmatory factor analysis provided evidence in support of the structure identified in the emerging adult sample. Using SEM techniques, we find evidence of the convergence between the ICS subscales and systems justification, such that a higher intersectional consciousness is inversely associated with a belief in meritocracy.

Implications: The findings suggest that the ICS appears to have psychometric evidence in support of its structure and hypothesized associations with systems justifying beliefs. Future studies are planned to test the ICS with other samples that are more diverse in terms of levels of education, income and race/ethnicity.