THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MINORITY-GROUP MEMBERSHIP AND GROUP IDENTIFICATION IN A GROUP OF URBAN MIDDLE CLASS NEGRO GIRLS.

The article discusses the procedure followed and the relationship between minority-group membership and group identification in a group of middle-class African American girls studied. The 25 African American girls selected for this qualitative study were chosen largely on the basis of convenience. They were contacted in many ways: through personal friends, through calls for volunteers after lectures at girls' clubs, through casual meetings in libraries and hotel-lobbies, and through recommendations from previous subjects who felt pleased with the insights gained into their personalities. In general, the test results indicate a somewhat lower score on the Maslow Social Personality Inventory for the middle-class African American girls than for the White. This, according to the stated purpose of the test, would indicate a lesser dominance feeling. However, since the test was originally validated for middle-class White girls, the significance of the difference cannot yet be evaluated conclusively in statistical terms. A preliminary item analysis indicates that the lower score of the middle-class African American girls is related to their greater conventionality.