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International Journal for Equity in Health
Published in: International Journal for Equity in Health 1/2016

Open Access 01-12-2016 | Research

The Australian Racism, Acceptance, and Cultural-Ethnocentrism Scale (RACES): item response theory findings

Authors: Kaine Grigg, Lenore Manderson

Published in: International Journal for Equity in Health | Issue 1/2016

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Abstract

Background

Racism and associated discrimination are pervasive and persistent challenges with multiple cumulative deleterious effects contributing to inequities in various health outcomes. Globally, research over the past decade has shown consistent associations between racism and negative health concerns. Such research confirms that race endures as one of the strongest predictors of poor health. Due to the lack of validated Australian measures of racist attitudes, RACES (Racism, Acceptance, and Cultural-Ethnocentrism Scale) was developed.

Methods

Here, we examine RACES’ psychometric properties, including the latent structure, utilising Item Response Theory (IRT). Unidimensional and Multidimensional Rating Scale Model (RSM) Rasch analyses were utilised with 296 Victorian primary school students and 182 adolescents and 220 adults from the Australian community.

Results

RACES was demonstrated to be a robust 24-item three-dimensional scale of Accepting Attitudes (12 items), Racist Attitudes (8 items), and Ethnocentric Attitudes (4 items). RSM Rasch analyses provide strong support for the instrument as a robust measure of racist attitudes in the Australian context, and for the overall factorial and construct validity of RACES across primary school children, adolescents, and adults.

Conclusions

RACES provides a reliable and valid measure that can be utilised across the lifespan to evaluate attitudes towards all racial, ethnic, cultural, and religious groups. A core function of RACES is to assess the effectiveness of interventions to reduce community levels of racism and in turn inequities in health outcomes within Australia.
Appendix
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Footnotes
1
Internal consistency reliability demonstrates that each item relates to each other item in the scale.
 
2
Factorial validity demonstrates that the identified factor structure is valid in respect to the underlying theoretical model.
 
3
Construct validity is an overall measure of validity that encompasses all other forms of reliability and validity. Construct validity demonstrates that the instrument measures what it purports to measure. In other words, the measure performs as it is expected to perform based on the overarching theory upon which it is based.
 
4
Convergent validity demonstrates that the measure is related to concepts it would be expected to be related to, or alternatively that results from two groups which would be expected to have similar results are related.
 
5
Discriminant validity demonstrates that the measure is unrelated to concepts it would be expected to be unrelated to, or alternatively that results from two groups which would be expected to have different results are different.
 
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Metadata
Title
The Australian Racism, Acceptance, and Cultural-Ethnocentrism Scale (RACES): item response theory findings
Authors
Kaine Grigg
Lenore Manderson
Publication date
01-12-2016
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
International Journal for Equity in Health / Issue 1/2016
Electronic ISSN: 1475-9276
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-016-0338-4

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