Strategic Communication Responses to Racial Discrimination (SCRRD): A Mixed Method Co-cultural Approach to the Case of Asian Americans
Date
2011-09-22
Authors
Jun, Jungmi
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Abstract
Individuals from underrepresented groups select a communicative practice in interactions with other individuals who have dominant backgrounds or with the structures of dominant society. Orbe (1998) theorized these communicative behaviors of underrepresented groups as co-cultural practices. Subsequent studies have applied the co¬cultural approach in explorations of marginalized life experiences. However, several limitations are found in both previous co-cultural literatures and other communication research with respect to marginalized groups. First, little attention was given to Asian Americans as a marginalized group in society and little is known about their social and communicative needs compared to that of other racial minority groups. Second, previous co-cultural studies did not substantially consider influences of identities and cultural values on a selected co-cultural practice. Third, co-cultural theory and framework emerged from a qualitative methodology and most subsequent co-cultural studies have utilized only qualitative methods. Given the limitations of previous research, the purposes of the present study are: 1) to explore experiences of Asian Americans as a marginalized group in society and their communication strategies when they deal with racially discriminatory messages (RDM) and situations; 2) to conceptualize racial identities and cultural values as antecedents of co-cultural communication behaviors among racial minorities; 3) to diversify methodological approaches of co-cultural theory by developing a quantitative scale, which will be called the Strategic Communication Reponses to Racial Discrimination (SCRRD) scale. The SCRRD scale includes measurements for three dimensions of SCRRD (i.e., nonassertive, assertive, and aggressive), existing co-cultural factors (i.e., preferred outcome, fields of experience, situational/relational context, communication efficacy), and two additional factors suggested in this present study (i.e., identities and cultural values). In addition, mixed methods research approaches were taken in the procedure of data analysis in order to complement quantitative and qualitative method’s strengths and weaknesses.
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Keywords
Strategic Communication, Co-cultural Theory, Racial Discrimination, Asian American, Mixed-Methods