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Biracial/Multiracial Identity Development Theories
Various theories have been introduced in an attempt to explain multiracial identity development. Since the 1920s up until contemporary times, different approaches frame multiracial identity cultivation and the result of those frameworks.

- Problem Approach: indicate negative outcomes of having multiracial identity. Robert Park (1928) created the term the "marginal man" who has difficulties cultivating their racial categorization as one develops. Originating from the Jim Crow Era, this theory focuses on the deficits and problems that are a result of multiracial identities, concluding multiracial individuals are more often victims of rejection, isolation, stigmatization even from both identities they represent. As a result, multiracial individuals often deal with negative outcomes such as an inferiority complex, hypersensitivity, and moodiness due to their experiences with society. Building upon the "marginal man", Stonequist (1937) explained that multiracial individuals have a heightened awareness and adaptability to both sides of racial conflict between African Americans and caucasians. As a result, there is an internal crisis within the multiracial individual due to the cultural conflicts that surround them. This internal conflict can be seen in the form of "confusion, shock, disillusionment, and estrangement". According to this theory, this conflict passes and results in the adjustment of a mixed race individual.

- Equivalent Approach: more positive angle towards multiracial identity development, explaining that racial identity cultivation is equal between monoracial and multiracial individuals, but yields different outcomes. Stemming from the Civil Rights movement in the U.S. in the 1960s, this approach reorganizes what it means to be "black", encouraging mixed race people to develop a positive integration of their black identity. Any negative outcomes of this process were considered to be internalized racism of their blackness. This theory soon proved inadequate for explaining mixed identity development, as it did not allow the identification of multiple ethnic groups nor recognize their struggles of developing racial identities. The equivalent approach was derived from Erikson's (1968) ego-identity formation model, which explains a stable identity is formed though a process of "exploratory and experimental stages" that eventually result in a racial identity.

- Variant Approach: one of the most contemporary racial development theory, explains cultivation is a process that takes place over a series of stages according to age. Starting in the 1980s, new researchers sought to explain that mixed-race individuals comprised their own racial category, establishing an independent "multiracial identity". Among these researchers, Maria Root published Racially Mixed People in America (1992) which justified mixed race individuals as their own racially category, thus explaining they endure their own unique racial development. Carlos Poston's biracial identity theory is the most cited variant approach, which explains previous theoretical approaches lack integration of multical racial identities. The progression of this theory is as follows: personal identity, choice of group categorization, denial, appreciation of group orientation, and integration.

- Ecological Approach: the most recent of theoretical approaches allows an individual to deny any part of their multiracial identity. In this theory, the following assumptions are made: multiracial individuals extract their racial identity based on their personal contextual environment, there are no consistent stages of racial identity development, and that privileging multiracial identity only extends the flaws of identity theory and does not offer tangible solutions. Maria Root is also credited with research on the ecological approach (1997, 1998, 2003).

The commonalities of all these theories characterize mutli-racial identity development as marked struggle especially in early development. Most approaches reserve the ages between 3-10 years old to having confusion and outside confrontation that continue well even to adult years of a biracial individual. Some of these struggles include inconsistent identification within both private and public spaces, justifying identity choices, pressure to identify with one race, lack of role models, conflicting messages, and double rejection from both dominant and minority racial groups. These hardships are various and ultimately impact maturity and adjustment to society depending on the environment in which the child is raised and the interactions they had.