Distilling the WhiSCCI: Development of the White Short Critical Consciousness Index

Abstract

Critical consciousness (CC) describes a system of awareness and action to liberate marginalized communities from oppressive systems. Modern scholarship often portrays CC as a tripartite model featuring an awareness of oppressive systems, the motivation to change them, and the actions taken to enact change. Psychometric instruments have been developed to measure these and other dimensions of CC. Most of these instruments were developed to measure CC in marginalized communities, with only one—the White Critical Consciousness Index (WhiCCI)—adding additional substantive content pertinent to measuring CC within racially privileged young adults. However, the WhiCCI contains 55 items rendering it time inefficient. This article details the development of a short form of the WhiCCI using Graded Response Models. Findings from this study offer a 23-item scale distributed across four CC domains of critical reflection, critical motivation (2×), and critical action.