Adapting and validating the Everyday Colourism Scale with Black and South Asian adolescents living in the UK

Colourism is a form of prejudice and discrimination based on skin shade and phenotypical features that can be experienced from people belonging to the same racialised group (ingroup) as well as from those from different racialised groups (outgroup). This paper presents the Everyday Colourism Scale-Adolescents (ECS-A), an adaptation of the Everyday Colourism Scale which was developed for adults in the UK. Following pilot and consultancy phases, we conducted exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis using survey data from 714 Black and South Asian adolescents living in the UK. Results showed that the 16-item scale was unidimensional with a good model fit and good internal consistency, indicating that the ECS-A demonstrates good reliability and validity for use with Black and South Asian adolescents in the UK. Most participants reported some, albeit infrequent, experience of colourism. The ECS-A scale is free for researchers to use with appropriate credit.