Despite the tremendous growth in theory and research on emerging adulthood over the past decade, relatively little attention has been paid to the experiences of emerging adults from racial/ethnic minority backgrounds. The purpose of this article is to fill this gap by conducting a conceptual review of the literature on race, ethnicity, and emerging adulthood. We begin with a discussion of conceptual issues, clarifying terms such as emerging adults, emerging adulthood, and race and ethnicity. We then review the existing literature pertaining to the five pillars of emerging adulthood: the age of instability, possibilities, self-focus, in-betweenness, and identity explorations. Finally, we close with a discussion of major challenges to conducting research on race, ethnicity, and emerging adulthood. Taken together, this review is intended to provide a broad overview of the state of knowledge and inspire future research.
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