Guided by findings from various studies, the general thesis of this study was that identity polarization tends to be a reflections of meaningful structural divisions within the Mexican American population. This study considered such social status attributes which seemingly serve as discrete indicators of group heterogeneity as sex, socioeconomic status, stability of household head's employment, parents' origins, and migrant farm-labor participation. Data were collected from questionnaires administered to 379 Mexican American high school sophomores residing in the Texas towns of Asherton, Rio Grande City, Roma, San Isidro, and Zapata in the spring of 1973. Determination of positive and negative ethnic identification was obtained through open-ended questions. Some findings were:"Chicanos" was the second most favored term, being preferred by 25 percent; 70 percent of those preferring "Mexican American" responded negatively to "Chicano"; a particularly high rate of negative identification was revealed among females; pro-Chicano identification was more than twice as great as negative identification among low SES males; SES appeared to have little bearing on Chicano identity among females; and for migrant males, pro-Chicano identification was twice as great as negative identification. (NQ)