Stigma Measurement Library

SCALE Overview

Intersectional Major Discrimination Scale (InDI-M) is a 13-item self-report instrument that measures individuals’ experiences of major or structural discrimination events throughout their lifetime—such as being unfairly fired, denied housing, excluded from education, or mistreated by law enforcement. The InDI-M captures severe, high-impact forms of enacted stigma that occur across various institutional and societal domains. It is an attribution-free measure grounded in intersectionality and stigma theory, allowing individuals to report experiences of major discrimination “because of who you are” with options as 0 (never), 1 (once), or 2 (more than once; or in more than one place for Item 9). Respondents indicate whether they have ever experienced each of the 13 events, enabling assessment of lifetime exposure to systemic or institutional discrimination.

Psychometric validation supports the InDI-M as a unidimensional scale with strong internal consistency. Higher InDI-M scores have been observed among individuals with intersecting marginalized identities, such as racial/ethnic and sexual/gender minorities, immigrants, and people experiencing homelessness. The InDI-M is suitable for use in diverse populations and settings, like education, employment, housing, healthcare, and the justice system to inform research and interventions addressing social inequality and systemic exclusion.

Associated Publications

The Intersectional Discrimination Index: Development and validation of measures of self-reported enacted and anticipated discrimination for intercategorical analysis (Science Direct)

SCALE Documentation

Please click on the below scale documentation to download a .pdf of the scale instrument in the selected language.