The Color of the Undergraduate Experience and the Black Self-Concept: Evidence From Longitudinal Data

Abstract

The present study assesses the impact of attending colleges with higher black enrollment on African Americans' self-esteem and self-efficacy. It tests Rosenberg's proposition that racially “consonant” environments enhance self-appraisals. The LISREL models control for various pre-college attributes and for institutional selectivity. Higher black enrollment enhances post-college self-esteem but does not significantly influence self-efficacy. Both dimensions of the self-concept are enhanced substantially by post-college socioeconomic status, an objective indicator of achievement. Longitudinal NLS-72 data are merged with institutional selectivity data and continuous data on black enrollment to facilitate these analyses, a process that previously would not have been possible.