White Institutions Research Articles

At the Starting Line

This qualitative phenomenological study examined the college transition experience of Black female student-athletes at a private, Mid-Atlantic, predominantly White, National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I institution. Until recently, Black women who are student-athletes have mainly been subsets of larger studies. By centering their transition experiences, this research investigated their lived experiences. The research aimed to fill a gap in the literature and to identify themes for further study of the college transition. In the spring of 2022, participants (N = 6) completed a brief demographic questionnaire and took part in one-on-one, semi-structured interviews designed to explore the first-year transition to college from a student-athlete perspective. Through descriptive phenomenological analysis, particular attention was given to how student-athletes integrate socially, academically, and athletically in college, with an awareness that the intersectionality of identity for Black women at a predominantly White institution (PWI) might impact that experience of campus integration. Five key themes emerged from the participants’ experiences: (a) challenges to connecting, (b) expectations versus experiences, (c) support and positive development, (d) community and belonging, and (e) self-empowerment. The results were reported through a lens of re-evaluating first-year onboarding and support services for Black female student-athletes at a PWI.

Ka Pichahna ‘Akkala (My Research Story)

In the chapter “To Make Story Again in the World,” Deborah Miranda speaks to the ways our California Indian stories "aren’t easy, they are fractured” (p. 193). In Bad Indians, Miranda shares ways “to make them whole,” an extremely demanding task, one which is contemporary California Indian scholarship. We are directed to a “multilayered web of community reaching back in time and forward in dream, questing deeply into the country of unknown memory” (p. 194); to “look at more than one interpretation simultaneously, … at both the blessing and the genocide” (p. 196); to search out stories that still exist “like underground rivers” that run alive and are singing nonetheless, and call us back (p. 203); and to listen deeply to our bodies, which “like compasses, still know the way” (p. 208). Taking cues from Miranda, this “experiential story” (Archibald, 2008, p. 85) honors this author’s ontological lens and tribal epistemology as a Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo person. The piece integrates koya-’aklanna (paintings/art), storytelling, and Native languages, as the author is “culturally ready” (Kovach, 2021) at this moment. This story is part of a curriculum about the ethics of locating one’s positionality in a context of colonial amnesia, cultural genocide, and linguicide at a predominately White institution. The intention of this publication is to respectfully share story as living relationship in the discourse on Indigenous methodology and culturally sustaining approaches to research and pedagogy. This research story, as a multilayering of koya-’aklanna1 (paintings/art), dreams, embodied knowing, and Native languages, is a quest to be in relation with many relationships simultaneously; to make whole.

Exploring the Pandemic’s Impacts on Latinx Students’ Learning

Through inductive thematic analysis of focus group data conducted during the Spring 2020, Fall 2020, and Spring 2021 semesters within courses focused on the Latinx community, this study illustrates the challenging impacts of COVID-19 and online learning on Latinx students at a predominately White institution during the pandemic. It underscores their concerns regarding access to essential educational resources, especially online learning tools, mental health support, and building connections with peers and the campus community. These findings highlight the importance of understanding the Latinx student experience to inform educational policies and pedagogical practices, particularly in the context of post-pandemic online and remote learning, aiming to address their unique challenges effectively.

Faculty mobility and research dynamics at Historically Black Colleges and Universities

Abstract Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) play a foundational role in promoting equality in US higher education and society. Studying faculty transitions and research dynamics at HBCUs is crucial to understanding and addressing these institutions’ challenges, such as the brain drain and its relationships with faculty research practices. By tracking the affiliation changes of 139 professors and their research outcomes (consisting of 4,269 publications) and comparing them with a matched control group with similar backgrounds, we revealed a moving penalty for professors moving from Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) to HBCUs, who experienced declines in research productivity and citation impact. In contrast, professors transitioning from HBCUs to PWIs benefited from the moving premium of increasing high-impact publications. Professors at HBCUs tend to increase their collaborations with PWIs before transitioning, while those moving to PWIs reduce their collaborations with HBCUs. Our findings highlight the ongoing challenges HBCUs face and underscore the need for comprehensive strategies to strengthen these institutions’ research functionality and ultimately their overall academic standing.

Confronting gendered racism: Rethinking maladaptive behaviours of African American women pursuing doctoral degrees at predominantly White institutions

AbstractThis phenomenological study critiques the limited understanding of how African American women confront gendered racism at one predominantly white institution in the United States. It also challenges the disciplinary conversation around maladaptive behaviours, which often attributes the onus and blame to the individual. Rather than replicate or perpetuate deficit‐oriented frameworks or analysis of African American women's behaviours, this research counters the narrative of maladaptive behaviours as merely personal failures, arguing instead that these behaviours are responses to a gendered and racist system. The authors draw from Black feminist thought and self‐efficacy theory to examine the ways in which African American women in doctoral programmes may perceive and respond to racist environments and circumstances that could prevent their persistence and achievements. Findings suggest that African American women in doctoral programmes exhibit maladaptive behaviours such as avoidance, anticipatory rejection, negative self‐talk, and survival mode when coping with gendered racism in university environments. These strategies may have sufficed earlier in the academic careers of African American women; however, due to the specialised nature of doctoral study, the overutilisation of these tactics and behaviours may be impacting individuals maladaptively. Furthermore, the long‐term effects of continuous maladaptive behaviours can have further implications for the individual and collective success of African American women in academia. Given the multifaceted nature of African American women, this study seeks to expand knowledge about their actions and behaviours in response to systemic challenges. It calls for a reorientation of our understanding of maladaptation. Context and implicationRationale for this studyThis study explores the maladaptive behaviours of African American women in doctoral programmes at predominantly white institutions (PWIs), focusing on how gendered racism influences these behaviours.Why the new findings matterThe findings illuminate the specific ways in which gendered racism fosters maladaptive behaviours, which in turn affect the psychological well‐being and academic success of African American women.Implications for practitioners, policy‐makers, and academic institutionsThe study underscores the urgent need for systemic changes within academic environments to support African American women effectively. It calls for institutions to not only recognise but actively address the root causes of gendered racism. By doing so, they can dismantle the structures that perpetuate these challenges and foster a more inclusive and supportive educational landscape. This involves reevaluating institutional policies, enhancing support mechanisms, and integrating comprehensive training for faculty members and staff to understand and combat gendered racism. Ultimately, this approach aims to transform academic cultures to ensure that African American women can thrive without resorting to maladaptive coping strategies.

Teaching Note—Positioned for Success at a PWI: A Minority Fellow Narrative

ABSTRACT The Council on Social Work Education’s Minority Fellowship Program (MFP) supports the mission of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to increase the number of individuals who are trained to work with underrepresented and underserved persons with or at risk for mental health or substance abuse disorders. This teaching note is a critical autoethnographic investigation of a doctoral MFP alum reflecting and sharing her journey to overcome barriers to advance her nontraditional social work research agenda in a predominantly White institution. It is the intention that this teaching note provides suggestions of how to maintain a research agenda in a teaching university. Discussion of the author’s MFP affiliation, career trajectory, community effect, research findings, and remarks regarding the necessity of MFP will be provided.

Anaerobic rhetoric

ABSTRACT This essay locates breath in a rhetorical taxonomy of anti-Black/LGBTQIA+ phobogenesis that dehumanizes the academic pulse of queer and racialized learning environments. It names and specifies a discursive-material arrangement of public address called anaerobic rhetoric (i.e., rhetoric without oxygen) that circulates in the hypoxic ontologies (i.e., hematic vessels with reduced blood flow and oxygen-compromised tissues) of U.S. higher education. Rhetorical breath work is a paraontological praxis of breathing otherwise and alongside structural-experiential hypoxias of U.S. higher education. Through such fugitive breathing maneuvers, I invite a similarly dispossessed audience of queer and faculty of color in U.S. academia, experiencing professional barriers to educational care, to re-group as a noisy gaggle of the gagged and aspire to re-possessions of otherwise air. The key locational texts for examining these civic hypoxias resulting from anaerobic rhetoric include (a) U.S. legislative discourses of higher education, specifically, Florida state’s house bills—“The Stop WOKE Act” (HB 7) and “Don’t Say Gay” law (HB 1557)—that take the speech-restricting shape of educational “gag” orders to intensify a white supremacist climate of anti-Blackness/LGBTQIA+ness in 2022–23, and (b) Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) based discourses operationalized through white timekeeping techniques of regimenting breath/ing in Predominantly White Institutions (PWI).

“I Have to Be Very Intentional About How I Communicate:” Black Women Administrators’ Identity Navigation in Predominantly White Institutions

ABSTRACT This qualitative narrative inquiry explores how Black women navigate their identities at predominantly white institutions (PWIs) as entry-level student affairs professionals. Our framework is rooted in Black Feminist thought to consider how Black women are impacted by identity and supervisory relationships in the workplace. Using semi-structured interviews, we explore Black women’s upbringing, supervisory relationships, and current workplace navigation. Our findings reveal how participants navigated their social identities based on prior socialization for workplace assimilation and by balancing forced identity suppression and authenticity. These findings are particularly important for institutions wishing to diversify the leadership pipeline, increase retention of new student affairs professionals, and incorporate inclusive supervision practices.

Paths into and out of STEM fields: A qualitative study of women and students of color at a predominately white institution

AbstractThis phenomenological study examines how women and Students of Color who attend a small undergraduate predominately white institution (PWI) make meaning of their experiences in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and how individual and contextual factors influence whether they decide to stay, leave, or add an STEM major. We conducted qualitative interviews with 50 juniors and seniors across three participation pathways: (1) students who entered college with an interest in an STEM major and are still an STEM major, (2) students who entered college with an interest in a non‐STEM major and switched to an STEM major, and (3) students who entered college with an interest in an STEM major and changed to a non‐STEM major. Students' descriptions of the factors that influenced their academic choices support the tenets of the situated expectancy‐value theory. Themes related to expectancies for success, value beliefs, and teachers and peers are presented. Implications of these findings for retaining underrepresented students in STEM majors are discussed.

A Composite Counternarrative of Discrimination as a Social Determinant of Health: Black College Women's Experiences of Gendered Racism.

Discrimination is a social determinant of health (SDOH) that negatively affects racially minoritized students and patients. Nurses and nurse educators must understand discrimination, including nuanced and intersecting ways that it negatively affects academic and health outcomes. In-depth interviews were conducted with 12 Black women at a primarily White institution in the Southeast United States. The interview guide, informed by critical race and intersectionality theories, explored experiences of gendered racism, particularly in the students' social environments. Narrative analysis was conducted, then a composite counternarrative was composed to portray experiences of gendered racism across multiple levels, including intrapersonal, interpersonal, and institutional. The composite narrative revealed experiences of multi-leveled gendered racial microaggressions that shape the daily lived experiences of Black college women students. Three main themes emerged: Limited Autonomy, Differential Treatment and Differential Assumptions, and Differential Access to Power and Resources. Gendered racism differs from White women's experiences of sexism and Black men's experiences of racism. Institutional efforts to support Black college women must be intentional in addressing the unique ways they experience discrimination in various settings on campus. Nurses' and nurse educators' understanding of gendered racism as a SDOH may ease the hesitancy in addressing health inequities. [Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services, xx(x), xx-xx.].

A knee at the table: Jay-Z, Colin Kaepernick, and the endurance of competing strategies in Black social justice

Abstract In August 2019, the U.S. National Football League (NFL) and entertainment company Roc-Nation entered into a partnership to amplify the league’s “social justice efforts.” This partnership received mixed reactions from news media and fans with significant negative criticism. Many accused the NFL of using the celebrity reputation of Roc-Nation founder, Jay-Z, for cultural capital to recoup from the negative press received following the 2016 protest of Colin Kaepernick. This article examines the media discourse following the announcement of the partnership and how it perpetuates a long-existing ideological feud within Black social justice that questions if the path to racial progress must be achieved with the help of white institutions. I argue that the adoption of neoliberal ideologies into contemporary activism has shifted focus from the needs of the communities being served to the brand image and market profits of celebrity activists and corporations.

From Microaggressions to Viral Trends: A Qualitative Examination of Black Emerging Adults’ Experiences With Online Racial Discrimination

This study examines how Black emerging adults experience and perceive online racial discrimination. We systematically analyzed responses from 260 Black college students (aged 18-29) at a predominantly White institution in the Midwest, collected during the fall 2020 semester. Utilizing a two-step approach, we identified emerging themes in their experiences, then examined these themes through the lens of the Taxonomy of Online Racism (TOR), allowing us to understand how different manifestations of ORD intersect and relate. Content analysis revealed eleven forms of ORD, with Microaggressions ( n = 67), Encounters with Content Related to Police Violence Against Black Individuals ( n = 46), and Exposure to Anti-Black Lives Matter Sentiments ( n = 44) being the most prevalent. We also find that ORD is a complex phenomenon, shaped by factors such as current events and individual interpretations, which can differ from established definitions in research and policy.

Resistances to critical language awareness: understanding the role of social class and double consciousness

ABSTRACT Drawing from students’ reflections, classroom observations, and individual interviews, this study examines the case of a Spanish for Heritage speakers class comprised of Heritage Speakers (HS) and international Latin American students in a predominantly white institution (PWI). Focusing on the development of Critical Language Awareness (CLA) , this study shows the various forms of resistance toward these pedagogies (e.g. withdrawal, class divisions, turning to meritocratic answers, among others) across students of different social classes (upper-middle class, working-class, international students from Latin America). This study demonstrates how students resisted structural explanations around Spanish language maintenance, instead resorting to either meritocratic understandings or the family as the primary locus of language maintenance. The epistemological concept of ‘double consciousness frames the experiences of working-class HSs who struggled between feelings of empowerment through CLA and negative perceptions of their own linguistic practices. These feelings were mediated by the challenge of affirming their language identities in the context of a PWI that privileges upper-middle-class cultural values. The study argues that while CLA begins a process of critical consciousness, we need to pay attention to the contextual factors and dynamics that lead to different forms of resistance.

Perspectives on Medical School Admission for Black Students Among Premedical Advisers at Historically Black Colleges and Universities

There remains a lack of representation of Black physicians in the physician workforce despite decades of national efforts to increase diversity. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) contribute to increasing representation in the workforce in the US. There is limited literature exploring the experiences of HBCU premedical students navigating the journey to medical school. To examine barriers to and facilitators of medical school matriculation among Black students by exploring the perspectives of premedical student advisers at HBCUs. In this qualitative study, HBCU advisers participated in a focus group in October 2019 or in semistructured interviews from January 2020 to March 2021. Using purposive sampling, premedical student advisers were recruited from different educational backgrounds and geographic locations and conducted 1-on-1 interviews. Data analysis was performed from March 2021 to March 2022. The main outcome was the experiences of HBCU premedical students navigating to medical school from the perspective of premedical advisers. An inductive approach to generate codes from the interviews and the focus groups was applied by reviewing transcripts and noting concepts and themes associated with advising strategies and student experiences. Among the 26 participants, 18 (69.2%) were female, 13 (50.0%) had a doctorate degree, and 8 (30.8%) had more than 10 years of experience as advisers. Participants described 3 major themes: (1) the complex institutional relationship dynamics between undergraduate HBCUs and medical schools, (2) concerns about preferential treatment for students from predominantly white undergraduate schools when accessing clinical shadowing opportunities, and (3) the "it takes a village mindset" emphasizing family and peer involvement. In this qualitative study, barriers to medical school matriculation included concerns for the preferential treatment of students from predominantly white institutions when engaging with medical schools and a lack of access to clinical opportunities for HBCU students. The findings suggest that medical schools should continue to build collaborative partnerships with HBCUs to ensure equitable access to opportunities that prepare students for medical school.

Digital Black placemaking: supporting Black women’s engagement in higher education

Through an analysis of in-depth interviews, this project examines how Black women attending historically White institutions experienced their campus digitally and how they created and maintained Black places online. Using Black placemaking and Black feminist theory, this project explores how digital Black placemaking operates in a higher education setting. Additionally, this project examines ways Black women college students created and cultivated digital counter-space with one another though their involvement in digital engagement. This study has implications for Black women’s experiences in digital spaces within the context of higher education. Further, we discuss implications for higher education leaders and administrators working to support Black women college students in an increasingly digital context.

“Don’t just be ordinary”: Understanding the Resilience of College Students of Color at a Predominantly White Institution

Despite the prevalence of student multicultural centers providing support to students of Color across higher education institutions in the United States, experiences related to marginalization and discrimination remain present on college campuses. Using an ecological systems framework, researchers interviewed seven undergraduates active with their university’s student multicultural center to explore their experiences of resilience more deeply at a Predominantly White Institution (PWI). Findings indicate a need for expanding support for students who experience frequent microaggressions and stereotyping related to their marginalized identities. Systemic recommendations for working with college students of Color are presented.

Shaped by antiblackness: black undergraduates’ experiences of antiblackness at a historically and predominantly white institution

Black suffering at historically and predominantly white institutions cannot be analogized with other racially minoritized groups. By drawing upon insights from Black Critical Theory (BlackCrit), this study elucidates how antiblackness as a distinct form of racism manifests in Black undergraduates’ lives. This study is guided by an instrumental case study approach which serves to contextualize Black students’ experiences within a site of antiblackness. Participants indicated that antiblackness shaped their experiences through the following themes: (a) antiblackness as endemic, (b) antiblackness as objectification, and (c) antiblackness as inherently uneducable.

‘But you’re Asian! How can you not do well in higher education?’

ABSTRACT Asian American college students have increased significantly in the United States, yet little is known about Asian male immigrant doctoral students’ experiences on college campuses. The author links tenets of AsianCrit with counterstories of his encounters with and resistance against whiteness in research preparation and work settings as a Chinese immigrant doctoral student at a predominantly white institution in the Pacific Northwest. Implications include how scholars can historicise research on Asian immigrant doctoral students, combine critical theories to interpret the racialisation and strategic (anti)essentialism of Asian immigrant doctoral students, and use Asian immigrant doctoral students’ counterstories to advocate for just systemic changes. The article concludes by discussing the importance of caring for the well-being of Asian immigrant doctoral students, and empowering them to share their racialised counterstories for justice and healing.

The Whiteness Protection Program: A Typology of Agentic White Defense

White defensiveness in response to racial justice education has increasingly been understood through the “white fragility” framework. This study puts forth a new framework that instead identifies a typology of white defensive moves that actively work to uphold and fortify the white racial contract. Inspired by Solórzano and Delgado-Bernal’s (2001) framework for understanding students of color resistance to racism as active (even when it might look passive, on the surface), our theoretical model illustrates four distinct categories of white racial defense that actively protect whiteness. Because white defensiveness has been primarily examined in the context of Traditionally White Institutions, where white students have been presumed to be “ignorant” or “lacking stamina” for encounters in which whiteness is challenged, we provide examples from an instrumental case analysis (Stake, 1995) of 15 in-depth interviews with white students attending three different Historically Black Universities, where their whiteness has become hypervisible and salient. We identify a typology of four agentic forms of defense: The “Innocent Defense,” The “Liberal Defense,” The “Antiracist Defense,” and The “Persecuted Defense.” We refer to these defenses together as “the whiteness protection program” to connote a collective agreement (part of the racial contract), which calls for rethinking the individualized and passive notion of white fragility. In the end, we argue that understanding these modes of resistance as agentic, rather than fragile results of lack of exposure and knowledge, is essential to disrupting white supremacy and fostering students of color well-being.

Navigating Tensions in the Design of a New Equity Centered Elementary Teacher Preparation Program

ABSTRACT Working as concerned colleagues grappling with the notion that today’s schools reflect the social inequalities that exist in today’s society and are often characterized by racial, ethnic, social class, linguistic and cultural diversity with school curricula, instructional strategies, and teacher demographics that rarely reflect this diversity, this qualitative self-study sought to explore the following question: What tensions did a team of teacher educators experience and navigate when designing an equity centered initial teacher preparation program at a Historically White Institution (HWI)? This paper illuminates our design process, three significant tensions that emerged, and the corresponding navigation strategies that were utilized to implement our vision of progressive teacher education, with the goal of highlighting the complexity inherent in enacting an equity centered teacher preparation program that seeks to address the opportunity gaps that emerge in school contexts.