White Racial Identity Development Research Articles

Cognitive barriers to leading for racial equity as a White education leader: a qualitative study

Leading for racial equity in public education involves courageously addressing entrenched systems of racism and oppression that routinely advantage White students and disadvantage students of color. Engaging in uncomfortable discussions about race and racism amongst colleagues within an organization can generate internal struggles of fear and anxiety of negative reactions. This study employs a constructive developmental lens, specifically the Immunity to Change (ITC) Mapping process, to understand the connections between racial identity development and intrinsic barriers to leading for racial equity of White leaders. Through examining 18 ITC maps, we identify anxieties and fears that create significant barriers for White education leaders who intend to champion racial equity. Our study reveals that White education leaders, regardless of their progress on the continuum of White racial identity development, struggle with courageously leading for racial equity because they are firmly planted in the socializing mind, limiting their effectiveness because of self-constructed, cognitive fears of negative reactions from others. Practical implications for education leaders, education policy makers, and students are also provided.

White Kids on the Block: On Race, Identity and Criminality Among Incarcerated White Youth.

This study contributes to efforts already underway to attend to the reproduction of white supremacy and the ways whiteness manifests across contexts. We examine whiteness and white racial identity development among incarcerated youth, both a group and place not often studied in relation to these two concepts. Using critical ethnographic methods, we explore how processes of white identity development unfold among incarcerated white youth and the ways in which whiteness is lived, negotiated, and challenged within the carceral context. Findings suggest that white youth used pre-existing racial scripts about race, whiteness, and criminality to make sense of and navigate life in the carceral context. Still, we found that these racial scripts were often seeped in anti-black racist logics about criminality in service of whiteness and the construction of superior white identities.

Confronting Whiteness in Developmental Science: Disrupting the Intergenerational Transmission of White Racism.

This special section situates White racial socialization (WRS) in its rightful place-in the context of White supremacy. The first article offers a conceptual framework to guide research on White adolescents' racial identity development in this context. The second employs a critical ethnographic approach to explore White racial identity development among incarcerated White adolescents. Additional studies use qualitative, observational, and mixed methods to understand WRS practices in White families. The final article presents a conceptual model of digital WRS. Authors provide recommendations for future research, such as engaging in critical researcher self-reflexivity and focusing on content of racial socialization messages. Two commentaries highlight cross-cutting themes and urge developmental scientists to view this special section as a call to action.

Studying Ethnic‐Racial Identity among White Youth: White Supremacy as a Developmental Context

As developmental scholars increasingly study ethnic and racial identity among white youth, careful reflection is needed regarding its framing, implementation, and interpretation. In this three‐part conceptual paper, we offer a foundation for such reflection. First, we discuss the sociocultural context of white supremacy that shapes U.S. society, psychology, and adolescent development, and situate the study of ethnic and racial identity among white youth within this context. Second, we consider Janet Helms’s White Racial Identity Development model, reviewing theory and research building on her argument that race—and whiteness, specifically—must be centered to achieve racial justice‐oriented scholarship on white identity. We conclude by offering four guiding insights for conducting critical research on racial identity development among white youth.

The Whiteness pandemic behind the racism pandemic: Familial Whiteness socialization in Minneapolis following #GeorgeFloyd's murder.

Family socialization into the centuries-old culture of Whiteness-involving colorblindness, passivity, and fragility-perpetrates and perpetuates U.S. racism, reflecting an insidious Whiteness pandemic. As a poignant case study, this mixed methods study examined Whiteness socialization among White mothers (N = 392, M = 37.99 years, SD = 4.34) in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the month following the May 2020 police killing of unarmed Black resident, George Floyd. Using Helms' (1984, 2017) White racial identity development theory (WRID), content analyses of qualitative responses classified participants into lower versus higher levels of WRID, after which thematic analyses compared their Whiteness socialization beliefs/values, attitudes, practices, and emotions, and analyses of variance compared their demographics, multiculturalism, and psychological distress. There was strong convergence across qualitative and quantitative findings and results aligned with the WRID model. Racially silent participants (i.e., no mention of Floyd's murder or subsequent events on open-ended questions: 53%) had lower multiculturalism scores and lower psychological distress. Among mothers who were racially responsive (i.e., mentioned Floyd's murder or subsequent events: 47%), those with more advanced WRID (17%) had higher multiculturalism scores; lower ethnic group protectiveness scores; a more effective coping style featuring empathy, moral outrage, and hope; more color- and power-conscious socialization beliefs/values; and more purposeful racial socialization practices than their less advanced peers (30%). Collectively, color-evasion and power-evasion-pathogens of the Whiteness pandemic-are inexorably transmitted within families, with White parents serving as carriers to their children unless they take active preventive measures rooted in antiracism and equity-promotion. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Whiteness and the Rainbow: White LGBTQ+ College Students’ Racial Identity Development

LGBTQ+ communities and spaces on college campuses are often known as white-centered spaces, implicitly or explicitly excluding students of color. While White LGBTQ+ students may experience marginalization and exclusion on the basis of their sexual orientations and/or gender identities, they may unwittingly perpetuate oppression on the basis of race. Utilizing Helms’ (1990) white racial identity development model, this study explored how White LGBTQ+ college students understand their racial identity and white privilege. The sample of 12 White LGBTQ+ college students was drawn from a larger four-year longitudinal qualitative study of LGBTQ+ college student success. In early interviews, students either did not discuss their white racial identity or did not view their white racial identity as a salient aspect of their identity. However, students increasingly spoke about their white identities, race, and racism in later interviews. Interpersonal experiences, academic engagement, and national events provided access points for White LGBTQ+ students to talk about race and their white identities. Implications for research and practice with White LGBTQ+ college students and in LGBTQ+ campus spaces are discussed.

Beyond Ethnicity: Applying Helms's White Racial Identity Development Model Among White Youth.

Research on racial identity among Youth of Color has expanded considerably in recent years, but a parallel examination of racial identity among white youth has not occurred, reiterating whiteness as normative. We applied Janet Helms's White Racial Identity Development (WRID) model among white U.S. youth (8-14 years old) to address this research gap. WRID centers racism and white supremacy, offering a framework to analyze white racial identity in the context of systemic inequity. Using longitudinal, qualitative analysis, we found age-related change over time, with some evidence of increasing resistance to racism. There was high participant variability, however, indicating that socio-cognitive abilities alone cannot predict anti-racist white identity development. We discuss implications for racial identity research and social justice-orientated developmental science.

Starting with the Teacher in the Mirror: Critical Reflections on Whiteness from Past Classroom Experiences

While critical whiteness studies have been a robust field of research for the last several decades, scholars have recently called for a refocus in critical whiteness studies to address the current cultural and political climate within educational spaces. The purpose of this article is to answer this call and highlight ways white teachers and teacher educators can begin to use racial reflexivity as a means of dismantling racism and white privilege in our society. Here, I utilize one model of white racial identity development to contemplate and interrogate my own teaching history within five vignettes. By placing these vignettes within the framework of critical whiteness studies and white racial identity development, I am able to re-present how I have counteracted my own race-evasiveness and to outline ways whites can seek to do the same.

Promoting Race Pedagogy in Higher Education: Creating an Inclusive Community

ABSTRACTThe current study reports outcomes of a professional development model intended to strengthen faculty members’ cultural competence and skills for teaching about diversity and inclusion. Creating Inclusive Communities (CIC) was developed collaboratively by faculty from across social science disciplines based on a theoretical framework emphasizing learning principles, critical consciousness, and White racial identity development. This study examined the outcomes of the model on student cultural competence based on pre-post survey analysis. Findings indicate that students perceived a benefit from course activities related to race pedagogy and showed statistically significant results in two of three courses. These findings indicate that the infusion of an inclusive model, including in courses not directly related to diversity topics, has potential benefits to students. Additionally, the impact is strengthened through a more integrated approach over the course of the semester.

“It meant you were in trouble:” White teachers, race, and White shame

ABSTRACTThe author relates and develops Thandeka’s notion of White shame to demonstrate how White teachers’ early experiences with race can inhibit White racial identity development and work against racial justice. Through stories in which their interest in race or racial others was discouraged by people in the White community or in which inquiries they made about race were met with rebukes or silence, these teachers demonstrate the tacit, disjointed nature of White racial learning. The author uses the examples of White shame to encourage teacher educators to explore early memories of race and racial socialization as a way to help White pre-service teachers develop critical racial knowledge. The author suggests a racial pedagogy that connects the structural and personal elements of race, focuses on White complicity rather than White privilege, and encourages teachers to capitalise on teachable racial moments in the classroom.

White Fatigue: Naming the Challenge in Moving from an Individual to a Systemic Understanding of Racism

This article introduces the notion White fatigue. White fatigue occurs for White students who have grown tired of learning and discussing race and racism, despite an understanding of the moral imperative of anti-racist and anti-oppressive practices. The article differentiates White fatigue from ideas like White resistance, White guilt, or White fragility, arguing that each of these phenomenon occur at different stages of White Racial Identity Development. Distinction is also drawn among White fatigue and other forms of racially based fatigue, specifically racial battle fatigue and White people fatigue syndrome. Further drawing on the notion of stereotype threat, the article considers the challenges for White students learning about race and racism while simultaneously resisting being labeled a racist. This struggle is elemental to the manifestation of White fatigue. Ultimately, the author argues that educators must be more accurate in how they define the range of responses from White students, consistently humanize all students in the process of understanding race and racism, and encourage further research for understanding a condition that is happening to a growing number of students.

Expanding White Racial Identity Theory: A Qualitative Investigation of Whites Engaged in Antiracist Action

This article presents outcomes of a qualitative exploration of White racial identity. Ten participants whose characteristics were reflective of Helms's () autonomy status defined their racial identities and related lifestyle choices. Findings are conceptualized within the framework of Helms's (, ) theory of White racial identity development. Suggestions are intended to enhance White racial identity theory and provide empirical support for characteristics of Whites who are engaged in antiracist activities.

Teaching the psychosocial subject: white students and racial privilege

This inquiry poses the question: How can white college students be induced or incited into recognizing themselves as racially marked and privileged people? The author examines white resistance to racial self-understanding by analyzing the relation between white racial identity development theory, appeals to racial discourses and themes, and the psychic need to defend against perceived threats to identity. By situating an analysis of these relations within the current crisis of whiteness, the author illustrates the psychosocial dynamics of white racial identity development. The aim of the study is to develop a conceptual approach that can inform the thought and practice of antiracist educators who seek to develop effective instructional strategies for teaching white students about racial privilege.

Are My Students Like Me? The Path to Color-Blindness and White Racial Identity Development

This study examines the White racial identity (WRI) development of pre-service teachers in diverse and nondiverse student teaching placements. A qualitative design, using constant comparative analysis yielded salient themes/categories. Our results provide evidence that experience in diverse settings might provide opportunities for individuals to reflect on issues of their own race and ethnicity in contrast to their students’ backgrounds. Student teachers placed in more diverse settings showed evidence of WRI growth, as they became more cognizant of their heritage and their own privileges. We found that the level of diversity of student teaching field placements influenced White student teachers’ perceptions of working with students of color. We propose that ongoing discussions will foster an awareness of the history of racism and discrimination in the United States that has created racial and educational inequities, which, in turn, will promote multicultural competence.

Integrating Helms’s White Racial Identity Development Model with Cognitive- Experiential Self-Theory: Implications for Multicultural Education

Abstract With the increased focus on multicultural education in colleges and universities, there is a need for educators to have a profound knowledge of White racial identity development to better understand White students’ resistance to multicultural topics and to facilitate their racial identity development. An integration of Helms’s White racial identity development model with Epstein’s cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST) is presented in this article. It is proposed that the integration of Helms’ White racial identity development model with CEST enhances the potential for Helms’s model to more deeply explain White racial identity development among White students. Implications for multicultural education are provided.

Student Teaching Experience in Diverse Settings, White Racial Identity Development and Teacher Efficacy

This study examined how diversity of field placement affected White student teachers’ White racial identity(WRI) development, and the relationship between WRI and teacher efficacy. There was no change in WRIdevelopment regardless of placement; however, as the percentage of students of color in the placement increased,two subscales (instructional strategies, classroom management) of the Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES)decreased. A negative correlation existed between WRI (Pseudo-Independence and Contact subscales of theWhite Racial Consciousness Development Scale-Revised) and subscales of the TSES. Results indicate thatteacher preparation programs critically examine Whiteness and WRI as a construct.

“I Don’t See Color”: The Impact of Field Placements on Preservice Teachers’ White Racial Identity Development

The purpose of this mixed-method study was to examine the influence of diverse field placements on the Whiteracial identity development of White preservice teachers (n = 92) placed in schools where the student body waseither predominantly White or students of color. Using Helms’s theory (1995) of White racial identitydevelopment, we selected instruments that measured participants’ awareness of racism, as well as theirconsciousness about being White (e.g., Color-Blind Racial Attitude Scale and Psychosocial Costs of Racism toWhites Scale). Preservice teachers in nondiverse settings became less aware of racial issues at the end of thefield experience. Using pretest scores as covariates, an analysis of covariance indicated that those in morediverse settings had higher levels of White guilt at the end of their field experience. The qualitative results alsoshowed differences in perceptions based on field placements, thus supporting the quantitative findings.Participants were asked how the diversity in their fieldwork placement affected their thoughts about their ownethnic background and social status. For those placed in diverse settings, the most common theme that emergedwas the contrast between the characteristics of the students and one’s own family and personal characteristics(e.g., wealth, ethnicity). The results suggest that more than exposure to diverse students is needed to evokechanges in White racial identity in order to prepare preservice teachers to effectively teach students of color.

Relationship between Knowledge, Stereotyping, and Prejudice in Interethnic Communication

This study describes, analyzes, critiques, and synthesizes four theories pertaining to inte- rethnic communication: the contact hypothesis, Anxiety/Uncertainty Management Theory, Cultural Theory, and the White Racial Identity Development Model. All center on the relationship between knowledge, stereotyping, and prejudice. What is valuable about those theories is that they attempt to integrate communication into a perspective on cultural, behavioral, social, interactional, and de- velopmental transformations. What the four theories have in common is that the understanding and development of healthy interethnic relations and fl exible interactions require a high degree of in- group communication and, at the same time, an equally high degree of out-group communication. To corroborate the major arguments put forward in this study, relevant research studies (and the methodological underpinnings thereof) are analyzed. Three levels of knowledge (highest level of knowledge, middle level of knowledge, and lowest level of knowledge) are also compared in an attempt to confi rm, or disconfi rm, the idea that increased knowledge of minority groups increases liking of such groups..

The Racial Identity Development of Male Student-Athletes When Blacks Are the Majority and Whites Are the Minority

Focus groups were used in the present study to explore the racial identity development of Black male and White male student-athletes on a predominantly Black, Division IA football team at a predominantly White institution (PWI). Findings indicate that the Black male football players demonstrated positive indicators of Black racial identity. The White male football players were at various stages of White racial identity development, but in general their experiences were positive as well.

Inward, Outward, Onward

This article presents the connection of a personal dissertation process to the wider world of qualitative research. Using the concept of transitional space as a metaphor, the author chronicles her theoretical transition from critical race theory to poststructural theory to emerging questions about material feminism. This transition is mapped to three major qualitative research moments within the field: modernist, crisis of representation, and the future. Autoethnography and found text are used to present the micro- and macro-telling of the dissertation process. White racial identity development among Christian teacher educators at a religious university was the original dissertation focus. Ethical dilemmas that emerged during the data collection process, presenting the researcher with a theoretical crisis, needed to be addressed.