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Whiteness in Higher Education: The Invisible Missing Link in Diversity and Racial Analyses: Whiteness in Higher Education
... Higher education institutions are organizations which protect and recreate Whiteness (Cabrera et al., 2017). The environments present within higher education institutions reify the material construct of Whiteness, promoting the engrained White racialized socialization of its students and promoting color-evasiveness and racial ignorance (Annamma et al., 2017;Cabrera et al., 2017). ...
... Higher education institutions are organizations which protect and recreate Whiteness (Cabrera et al., 2017). The environments present within higher education institutions reify the material construct of Whiteness, promoting the engrained White racialized socialization of its students and promoting color-evasiveness and racial ignorance (Annamma et al., 2017;Cabrera et al., 2017). Higher education as a white space promotes assimilation, rather than the stated goal of educational formation (Anderson, 2022;Jennings, 2020;Luedke et al., 2019;Winkle-Wagner et al., 2020). ...
... Whiteness is an ideological discourse that centers the identities, perspectives, and tastes of people who are socially constructed as White (Cabrera et al., 2017;Chapman et al., 2020;Leonardo, 2009). Due to the discursive nature of Whiteness, Cabrera et al. (2017) noted people of color can engage in the very ideology that serves to marginalize and racialize them. ...
In this single-case study, we critically explored the value of mandatory noncredit developmental coursework in a first-year bridge program, Project Scholar, for Black, Indigenous, and people of color students. Study data included 28 interviews with program participants, alumni and staff, review of program documents, and observations. Our findings highlighted how Project Scholar provided a valuable opportunity for Black, Indigenous, and people of color students and contributed to improved socialization and success in college. However, we identified potential pitfalls associated with the noncredit coursework required by the program. Grounded by Milner’s framework bridging critical race theory and interest convergence in education, we examined how systemic racism/Whiteness may have impacted the development of Project Scholar, specifically the program’s noncredit coursework requirement. Our article acknowledges the benefits of first-year bridge programs for high-achieving Black, Indigenous, and people of color students, but critically questions the relationship between hegemonic Whiteness and true equity.
... They also fall short in accounting for the racialized structural context of US colleges and universities. As various studies in higher education show, many US colleges and universities continue to be quintessentially "white spaces", terrains of whiteness, which constrain BIPOC students' development and success in college (Bonilla-Silva and Peoples 2022; Cabrera et al. 2017;Duran et al. 2022;Gusa 2010;Sanchez 2021). ...
... White spaces are public spaces such as neighborhoods, schools, or workplaces that are "overwhelmingly white", which can be perceived as being "informally off limits" for people who are not white, e.g., Black people (Anderson 2015, p. 10). The historically white colleges and universities (HWCUs) in the US are some of these "overwhelmingly white" public spaces that are formally open to everyone, yet informally can be perceived as being spaces primarily for white people (Bonilla-Silva and Peoples 2022; Briscoe and Jones 2022;Cabrera et al. 2017;Duran et al. 2022;Gusa 2010;Moore 2008Moore , 2020. Whiteness shapes the history, traditions, symbols, curriculum, demography, and overall climate of these colleges and universities. ...
This paper investigates the Gen Z counter-demographic of the religious nones on college and university campuses by focusing on BIPOC students and the stories that they tell about why they actively engage in evangelical campus ministries during their college years. This is carried out by being attentive to the racially segregated campus ministry context and the preponderance of “white spaces” in colleges and universities, including in campus ministries. Data for this study come from the Landscape Study of Chaplaincy and Campus Ministry (LSCCM 2019–2022) in the United States. Like other students in campus ministries, we find that BIPOC students who are “churched” with a Christian upbringing seek out campus ministries that function as a “home away from home”, where they can find authentic belonging—genuine connections and acceptance among like-minded Christians. For BIPOC students, however, this search for authentic belonging included a search for a campus ministry where they could be “safe and seen” for both their ethnoracial and Christian selves.
... These prior (dis)investments contribute to current inequities in education, health, and wealth for many communities of color (Oliver & Sharpiro, 2006). Scholars have noted that paucity of men of color in graduate programs is reflective of broader patterns of inequality embedded within all institutions, including the educational and economic systems (Cabrera et al., 2017;Flynn et al., 2011). ...
While prior research has focused on identifying barriers to increasing the number of men in communal or care-oriented fields, there is much less research that explores both racial and gender barriers to increasing men of color’s presence in these fields. To assist with efforts to increase men of color’s representation in communal fields,
the current study focuses on men of color’s perceptions of both racial and gender barriers that contribute to this gendered racial gap among men of color in psychology. Drawing from a sample of 68 men of color in psychology doctoral programs, the current qualitative study identified factors that men of color perceived
may account for their underrepresentation in the predominately White and majority women field of psychology. Using Consensual Qualitative Research-Modified (CQR-M), participants highlighted four domains (systemic barriers, financial barriers, socialization barriers, and representation barriers) to explain the underrepresentation of graduate men of color in psychology. Implications for career
practice and research with graduate men of color are discussed.
Higher education scholars have studied white supremacy and whiteness to understand the ways racial inequity persists in the academy; however, scholars mostly focus on individual and social levels of analysis such as individual ideologies or macro systems of oppression. Recent literature on racialized organizations have begun to address whiteness, but we have yet to fully understand how whiteness functions within organizations to reproduce racial inequities and sustain white supremacy as a racialized hegemonic power. Furthermore, there is little evidence on how organizations and their leaders support or resist whiteness. In this systematic review of whiteness in higher education research from the past 20 years, I identify a gap in the literature—that whiteness in higher education organizations is under examined. To begin to redress this gap, I designed a conceptual framework that examines how white supremacy as a hegemonic and racialized power via whiteness functions and is potentially contested in higher education organizations.
This study examines Black doctoral women’s experiences with gendered racial microaggressions in agricultural science departments at Historically White Institutions. Gendered racial microaggressions are subtle everyday expressions of oppression due to one’s race and gender, and have been used to subordinate Black women in society. Further, they have been linked to increased psychological distress, increased depressive symptoms, and lowered self-esteem. This study uses Critical Race Theory and Critical Race Feminism as theoretical lenses and critical narrative inquiry as methodology. Findings show that Black women experienced assumptions in communication style and beauty, the Angry Black Woman stereotype, and silencing and marginalization to avoid gendered racial microaggressions. Participants’ coping strategies, study implications, and directions for future research are discussed.
This chapter uses critical perspectives on whiteness to critique higher education's institutional research practice. After briefly describing institutional research, we summarize scholarship about autonomy, ethics, and predictive analytics to illustrate how existing guidance and beliefs about institutional research often dehumanize students by neglecting critical considerations of oppressive systems, including racism. Universities collect and use data to shape students’ lives and experiences, yet without consideration of oppressive systems, existing guidelines, and scholarly recommendations often reinforce dehumanizing perspectives that maintain racialized inequities. This chapter contributes to ethics, privacy, and autonomy considerations by reframing assumptions about institutional data with critical attention to whiteness.
Published by American Journals Publishing Center, USA. Website: https://www.american-journals.com/americanjournals. Black executive academic leaders are significantly underrepresented at prestigious, predominantly white institutions in the United States. Such institutions perpetuate white normativity in two ways: (1) numerical representation, and (2) the expectation that sets whiteness as the standard. Black executive academic leaders’ leadership abilities are perceived through white norms, and Black executive academic leaders navigate hierarchical leadership that favors whiteness. This qualitative study examines how stereotypes about Black people and racial bias associated with perceptions of Black executive academic leaders has impact their lived experiences. Interviews were conducted with eight Black executive academic leaders, as they described their lived experiences. The findings demonstrate that although Black executive academic leaders hold high-profile positions and have diverse backgrounds, white normativity impacted their lived experiences. This study reveals changes in white normative structures in higher education are necessary to challenge the dominance of white normativity in numerical representation and expectations.
What do teachers learn ‘on the job’? And how, if at all, do they learn from ‘experience’?
Leading researchers from the UK, Europe, the USA and Canada offer international, research-based perspectives on a central problem in policy-making and professional practice – the role that experience plays in learning to teach in schools. Experience is often weakly conceptualized in both policy and research, sometimes simply used as a proxy for ‘time’, in weeks and years, spent in a school classroom. The conceptualization of experience in a range of educational research traditions lies at the heart of this book, exemplified in a variety of empirical and theoretical studies. Distinctive perspectives to inform these studies include sociocultural psychology, the philosophy of education, school effectiveness, the sociology of education, critical pedagogy, activism and action research. However, no one theoretical perspective can claim privileged insight into what and how teachers learn from experience; rather, this is a matter for a truly educational investigation, one that is both close to practice and seeks to develop theory.
At a time when policy-makers in many countries seek to make teacher education an entirely school-based activity, Learning Teaching from Experience offers an essential examination of the evidence-base, the traditions of inquiry – and the limits of those inquiries.