Using a sequential exploratory mixed‐method design to examine racial hyperprivilege in higher education

Abstract

This chapter uses a mixed‐method approach to critically examine white male college students' racial ideologies and the experiences that influence racial ideology formation. It highlights both how racial privilege is recreated in higher education and how mixed‐methods and intersectionality approaches to institutional research allow more robust analytical possibilities.

“But I’m oppressed too”: white male college students framing racial emotions as facts and recreating racism

“…Being from two unmarked social identities which help socially create the "other" (e.g. female, Black, or gay) despite these White men existing in a state of racial hyper-privilege (Cabrera, 2011). Within this paradigm, their appeal to injury is based on them confusing an erosion of unwarranted privileges with oppression (Carroll, 2011).…”

“…The groups solicited included, but were not limited to, Objectivists, Campus Republicans, College Democrats, and Students for a Democratic Society. This strategy yielded 43 total interviews, which I divided into two groups: those working through Whiteness (Cabrera, 2012) and those normalizing Whiteness (Cabrera, 2011). Those working through Whiteness tended to have the following four traits: (1) systemic (as opposed to individualized) understandings of racism; (2) auto-criticism regarding racial bias; (3) support for race-conscious policies; and 4) actions that supported racial justice.…”

“…The participants in their study tended to deny the historical and contemporary legacies of systemic racism, and within this context, they tended to frame White students as victims of multiculturalism. Cabrera (2011) found that White male undergraduates had significantly elevated, hierarchy-enhancing racial ideologies relative to their non-White and female peers, and they were the most immune to changing their racial ideologies during the first year of college. Picca and Feagin (2007) analyzed racial diaries of White students, and found an unsettling trend.…”

The Shaping of Postcollege Colorblind Orientation Among Whites: Residential Segregation and Campus Diversity Experiences

“…As stated by Cabrera (2011) and supported by theoretical and empirical scholarship (Bonilla-Silva, 2006Bonilla-Silva & Ray, 2009;Cabrera, 2009;Feagin, 2006;Omi & Winant, 1994), "Institutions of a higher education within a White supremacist structure are not simply neutral arbiters; rather they serve as means of both reinforcing and sometimes challenging systemic racism" (p. 77). Indeed, the results of this study, in the broadest sense, indicate that experiences with peers of both the same and different races are likely to have an impact on whites' racial ideological orientation.…”

Counterstories : educational resilence of adult African American women attending an urban predominantly White university.

“…Many institutions have minimized the presence of racism because it has been equated with individual incidents of overt hatred and violence toward racial minorities and institutions display more diverse populations; therefore subtle forms of racism tend to be overlooked or dismissed. The literature reminds us that this remains evident regardless of Black people's migration to middle-class status (Cabrera, 2011;Sharp and Hall, 2014;Williams, Nesiba, and McConnell, 2005). The participants found ways to adapt to, if not overcome, the previously-discussed challenges.…”