Which Box(es) Do I Check? Investigating College Students’ Meanings Behind Racial Identification

Monoracial normativity in university websites: Systematic erasure and selective reclassification of multiracial students.

“…Our study provides a broader perspective on monoracial normativity and multiracial microaggressions by demonstrating that these individual experiences are embedded within organizational practices that center monoracial identities. Moreover, we have found that, despite the focus of the previous literature on students' racial and ethnic self-identification (Harper, 2016;Johnston et al, 2014), the boxes students check may have little effect when institutions have the power to reclassify and strategically represent the diversity of their student bodies. Situating these dynamics at the institutional level allows us to look at individual experiences of monoracial normativity as embedded in larger organizational structures.…”

“…Another limitation of this work is the difficulty in understanding students’ identities solely through the racial categories they select (Johnston et al, 2014; Rockquemore, Brunsma, & Delgado, 2009). We conflate people who self-identify with an umbrella term like multiracial or mixed heritage with people who selected more than one race when asked by their university to self-identify.…”

Interpersonalizing cultural difference: A grounded theory of the process of interracial friendship development and sustainment among college students.

“…are growing up in a colorblind society in which interracial friendships and marriages are commonplace and racism is largely a relic” (Vega, 2014, p. A1), they are not “postracial” or “colorblind”; rather, the meaning they attach to race and color has evolved as racial demographics and social interaction patterns have changed (Apollon, 2011; Vega, 2014). Today’s college students may hold multiple understandings of race, drawing upon different meanings in varied social and educational contexts (Johnston, 2014; Johnston et al, 2014). Congruently, race, ethnicity, and culture were relevant and meaningful concepts for my participants, and they expressed multiple and flexible understandings of race and ethnicity.…”

“…Perhaps the best that can be done is to say that members of an in-group all use the term we with the same essential significance” (p. 31). His definition highlights the role of social construction and identity salience (although Allport did not use these terms) in defining group membership; in other words, group members are those who identify with a particular group due to a shared sociocultural identity and perceive themselves as belonging to that group (see also Cross & Fhagen-Smith, 1996; Johnston, Ozaki, Pizzolato, & Chaudhari, 2014; S. R. Jones & McEwen, 2000; Phinney, 1996). An out-group, in contrast, consists of those holding identities that are perceived to be different from one’s own.…”

Measuring impostor phenomenon among health sciences librarians

“…The survey included the Harvey Impostor Phenomenon Scale and seven demographic questions (supplemental Appendix A). We based several of the demographic questions on the Clark et al survey in order to make comparisons with their results [4], and we used existing best practices to inform the creation of our questions about gender and racial identity [29, 30]. Based on feedback from study participants who expressed a desire to learn more about the study’s aims, we added a debriefing form at the end of the survey that included the study’s goals and links to additional resources.…”