White American students’ recognition of racial microaggressions in higher education.

Abstract

Racial microaggressions often occur in U.S. higher education. However, less is known about how White American students reason about their evaluations of racial microaggressions. The present study investigated how 213 White college students (54.46% cisgender women) attending a Primarily White Institution in the Southeast U.S. in the Fall of 2019 justified their evaluations of the acceptability of racial microaggressions presented in vignettes. Following Social Domain Theory, to assess participants' social reasoning, we conducted quantitative content analysis of participants' open-ended justifications for their evaluations. Multiple regression analyses revealed that participants were less likely to evaluate racial microaggressions as negative the more they employed justifications focused on (a) assuming that the behaviors in the situation followed conventions of the classroom, (b) judging the professor's response as correct, and (c) asserting that the behavior was likely to happen to anyone. Further, the higher participants' endorsement of color-blind attitudes the more likely they were to evaluate racial microaggressions as appropriate. However, reasoning centered on (a) assuming differential treatment based on race, (b) perceiving the behavior as harmful, and (c) considering the behavior was against conventional expectations was associated with finding racial microaggressions to be more negative. The present study highlights the value of investigating underlying reasoning behind evaluating racial microaggressions in addition to color-blind attitudes. The findings suggest that higher education professionals should consider interventions which pay particular attention to unpacking students' reasoning, untangling acceptance of Ethnocentric narratives and providing information that challenges classroom behaviors that, while potentially appearing conventional, in fact perpetuate harm through microaggressions.

How Do Non-Black U.S. College Students Think They Would Feel After Committing a Race-Related Interpersonal Transgression?

“…Some of our participants seemed to believe it was incredulous that the race-related transgression they were asked to imagine could truly have been motivated by racism. This finding is in line with previous work showing that many people have difficulty identifying microaggressions as both harmful and the result of racial or ethnic biases (Kim et al, 2019;Midgette & Mulvey, 2022;Torres et al, 2020). Further, Kim et al (2019) demonstrated that this detection issue is especially prominent for White people and people high in colorblind attitudes (i.e., an ideology that denies the impact of race within society by endorsing the idea that all people are the same, regardless of race or ethnicity; Kim et al, 2019), as these groups of people may be generally unaware of the mistreatment experienced by people of color.…”

How college students in the United States make sense of examples of gender and intersectional microaggressions in classroom settings

“…Mekawi and Todd (2018) found that racial microaggressions were more likely to be rated as acceptable by college-attending men than women. On the other hand, Midgette and Mulvey (2022) did not find a significant relationship between gender and students' negativity ratings of racial microaggressive events. Together, prior work suggests that knowledgeability, experience as a target, and belonging to the targeted group may play a role in negative evaluations of microaggressions.…”

“…Prior research suggests that almost all women undergraduate participants experience a gender microaggression within the academic year (Gartner, 2019). This finding suggests that college students may not be as attuned to microaggressions that are happening around them, or may be more attuned to peer-to-peer interactions (Gartner, 2021), and less critical of faculty-based microaggressions (Midgette & Mulvey, 2022). Or this may indicate a belief that blatant microaggressions do not often occur, and therefore are unrealistic.…”

“…However, less is known about why events may be considered biased or not biased and what aspects of the situation can lead to individuals concluding that the situation is negative or not (i.e., what do individuals attend to). In the first study to our knowledge to investigate both evaluations (i.e., negativity ratings) of microaggressive events and also how individuals reason about these events, Midgette & Mulvey (2022), found that White college students do not always recognize the harm caused by such behaviors. However, the study focused exclusively on racial microaggressions, and therefore less is known about how gender-based and intersectional microaggressions are interpreted from the perspective of observers.…”

Moral reasoning about gang violence in context: A comparative study with children and adolescents exposed tomarasin Honduras and not exposed in Nicaragua

“…To test each research question, repeated‐measures ANOVAs of social judgments and justification categories used were ran across each of the general questions and contextual situations (Midgette & Mulvey, 2022; Posada & Wainryb, 2008). Between‐group main effects are reported.…”