WHITE COLLEGE STUDENTS WHO CAN fiSEEfl THEIR OWN RACE: A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF HOW ADU LT LEARNERS AND TRADITIONAL STUDENTS DESCRIBED RACE AND RACI SM AT MIDWESTERN UNIVERSITY By Christine Elizabeth Benson A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education - Doctor of Philosophy 2015 ABSTRACT WHITE COLLEGE STUDENTS WHO CAN fiSEEfl THEIR OWN RACE: A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF HOW ADU LT LEARNERS AND TRADITIONAL STUDENTS DESCRIBED RACE AND RACI SM AT MIDWESTERN UNIVERSITY By Christine Elizabeth Benson The American college classroom is projecte d to become more racially and ethnically diverse, which is consistent with the vision and ideals of higher education. However research shows that White students, who represent the largest racial group currently on campuses, are unable to recognize themselves as having a race, do not understand the privilege associated with being White, and fail to grasp the prevalence of r acism. Colleges and universities need to better understand how White students interpret and make sens e of their own race in order to fulfill their missions of encouraging respect fo r diversity and preparing students to become engaged citizens in a democratic and global so ciety. The purpose of the current study was to determine how White students at Midwestern University who could fiseefl their own race (Chesler, Peet, & Sevig, 2003) explained their understanding and experien ces of race in light of the changing racial landscape of the American university and country. Further, this study examined the educational and non-educational experiences that caused White students to perceive or reflect upon the meaning of their own race, some for the first time. The research informing this study occurred at Midwestern University, chosen for its location in Metropolitan DetroitŠwhich was noted as the most segregated urban area in the United States. Ten students were selected for this qualitative study based on their responses to the Oklahoma Racial Attitude Scale Œ Revised (ORAS-R), one of the few tools available to measure the racial consciousness of White pers ons. Two semi-structured interviews were conducted with each student. Analysis of audio re cordings and transcripts revealed four themes. White college students™ directly described their experiences of being White , and talked about struggling to identify the privileges associated with their race. Additionally, students expressed a desire to discuss race, but lacked the ability and confidence to do so while on and away from campus. Students talked about racism, but were unaware of its causes and far-reaching effects. Despite living in the most racially diverse era for higher education and the United States, findings in this study supported existing literature that White college students have deep awkwardness and discomfort when discussing r ace and hold many inaccurate and uninformed ideas about race, White privilege, and racism. Half of the students in this study said they did not actively or frequently reflect on or notice thei r race, and none spoke in an outright positive manner or with pride about their race. Participants engaged fully in the interviews, but acknowledged they did not always feel capable of doing so while on campus or in their lives away from campus. Findings from this study have implications fo r practice and policy in higher education. Students need supportive campus spaces in order for conversation on race to be effective. Educators and student affairs professionals need to be skilled in working across the many facets of identity in White populations (e.g., age, so cial, racial, ethnic, sexual, gender and gender identity, etc.) to provide such educational spaces. Students need practice with real-world strategies and tactics to disrupt racial jokes, slurs, and stereo types when these are voiced on and off campus. Intentional, required, ongoing and we ll-facilitated campus expe riences dedicated to understanding race are needed. Related to polic y, educational administrators of both K-12 and postsecondary institutions must commit to requiri ng all students to participate in high-quality multicultural educational experiences. Sharing real and meani ngful data about admissions and funding processes with students before, during, a nd after they are enrolled will help uncover larger social justice issues within education. Copyright by CHRISTINE ELIZABETH BENSON 2015v This dissertation is dedicated to first generation college students. It will be difficult, and it will be worth it. viACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am indebted to many people for their guidan ce and support during this journey. First, I must recognize my loving parents, who always st ressed the importance of education. They made so many sacrifices to raise and provide for me , working in tough jobs that required much physical, mental, and emotional effort. Please kn ow that I appreciate everything you did to make sure there was food on the table, books to r ead, and love in our family. While I know you always questioned how I turned out the way I did, it was because you loved and believed in me. Much gratitude goes to my committee members, who guided me from start to finish. Dr. Matt Wawrzynski, my advisor and chair, told me to fiTrust the Process.fl Matt: you were right. The doctoral pursuit has humbled me, broadened my world, and challenged my assumptions. Thank you for always encouraging me to mainta in a learning mindset. Dr. Kris Renn provided words of encouragement every step of the way. Your heartfelt emails boosted me when spirits were low and kept me moving forward. Dr. Marilyn Amey taught me about the soul of leadership. Those lessons served me well thro ugh the many months of research and writing while working full-time, and I remembered your a dvice to focus on the joy. Years ago, Dr. Cliff Broman told me how important it was to study my own race. This was excellent advice and helped me along the path of learning about priv ilege and advocating for social justice. Dr. Connie Tingson-Gatuz told me about the HALE program at MSU and more importantly, told me that she knew I could earn a PhD. You encouraged me to apply, celebrated when I was accepted, reassured me constantly, and assisted me every step of the way. When I perceived events as roadblocks, you showed me these were o pportunities. Your steadfast guidance and encouragement have made this journey priceless. vii There are so many administrators, staff, and faculty at Madonna University and Michigan State University who inspired, reassured, challenged, cheered, and supported me through this process. These individuals saw promise and talent in me and encouraged me to use those giftsŠ even when I did not see such qualities in myself or how to harvest them. Two dear friends who provided countless hou rs of support were Kathleen Thompson and Jennifer Toburen. Kathleen, your positive energy and words of encouragement over these many years kept me believing and dreaming bigger. Thank you for holding such a beautiful space for me. Jenn, it was our trip to Gettysburg College fo r Kristin™s orientation that piqued my interest in making the transition from Corporate America to higher education. Knowing that you and the Toburen family were backing me on this path provided me with such comfort during times of doubt. My sincere gratitude goes to the staff and participants from Midw estern University. Without their time and cooperation, this research would not have been possible. I appreciate their willingness to partner and meet with me to sh are their ideas, struggles, and personal stories. To Alan Benson, my best friend and soul mate, I say this: We made it. You witnessed some of the worst parts of this voyage and alwa ys reminded me to keep my eyes on the horizon. Your faith, reliability, support, sacrifice, willingness to do just about anything I needed, and patience helped me go farther than I thought possi ble. Thank you for keeping me going. Know that you are my priority now and ever after. You know my ultimate goal for our lives together and I am more committed than ever to achieving it. viiiTABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................ ........ xii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY .............................................................. 1 Historical to Present Demographics of American College Students ........................................... 3 Diversity as a Desired Outc ome of Higher Education ................................................................ 5 White Racial Identity Development and Higher Education ........................................................ 7 Racial Attitudes of White College Students ................................................................................ 8 Research Problem .............................................................................................................. .......... 9Purpose and Research Questions ............................................................................................... 11Definitions ................................................................................................................... .............. 12Chapter Summary ............................................................................................................... ....... 12 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW .............................................................................. 14 Conceptual Framework .......................................................................................................... ... 14College Student Development Theory ...................................................................................... 15 White Racial Identity ......................................................................................................... .... 16Definition of terms. .......................................................................................................... .. 16History................................................................................................................................ 17Models of White Racial Identity Theory ............................................................................... 18 Helms. ........................................................................................................................ ........ 19Rowe, Bennett, and Atkinson™s White Racial Consciousness Model. .............................. 23 Intersectional Theory and Holistic Approaches to Racial Identity Development. ............ 28 Whiteness Studies ............................................................................................................. ........ 30Defining Whiteness Studies................................................................................................... 3 1The History of Whiteness Studies ......................................................................................... 32 First wave of Whiteness studies. ........................................................................................ 33 Second wave of Whiteness studies .................................................................................... 33 Third wave of Whiteness studies ....................................................................................... 36 Notable Contributions to the Field of Whiteness Studies ...................................................... 37 Ruth Frankenberg .............................................................................................................. . 38Peggy McIntosh ................................................................................................................ . 39David Roediger ................................................................................................................ .. 40Themes in the Research ........................................................................................................ . 41Whiteness as the norm ....................................................................................................... 4 1Low degree of self-awareness. ....................................................................................... 41 Feelings of culturelessness ............................................................................................. 42 Difficulty in explaining Whiteness ................................................................................ 43 Whiteness as normal ....................................................................................................... 44 Whiteness as Privilege ....................................................................................................... 45Whiteness as a social construction ..................................................................................... 46 Refuting race as not biologically based .......................................................................... 46 The changing definition of race ..................................................................................... 47 Race as a control mechanism ......................................................................................... 48 ixColor-blindness as the new racism ................................................................................. 48 Racial groups receive privileges based on merit. ....................................................... 49 Most people do not care about or pay attention to race .............................................. 50 Patterns of social inequity are the result of cultural deficits of individuals or racial/ethnic groups ..................................................................................................... 51 No systematic attention needs to be given to any existing inequities ........................ 52 Gaps and criticisms of research on Whiteness ...................................................................... 54 The Future of Whiteness Studies ........................................................................................... 56 Chapter Summary ............................................................................................................... ....... 58 CHAPTER THREE: METHODS AND METHODOLOGY ...................................................... 59 Knowledge Claims .............................................................................................................. ...... 59Constructivist Paradigm ....................................................................................................... . 60Relativism Ontology ........................................................................................................... ... 60Subjectivist Epistemology ..................................................................................................... 61 Qualitative Methodology ....................................................................................................... 62 Strategy of Inquiry ........................................................................................................... ......... 63Research Questions ............................................................................................................ ....... 63Methods ....................................................................................................................... .............. 64Background and Role of Researcher ..................................................................................... 64 Procedures for Data Collection.............................................................................................. 67 Site selection. ............................................................................................................... ...... 68Participant selection ......................................................................................................... .. 69Types of data collected: Interviews .................................................................................. 70 Procedures for Data Recording .............................................................................................. 74 Data Analysis and Interpretation ........................................................................................... 76 Validating the Accuracy of Findings ..................................................................................... 78 Credibility ................................................................................................................... ....... 78Transferability. ................................................................................................................... 79Dependability ..................................................................................................................... 80Confirmability ................................................................................................................ .... 81Chapter Summary ............................................................................................................... ....... 81 CHAPTER FOUR: BACKGROUND INFORMATION ............................................................ 83 Abigail ....................................................................................................................................... 84April .......................................................................................................................................... 86Faith ......................................................................................................................... .................. 89John ........................................................................................................................................... 91Kimberly ...................................................................................................................... .............. 92Macy .......................................................................................................................... ................ 94Marianne ...................................................................................................................... .............. 96Monroe ........................................................................................................................ .............. 97Rachel ........................................................................................................................ .............. 100Wayne ......................................................................................................................... ............. 101 xCHAPTER FIVE: BEING WH ITE AND SEEING WHITE .................................................... 105 What Does it Mean to be White? ............................................................................................ 105 How Participants Described Being White ........................................................................... 106 fiI don™t think about itfl. .................................................................................................... 106Being White is ordinary. .................................................................................................. 107 I™m not White, I™m ______. ............................................................................................. 108 The Advantages and Disadvantages of Being White .......................................................... 111 Advantages of being White .............................................................................................. 111 Not being judged for their race .................................................................................... 112 Viewing White as being effortlessly powerful ............................................................. 114 Disadvantages of being White. ........................................................................................ 116 Whites are overlooked for resources ............................................................................ 116 Money ....................................................................................................................... 1 17Scholarships .............................................................................................................. 120 Admissions processes ............................................................................................... 121 Negative White stereotypes .......................................................................................... 123 Prejudice and intolerance.......................................................................................... 124 Gender and socioeconomic status ............................................................................. 124 Factors that Influenced Particip ants™ Definition of Whiteness ............................................ 126 Family ........................................................................................................................ ...... 126Non-judgmental interest in race and equality .............................................................. 126 Family members teaching about differences ................................................................ 128 Neighborhoods and schools before college ..................................................................... 130 Experiences That Helped White College Students fiSeefl Their Own Race ............................ 132 Overall Experience at a fiDiversefl Campus ........................................................................ 133 In-class and on-campus experiences .................................................................................... 138 Classroom experiences ..................................................................................................... 138 Cocurricular experiences ................................................................................................. 147 Hearing the Stories of Persons of Color .............................................................................. 149 Being in a Group or Situati on that is Not White ................................................................. 153 Experience with Another Element of Identity ..................................................................... 158 Chapter Summary ............................................................................................................... ..... 162 CHAPTER SIX: DESIRE TO DISCUSS RACE AND RACISM ............................................ 164 Desire and Ability to Discuss Race ......................................................................................... 16 4Midwestern University: fiA Special Kind of Bubblefl ........................................................ 165 Sketches of Students Eager to Discuss Race ....................................................................... 166 Factors that Prevent/Inhibit White Students from Discussing Race ................................... 172 Whites need to be fiforced tofl talk about race ................................................................. 173 Friends and family members ............................................................................................ 174 Power Differentials .......................................................................................................... 177Participants™ Awareness of Racism ......................................................................................... 183 Definitions of Racism ......................................................................................................... . 183Causes of Racism............................................................................................................... .. 185Reactions to Living in Metropolitan Detroit ....................................................................... 187 The Future............................................................................................................................ 190xiChapter Summary ............................................................................................................... ..... 193 CHAPTER SEVEN: DISCUSSION, IMPL ICATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS ....... 194 Being White ................................................................................................................... .......... 195Disfluencies in Speech and Semantic Moves ...................................................................... 195 White as Invisible and Ordinary .......................................................................................... 200 Efforts to Distance Themselves from Being White ............................................................. 202 Advantages and Disadvantages of Being White .................................................................. 203 Not personally experiencing the advantages of Whiteness. ............................................. 204 Whites think they are overlooked for resources .............................................................. 205 Experiences with Family and Neighborhoods Before College ........................................... 207 Seeing White .................................................................................................................. ......... 209Is Midwestern University Really a fiDiversefl Campus? ..................................................... 210 Curricular and Cocurricular Experiences that Caused White Students to fiSeefl Their Race .............................................................................................................................. ............... 213Hearing the Stories of Persons of Color .............................................................................. 214 Being in a Group or Situati on that is Not White ................................................................. 216 Experiences with Another Element of Identity: Gender ..................................................... 217 Experiences with Another Element of Identity: Age........................................................... 218 Desire and Ability to Discuss Race ......................................................................................... 21 9Midwestern University was a Safe Environment ................................................................ 220 Students Eager to Discuss Race........................................................................................... 221 Factors that Prevented/Inhibited Wh ite Students from Discussing Race ............................ 223 Whites need to be forced to talk about race ..................................................................... 223 Friends and family members ............................................................................................ 224 Power Differentials .......................................................................................................... 226Seeing Racism ................................................................................................................. ........ 227Limitations ................................................................................................................... ........... 230Implications .................................................................................................................. ........... 231Implications for Practice ..................................................................................................... . 232Implications for Policy ....................................................................................................... . 236Areas for Future Research ..................................................................................................... .. 238 APPENDICES .................................................................................................................... ........ 240APPENDIX A: Interview Protocol ........................................................................................ 241 APPENDIX B: Invitations to Participate ............................................................................... 243 APPENDIX C: Research Participant Information and Consent Form ................................... 248 APPENDIX D: Summary Tabl e of Study Participants .......................................................... 249 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................................... 250 xiiLIST OF TABLES Table 1: Summary Table of Participants ––––––––––––––––––––.104 Table 2: Summary Table of Study Participants. –––––––––––––––––.249 1 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY This first chapter explains the purpose of the current study, which examined how White students at Midwestern University discussed their own experiences of race while in college. Major demographic changes are occurring in the United States. In comparison to the population of the late 1950s, the fiU.S. is getting bigger, ol der, and more diversefl (Scommenga, 2004). U.S. Census Bureau statistics confirm these changes an d predict these trends will continue: By the year 2050, the population is expected to grow 42% to approximately 439 million people; by 2030, it is projected roughly 1 in 5 people will be over the age of 65; and racial/ethnic minority groups (i.e., named as those outside of the non- Hispanic White population) in the U.S. will become the majority group by the year 2042 (U.S . Census Bureau, 2008). These shifts in the populace will affect many aspects of American society, including higher education. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) projects the number of students attending college will increase through at least Fall 2021 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2012). Historically, Whites have been the largest racial group participating in higher education, and continue to represent the majority of students enro lled in college (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012). Yet, as students attend American campuses today, they do so as the most racially and ethnically diverse group to enter higher educationŠwith e xpectations this trend will continue (Coomes & DeBard, 2004; National Center for Education Statistics, 2011a). Although postsecondary institutions have mission statements promoting diversity as a desired outcome and essential component of becomi ng an educated person (Gurin, 1999), the majority of White students enter college from segregated schools and neighborhoods, unable to identify themselves as having a race (Chesler, Peet, & Sevig, 2003; Pryor, DeAngelo, Blake, Hurtado, & Tran, 2011; Tatum, 2003). Recent studies have shown trad itional aged White college students expressing 2 increased racial prejudice as we ll as concerted efforts to avoid appearing racist (Bonilla-Silva, 2006; Picca & Feagin, 2007). The majority of st udents in higher education today are White and do not realize they have a race, which presents an important problem for leaders in higher education because it means that a large numbe r of college students are both engaging in knowingly racist behaviors and also unconsciously discriminato ry manners. White students™ lack of racial understanding results in tension on campus, diminish es learning for all students, and surfaces in a range of behaviors from microaggr essions to overt acts of disrespect. Without intervention, White students le ave their universities with degrees in hand, but without an understanding of the privilege and power they have racially and how this affects persons of Color. In order to fulfill their missions of encouraging respect for diversity and preparing students to become engaged citizens in a democra tic and global society, colleges and universities need to better understand how White students interpret and ma ke sense of their own race. The purpose of the current study is to determine how White students make sense of their own race in light of the changing landscape of the American university and country. The first chapter introduces the current study. Included in this chapter is an overview of the key areas that influence the research problem, statement of the research problem, purpose and research questions, and definitions of key terms. In order to understand the nature of the experiences of White college stude nts related to race, the following four topics were reviewed to open the chapter: historical to present demographi cs of American college students, diversity as a desired outcome of higher educa tion, White racial identity de velopment and higher education, and the racial attitudes of White college students. 3 Historical to Present Demographi cs of American College Students The history of higher education in the United States can be characterized chiefly by expansion but conversely by exclusion. The first American colleges appeared in the mid-1600s and were patterned on England™s Oxford and Cambridge (Altbach, 2001). These small colleges welcomed White males only and were largely ou t of reach for anyone but the ficolonial elitefl (Thelin, 2004, p. 25). Anderson (2002) noted that the growth of higher education in the U.S. in fact fiparalleled the evolution of a national system of racially qualified slavery and its attendant ideologies of racism and class subordinationfl (p. 3). African Americans began to experience higher education after the Civil Wa r, and their participation was la rgely in private institutions exclusively for Black students Œa trend that extended through Worl d War II (Anderson, 2002). The Servicemen™s Readjustment Act (more comm only referred to as th e fiGI Billfl) of 1944 had little impact on the enrollment of persons of Color or women, but did expand access to more White males across socioeconomic lines (Thelin, 2004). These veterans returning from war and military service represented a male population that was older than the traditional 18-year old student who typically entered college right after high school. Although White women slowly began to appear in public colleges as of the early 1900s, students of Color did not do so until after the Civil Rights Movement almost 60 y ears later when African American, Mexican American, Puerto Rican, and Asian American st udents enrolled in colleges and universities in significant numbers (Anderson, 2002; Geiger, 2 005). Educational statistics showing the enrollment at postsecondary institutions during this time period report the ages of college students in categories as follows: 18-19, 20-24, 25-29, and 30-34 (NCES, 2014a). There are conflicting reports about whether or not higher education was welcoming to students over the age of 25 historically, with some researchers in dicating that American colleges and universities 4 have had offerings for adult learners dating back to the Morril Act of 1862 (Kasworm, 2012) and others suggesting that older students and veterans were in fact merely fitolerat edfl with little or no significant accommodations to meet the n eeds of this population (MacKinnon & Floyd, 2011, p.328). While the overall story of American hi gher education is one of expanding access and enrollment, the majority of higher education instit utions in the U.S. have become more diverse across racial/ethnic and age categor ies just in the last 40 years. A comparison of enrollment in postseconda ry institutions in the mid-1970s and 2010 revealed how much the race/ethnicity of student s in American college classrooms has changed. Postsecondary enrollment has increased over 40% with more than 21 million students attending degree-granting institutions as of Fall 2010 compar ed to only about half that number (11 million students) in 1976 (NCES, 2011b). While the percentage of students of Color has increased across all categories, White student s still represent the majority of students in higher education. However, White students are the only racial/ethnic group that has decreased in percentage between 1976 and 2010 Œ a reduction of 22% (NCES, 2011b). Students of Color have increased their college-going percentages as follows from 1976 to 2010: Black students comprise 14.5% of the total college populationŠan increase of 5% since 1976; Hispanic students have increased 9.5% to become 13.0% of all students enrolled; Asian Pacific Islanders have increased their numbers by 4.3% to 6.1% of enrollment, and Amer ican Indian/Alaska Natives have increased by 0.2% to represent 0.9% of students in college (NCES, 2011b). Since the mid-1970s, the percentage of White students part icipating in higher education has steadily decreased while the proportion of students of Color has consistently increased. The percentage of persons aged 25 to 34 enrolled in American postsecondary education has also increased over the last several d ecades. In 1975, only 10.1% of the population who 5 were 25 to 29 years old were enrolled in colleges, universities, or professional schools. By 2010, that percentage had increased to 14.6 % of the population. Compara tively, for persons 30-34 years old, the percentages were 6.6 % in 1975 and 8.3 %in 2010 (NCES, 2014a). A significant portion of the college student population is cons idered non-traditionally ag ed, with over 39% of students in 2010 age 25 and older. Enrollment for students 25 to 34 years of age is projected to increase by 20 %between 2010 and 2021. Similarly, students 35 years old and over are projected to increase by 25 %between 2010 and 2021 (Hussa r and Bailey, 2013). Referred to collectively as adult learners or non-traditional students, persons over the age of 25 look to be a group of students who will continue to be a sizable population on university and college campuses in the United States. Diversity as a Desired Outcome of Higher Education Although postsecondary institutions vary in size, type, and purpose, they often have stated missions promoting diversity as an esse ntial component of becoming an educated person and share the value of pluralism with related verbiage in their admissions policies and diversity statements. University presidents have writ ten about the importance of higher education outcomes that help students to better understand the perspectives of a variety of people through interactions with them, to refl ect that understanding through engagement in civic and democratic processes, and to advocate for social justice (Bok, 2006; Duderstadt, 2000; Rhodes, 2001; Tatum, 2007). The benefits and positive effects of college students interacting with diverse groups through multicultural curricular and cocurricular experiences are well documented by the landmark research of Gurin (1999) with similar fi ndings in recent studies and theoretical writings (Gurin, Dey, Hurtado, & Gurin, 2002; Harper & Hurtado,2007; King & Magolda, 2005; Ortiz & Rhoads, 2000 Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). Encouraging cross-cultural interaction and 6 expanding students™ understanding and communication skills with a broad variety of people is a fundamental and intended outcome of higher edu cation for many administrators. Despite these stated intentions, there is evidence America™s colleges and university campuses are not places where diversity is reve red by the largest racial group of students. Recent studies of White students™ attitudes and be haviors while in college provide examples of their inability to recognize themselves as havi ng a race, the belief that reverse discrimination happens commonly, and acts of overt racism (Bonilla-Silva, 2006; McKinney, 2005; Picca & Feagin, 2007). Incidents occur daily on American campuses that demonstrate the need for practitioners and leaders in higher education to learn more about how students make sense of their own raceŠparticularly White students who hold the majority status. The postsecondary goal of embracing and valuing diversity can seem impossible to achieve when faced with events like the video depicting members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity at the University of Oklahoma singing racial slurs a nd statements that the organi zation would never admit Black members, or the annual fiIncrease Diversity Bake Sale" hosted by the Berkeley College Republicans and other similar groups, or the examples of hate speech graffiti or nooses appearing on campuses across the United Stat es each semester (Berrett, 2015; Chau, 2012; fiControversial Bake Sale,fl 2011; Kim, 2012). Racial tensions were evident on several campuses as students protested the re-election of President Barrack Obama with university administrators acknowledging gatherings where firacial epithetsfl and fiuncivil languagefl were used, in one case toward the members of a Minority Student Unio n house (fiAn Open Letterfl, 2012; fiA Message Fromfl, 2012; fiMessage from President Howar d, 2012). There is evidence White college students do not necessarily agree with the value of diversity despite the current statements, programming, and administrative efforts within higher education. The current study provides 7 insight about the experiences and circumstan ces that caused several White students at Midwestern University to be able to see their race and how they perceived being White. White Racial Identity Development and Higher Education The study of racial identity development in the United States began in earnest after the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Resear chers sought explanations for how African Americans responded to these transformative times that challenged and exposed racism (Jackson, 2001). The idea White people had a racial identi ty that could change and develop was not studied until several decades later when Hardim an (1982) completed a doctoral dissertation on White racial consciousness and suggested a model for describing the process for a fihealthy racial identity in Whitesfl (p. vi). Throughout the 1980s, Helms studied raci al identity in the context of counseling psychology and made a foundational contribution to the field with her book, Black and White Racial Identity: Theory, Research, and Practice (1993). Helms defined firacial identityfl as fia sense of group or collective identity based on one™s perception that he or she shares a common racial heritage with a particular racial groupfl (p. 3). As a field of study, college student development relies heavily on research in education, sociology, psychology, and other social sciences to describe the growth and evolution of learners from a number of perspectives. Helms™s research on racial identity theory is frequently cited by researchers studying how college students identify and interpret race. There is a gap in the literature about how White people experience and develop their racial identity while participating in higher education. Several authors identify the need for more empirical research on how students™ perceptions of racial and et hnic identity changes while in college, as the body of knowledge available is described as small and largely theoretical (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005; Phinney, 2005). White identity models are limited; fail to 8 account for factors such as gender, social class, and sexual orientation; use methods that evoke participants to focus on fithe otherfl instead of their own experiences as White persons; and do not connect theory with practice for the student affairs profession (Chesler et al., 2003; Evans, Forney, Guido, Patton & Renn, 2010; McKinney, 2005; Ortiz & Rhoads, 2000). Several authors note a dearth of qualitative studies related to st udents™ openness to diversity, experiences with race and racial climate, and racism on colle ge campuses (Bonilla-Silva, 2006; Harper & Hurtado,2007; Whitt, Edison, Pascarella, Terenzini, & Nora, 2001). The current study contributes to this identified need and also to the emerging field of White ness studies. A number of researchers and academics cite the need to examine Whiteness and White privilege, its oppressive structure within societal institutio ns such as higher education, and the policies affecting and created for these spacesŠsuch as affirmative action (McKinney, 2005; Owen, 2011; Picca & Feagin, 2007; Pierce, 2003). As postsecondary institutions endeavor to prepare students to work and live in global society, there is much evid ence further research concerning White students and their perceptions of race is needed. Racial Attitudes of White College Students Despite the efforts of higher education institutions to explain the benefits of living in the most diverse times in United States history, contemporary White colle ge students have not shown they understand or value this philosophy. White colleg e students choose to socialize primarily with peers of the same race (Harper & Hurtado, 2007; Picca & Feagin, 2007). Further, millennial college students appear to be less concer ned with race relations than students in years past, are more fiself-focusedfl and finarcissisti cfl (Bourke & Mechler, 2010, p. 4), and are unaware of their own identity and the pervasiveness of Whiteness on campus and in society (Chesler et al., 2003). A body of literature suggests White co llege students have adopted a politically 9 correct ficolorblindfl attitude toward race in public fifront stagefl setti ngs, but then behave in racist ways in private fibackstagefl areas (Bonilla-Silv a, 2006; Picca & Feagin, 2007). These studies provide numerous examples of White college stud ents demonstrating markedly racist behaviors when in homogenous, White groups and then behavi ng in more socially accepted ways in mixed race groupings or in public. More research is needed about the experiences of White stude nts to inform those working in higher education and to enable student affairs practitioners to create suitable and effective programming for this population. The current study examined how White students interpreted their own race during their experience in college. Particular emphasis was placed on interviewing students who demons trated a consciousness or understanding of being White, with the researcher inquiring about the events and experiences that may have caused these students to become aware of their own race. Research Problem There are many opinions about the main purpose and objective of postsecondary education in the present-day United States and as many ideas about how to achieve those goals. The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education (2008) suggested the following outcomes as essential: To provide graduates and the nation at large with the skills needed to be effective in a global, increasingly competitive economy, in which corporations reach across nations and geographical divides in search of new markets, more effi cient production, and less costly labor; and to close the achievement gap between those students in this country who are advantagedŠeducationally, culturally, and economicallyŠand those who are not. (Wegner, p.1) 10 Neither of these outcomes will be achieved if the racial majority of students on campus are unable to recognize and understand their own race and how race affects their thoughts, actions, perspectives, relationships, and all ways of being. Within the re search literature related to colleges and universities, a review of recent publications reveals a body of knowledge about the wide-ranging benefits of diversity for students in college sett ings. Topics range from the composition of campuses and classrooms (Dens on & Chang, 2009; Terenzini, Cabrera, Colbeck, Bjorklund & Parente, 2011), to curriculum that focuses on racial identity (Tatum, 2011), to curricular formation focused on equity (Ma yhew, Grunwald, & Day, 2011; Maurill, 2011; Slaughter, 2011). If the American postsecondary goal is to affect contemporary White students so they respect persons of all cultures as well as recognize privilege and racism, more must be known about how the racial identity of this population of students develops while they progress through higher education. McKinney (2005) addresses the inefficiency of using old fimodels for combating racism devised for the parents and grandparents of young Whitesfl (p.223). Practitioners and educators must learn more about present White students™ beliefs about their race in order to develop relevant and effectiv e interventions and programming at the college level, which will help achieve the goals of prep aring students for a more globalized society and closing the achievement gap. Most importantly, the current study contributes to an area of research that is needed to advocate for social justice in higher education. While access to postsecondary education for students of Color has increased substantially since the Civil Rights movement, enrollment figures and mission statements that promote di versity demonstrate a very basic level of commitment by the academy. Present day American colleges and universities are overwhelmingly White domains when consideri ng both the faculty and staff who oversee these 11 spaces as well as the students who move through a nd graduate from these institutions. From the halls of higher education, graduates move on to b ecome leaders at all levels of society. Equality has not been achieved. Ortiz and Rhoads (2000) noted that fiTo ignore White ethnicity is to redouble its hegemony by naturalizin g itfl (p. 217). Indeed, White students need curriculum and experiences that help them perceive and confront the privilege and oppression that operate at so many levels within their campuses and in larger society. Purpose and Research Questions The purpose of the current study was to learn how White students involved in postsecondary education interpret their own race. Further, this study examined the educational and non-educational experiences that caused White students to perceive or reflect upon the meaning of their own race, some for the first time. The research questions that shaped the current study included: 1. What is the nature of the experiences of White college students related to race? 2. For White college students w ho can fiseefl their own race, what events led to this occurrence? (Chesler et al., 2003). The following sub-questions were used in conjunction with the questions above: What does it mean to White college st udents to be White? (e.g., How do White college students describe their experiences of race?) What do these students believe has shaped their ideas about race? (e.g., What types of educational and other experiences affect how White college students view their own race?) 12 Definitions The current consensus among scholars in th e field of social sciences is that race is largely a socially constructed phenomenon. Omi and Winant (1994) st ated, fiIndeed, the categories employed to differentiate among human groups along racial lines reveal themselves, upon serious examination, to be at best imprecise and at worst completely arbitraryfl (p. 55). Andersen and Collins (2007) explained fithe meaning a nd significance of race stems from specific, historical, and political contextsfl (p. 70) and these meanings are constantly fishiftingfl (p. 71). These statements reveal the fluidity of race. The focus of the current study was to discover how White college students who could see their own race defined being White. I asked students who identified themselves as White to explain thei r definition and understanding of that term. Since African Americans were the first populatio n for which racial identity models were researched and developed, this racial grouping is discussed in the current study. While reviewing source material for this research project, the terms Black and African American were sometimes used with specific historical connotat ions and at other times used interchangeably. The terms Black, Blacks, White, and Whites were used in the literature sometimes capitalized and at times used with a lower case fibfl and fiwfl. Fo r the current study, the terms used to refer to all racial and ethnic groups are capitalized as prescribed by the Amer ican Psychological Association (APA, 2010). Also in accordance with the APA guidelines on preferred usage for fiNorth American people of African ancestryfl (p.75), the terms Black and African American were used interchangeably throughout this study. Chapter Summary Chapter One provided an overview of the cu rrent study, which examined the perceptions White college students had of their own race. Th e American college classroom is projected to 13 become more racially and ethnically diverse, wh ich is consistent with the vision and ideals of higher education. However, White students, who represent the largest racial group currently on campuses, have interacted very infrequently if at all with persons of Color before entering college. The current study explored how White students at Midwestern University explained their understanding and experiences of race while in college. 14 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW Race has always been a force shaping the development of the United States. Within higher education, the racial com position of students, faculty, and staff has gradually progressed from completely homogenous to at least representa tive of all races, but not yet to equity. Many educational entities, such as the Department of Education, the Ameri can Council on Education, and the Lumina Foundation, list as their foci expanding and increasing access to higher education, as well as advancing diversity and promoting globalization on college and university campuses. Despite these ideals privilege, oppression, and racism are present in American postsecondary education (Bonilla-Silva, 2006; McKinney, 2005; Picca & Feagin, 2007; Smith, Altbach, & Lomotey, 2002; Waters, 2007) and restri ct colleges and universities from achieving their stated missions of promoting equity. In order to realize and achieve visions of inclusiveness, higher education practitioners working with students must explore and understand how the majority group of students makes mean ing of their own race. The current study contributes to an area of research that needs more investigation. Conceptual Framework Several bodies of literature are available to inform the current study. Creswell (2003) suggests using a fitheoretical lens or perspectivefl can assist researchers in considering significant questions and standpoints (p. 131). The conceptual framework for this study addresses two main areas of research: college student developmen t theory and the field of Whiteness studies. Within the field of college student developmen t, the subcategory of White racial identity development is discussed with a focus on three key theories: Janet Helms™s model of White Racial Identity Development; the White Ra cial Consciousness Model developed by Rowe, Bennett, and Atkinson (1994); and several recent ho listic development theories. Areas that are 15 discussed related to the field of Whiteness studies include an ove rview and history of the field, notable contributors as well as criticisms, themes and gaps in the literature, and a conceptualization of the future of this emerging area. Both co llege student development theory and Whiteness studies provide a foundation from which to study how contemporary White college students interpret their own race. College Student Development Theory Human beings grow, develop, and change c onstantly. The study of this process for persons participating in higher education constitutes a large body of research and theoretical writing called college student development theory. This field fiexamines ways in which students and other adults make meaning of their experiences and how faculty and administrators can promote their learning, growth, and developmen tfl (Wilson & Wolf-Wendel, 2005, xv). Humans develop rapidly during adolescence, and the bulk of the historical work in the field focuses on students under the age of 24 years old who are ge nerally referred to as traditional age students (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). Advances in the fields of psychology and sociology set the stage for the explosion of research that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s involving college settings and students (Evans et al., 2010). Conceptualizing the broad field of college student development as divided into categories or fifamiliesfl of theories is a helpful way to examine this research. These families include: psychosocial development, cognitive-structural development, and development of social identities (Wilson & Wolf-Wendel, 2005). Various m odels within each of these families attempt to explain the multitude of proc esses through which students grow and develop in their post-secondary years. The current study is focused within the category of social identity development, with an examination of select re search on how White students develop their racial identity. 16 White Racial Identity The next section outlines the challenges of defining vocabulary that is used in the current study, particularly related to White racial identity. A common understanding of terms is established. While reviewing the literature rela ted to racial identity development of White students, the shortage of studies was noted. This need for mo re information about how White students interpret their racial identity throughout their lifespan is examined along with specific areas where studies have been suggested by researchers and practitioners in the field. Definition of terms. Due to the limited amount of re search in the college student development field on White racial identity, it was necessary to examine information from other disciplines, such as sociology, psychology, counseling, and education to inform this study. Anthropologists, historians, and researchers have argued race is a fimeaninglessfl and inaccurate way to categorize people because there is little if any evidence that distinguishes race at the biological or human gene level (Fears, 2003; Hartman, 2004; Helms, 2008; Kolchin, 2002; Owen, 2011; Painter, 2012). Instead, race is acknowledged by many modern scholars as a socially constructed phenomenon. To help exp licate the meaning of race for this study, two definitions are helpful. A traditional definiti on of race is: fiAncestry and selected physical characteristics such as skin color, hair texture, and eye shapefl (Weber, 2001, 19). The definition offered by Omi and Winant (1994) expa nds the perspective beyond physical group characteristics: fiRace is a concept which signifie s and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodiesfl (p. 55). The spectrum represented by the space between these definitions captures the fluid, changing, and dynamic qualities that have characterized this termŠparticularly when used to describe which persons are considered White. 17 The term firacial identityfl was defined by Helm s (1993) as fia sense of group or collective identity based on one™s perception that he or she shares a co mmon racial heritage with a particular racial groupfl (Helms, 1993, p.3). There is confus ion between the terms firacial identityfl and fiethnic identityfl in contemporary Am erican society, and definitions of ethnicity vary across disciplines. In the field of sociology, ethnicity is defined as figroups who share a common culturefl that is developed fiwithin the context of systems of powerfl (Andersen & Collins, 2007, p. 82). A foundational article on ethnic identity from the college student development literature was completed over 20 ye ars ago by Phinney (1990), who reviewed over 70 studies of ethnic identity published from 1972 to 1990. Within the field, studies on ethnic identity have focused primarily on Asian Ameri can and Latino college students (Evans et al., 2010). While the current study did not encompass rese arch on ethnicity, it is necessary to define the term fiethnic identityfl because it is used interchangeably with ra cial identity in some fields and may be understood as synonymous by the pa rticipants in this study. History. There is a gap in the literature about how White persons experience and develop their racial identity whil e participating in higher education. Several authors identify the need for more empirical research on how students™ perceptions of their White racial and ethnic identity is interpreted and changes while in college, as the body of knowledge available is described as small and largel y theoretical (Mercer & Cunningham, 2003; Miville, Darlington, Whitlock, & Muligan, 2005; Pascarella & Terenz ini, 2005; Phinney, 2005). White identity models are severely limited; fail to account for factors such as gender, social class, and sexual orientation; use methods that e voke participants to focus on fithe otherfl instead of their own experiences as White persons; and do not connect theory with practice for the student affairs profession (Chesler et al., 2003; Evans et al., 2010; McKinney, 2005; Ortiz & Rhoads, 2000). 18 Several authors note a dearth of qualitative studies related to White students™ openness to diversity, experiences with race and racial climate, and racism on college campuses (Bonilla- Silva, 2006; Harper & Hurtado, 2007; Whitt et al., 2001). Researchers have identified the need to learn more about how White students develop a racial identity, citing the importa nce of this information for professional development of student affairs professionals. In particular, Mercer and Cunningham (2003) stated: Examining the nature of the development of negative and positive White identity and the factors that contribute to that development may help college administrators and educators promote both individual devel opment, through the adaptive re solution of stress related to encountering diversity, and institutional development, through crea ting an environment that encourages such individual exploration. (p. 228) Moving from research to theory to practice is noted as an essential process to affect in a systematic way White college students™ awaren ess of the fihegemonyfl of Whiteness (Ortiz & Rhoads, 2000) and their understanding of oppression and privilege (Evans et al., 2010). Further study of the formation of White racial identity will yield critical information that can help those in higher education create a rich learning atmosphere for postsecondary students. Models of White Racial Identity Theory The next three sections detail the foremost studies in the field of White racial identity of college students. The bulk of the research done in this field can be traced to Janet Helms, a professor of counseling psychology. From her wo rk over several decades, various models have been developed and critiqued. Her work has also inspired other researchers to suggest alternate models. As of the current day, there are only two available and widely used measures of White racial identity (Evans et al., 2010; Pope-Davis, & Vandiver, Stone, 1999, p. 71), both of which 19 are outlined in the next sections of this proposal. Literature from the early 1990s included a call for more research, and judging from a review of studies published since then, this call has not been answered (Evans et al., 2010; Hardima n, 2001; Ortiz & Rhoads, 2000; Rowe, Behrens, & Leach, 1995). There is a particular lack of qualita tive studies, as the few studies that do exist are quantitative in nature. Since there are so few studies to review, the two most prominent and cited models are explained in the next section. Helms. Studies exploring racial identity began to appear in the early 1970s. The Civil Rights Movement provided the impetus for research around identity development, with the focus initially on African Americans only. Through the early 1990s, therapists working with Black clients had been utilizing either the ficlient-as-pr oblem perspectivefl or the Nigresence model to interpret and explain behavior related to racial identity (Cross, 1971; Helms, 1993, p. 9). Both of these models made use of what Rowe, Bennett, and Atkinson (1994) refer to as fioppression- adaptive modelsfl (p. 129) used to explain ethni c minority development. These views positioned Black persons as fideviantfl since the field was ab sent theories and explanations for how Black persons could develop fihealthy nonvengeful personalities in spite of the racial discrimination to which they had been exposedfl (Helms, 1993, p.9). Racism and oppression have influenced the study of racial identity greatly, with continued discussion about the need to expand the conversation beyond the Black/White dichotomy. However, the origins of research on White racial identity were in response to models developed to describe Black racial identity. The predominant theory of White racial iden tity to date was aut hored by Helms (1993) from her experiences in the field of counseling psychology. In her book, Black and White Racial Identity, Helms acknowledged how the early research in identity development influenced her views. These works included Cross™s stage theory (1971) and Hardiman™s (1979) view that 20 racism provided the impetus for identity explorati on. The White Racial Identity Attitude Scale (WRIAS) was developed by Helms based on her five -stage model to meas ure the attitudes of White persons. Helms extended her previous wo rk (1984) from a five-stage to a six model of White Racial Identity Development (WRID), with an explanation of the series of stages and phases White persons negotiate in their developm ent. First, White persons must acknowledge and abandon racism in order to develop a fiheal thyfl White identity. The first three stages (Contact, Disintegration, and Reintegration) are included in this initial phase called the Abandonment of Racism. The last three st ages (Pseudo-Independence, Immersion/Emersion, and Autonomy) are considered part of the second phase: Defining a Nonracist White Identity. In the first stage (Contact), White persons b ecome conscious of the existence of Black persons, but are unaware institutional and cultural racism are resulting in the differential treatment. Once the White indivi dual has enough social interaction with Black persons to shift their previous identity schema, they begin to enter the second stage of Helms model (Disintegration). Helms discusse d the fimoral dilemmafl presented to White people in this stage, resulting in unpleasant feelings of being aware Black persons suffer unequal treatment in society. To deal with their discomfort, persons who are White may choose to either ignore or evade these feelings, or find new ways of thinking about their relationship with persons who are BlackŠwhich may lead to a disintegration of the old wa ys of thinking and being. The latter choice indicates growth to the third stage (Re-inte gration), during which time White people may be fiactivefl or fipassivefl in their behaviors. Both approaches involve White individuals seeing themselves as worthy of their privilegeŠand viewing Black persons as undeserving and responsible for their lesser place in society. Passive individuals avoid contact or interactions with Black persons, while active individuals may confront or express anger openly at or about 21 Black persons. Movement out of this first phase occurs when a White in dividual realizes racism is unacceptable and makes a conscious decision to abandon this previous way of thinking. The focus of the second phase of Helms™s mode l is for persons who are White to develop a finonracistfl way of viewing themselves. St age four (pseudo-independence) is aptly named because it involves White persons trying to find a ne w way to define their identity but being very unsure how to do so. Behaviors during this stage ma y include increased attempts to interact with Black personsŠparticularly to discover how Black people may be the cause of racism and an understanding that racism exists. In both examples, the White individual is in limbo because their previous identity has dissolved, and a new identity is still forming. Once enough experiences and knowledge are accumulated to take them beyond stereo typical expectations based on race, the White individual advances to the fifth stage (Immersion/Emersion). This stage is one of transition during which the White person becomes absorbed in answering questions about their own White identity and then emerges with the desire to affect how other White persons think about race. Persons in this stage plan or take actions to address racism and make change. Helms described an fiemotional catha rsisfl at the end of this phase that signals movement to the final stage of development for White persons (Autonomy). At last, the White individual has developed a healthy perception of self and definition of what it means to be White in a discriminatory society. White persons in this phase search for opportunities to interact with persons of other races and continually search for ways to combat racism in society. Several key ideas underpin Helms™s (1993) work and the six stages of WRID can be summarized in this quote: 22 The development of White identity in the Un ited States is closely intertwined with the development and progress of racism in this c ountry. The greater the extent that racism exists and is denied, the less possible it is to develop a positive White identity. (p. 49) Each stage of the WRID model relates back to the individual ™s awareness, acceptance, and actions in response to racism. Due to the number of experiences that must be accumulated and critical reflection necessary in order to achieve the upper stages of development in Helms™ model, it is most likely that the majority of pe rsons who reach the final stage are older, White adults. Helms™s research regarding racial identity form ation is regarded as seminal in the field of counseling and beyond. Her work around White iden tity is consistently cited in research on student development (Evans et al., 2010; Pascar ella & Terenzini, 2005; Wilson & Wolf-Wendel, 2005). McEwen (2005) defined figood theoryfl as an idea that is tested and results in more finew research and new ideas, which in turn, inform ne w theoriesfl (p. 16). Helms™s work qualifies as good theory because it has spurred much discussion, cr itique, and further research. In particular, the WRIAS was criticized heavily as too simplis tic and not truly measuring all constructs of Helms™s model of WRID as well as not sound fr om a psychometric perspective (Behrens, 1997; Kyle, 2001; Pope-Davis et al., 1999; Rowe et al., 1995). Due to the lack of empirical research available on Helms™s model, Me rcer and Cunningham (2003) stated it is fia theoretical model describing the nature of White identity rather than a developmental model of White identityfl (p. 219). Helms responded to critique s with directives about the way tools such as the WRIAS should be used in research and suggestions for improving practices around measuring racial or ethnic identity (2007). For the current study, a thorough understanding of Helms™s theory and model provided a lens for viewing and examining the responses of Wh ite college students. 23 Rowe, Bennett, and Atkinson™s Whit e Racial Consciousness Model. The most significant critiques of Helms™s work with WRID came from Rowe, Bennett and Atkinson (1994). As seen in the previous paragraph, a number of researchers echo this criticism. Rowe et al. (1994) state five chief concerns with Helms™s model. In their first criticism, the authors state the model wrongly uses the experiences of African Americans and racial minorities in general to examine/predict the development of Whites. Pe rsons in the racial minority must adapt in response to their oppression by White people at the pe rsonal, cultural, and institutional levels of American society, resulting in th e oppressive-adaptive models. Since the White experience is used as the dominant force for causing change, these oppressive-adaptive models are not helpful in explaining White development, according to the detractors. Second, Helms™s model is critiqued for not truly examining how White iden tity develops but instead explaining how White persons respond to fiothersfl who are not White. Although Helms acknowledged most White people are unaware of their race at first, Rowe et al. (1994) highlighted the lack of concrete steps that detail how White identity forms and grows af ter initial awareness of itself. The theme of fiotheringfl is evident in much of the research on White racial identity (Chesler et al., 2003; Bonilla-Silva & Forman, 2000). Third, the authors question the utility of Helms™s model as a fistagefl process when there is finothing other than our imposed ethics that imbues the stages with ordered levels of desirability" (p. 132). Th e assumption that White people will select the fihealthyfl path of development as suggested by Helms is not guaranteed, and thus problematic. A fourth critique of Helms™s work is that the model deals with the binary of White and Black only and ignores other races. Lastly, Rowe et al. (1994) indicate the model is not supported by empirical study. 24 As an alternative, Rowe et al. (1994) proposed their own terminology and model explaining how identity develops for White persons. They used the phrase fiWhite racial consciousnessfl to describe an approach that consists of fluid and changeable attitude and behavior groupings instead of stages. Persons can pass in and out of groupings throughout their lives based on events, with Rowe et al de nying this movement should be considered fidevelopmentalfl in nature (p. 134). This concep t is described in depth by Rowe et al. (1995): White racial consciousness is conceived as the characteristic attitudes held by a person regarding the significance of being White, particularly in terms of what that implies in relation to those who do not share White group membership. – Whatever the pattern of beliefs one may have regarding these issues, it is likely to be reflected to some extent in one's expressed attitudes, overt behaviors, and related affect, and it is from these observable manifestations that the person's t ype of "racial consciousness" can be inferred (p. 225). The idea of an external event causing reflection u pon race is consistent with the work of Chesler et al. (2003) who suggested college students must have a significan t experience with their race to cause them to reflect upon it in order to fisee fl their Whiteness (p. 224). Participants in the current study were asked a series of questions to determine what types of on and off-campus experiences caused them to comprehend or think about their race while in college. The model created by Rowe et al. (1994) c onsists of two statuses (Unachieved White Racial Consciousness and Achieved White Racial Consciousness) and six attitude groupings or types. Movement between and among groups can occur if a person experiences discord in relation to their racial identity, acknowledges that conflict, and acts upon it. This change of types can be viewed as positive or negative moveme nt, based on the encounter. In contrast to the 25 linear and evolving direction of Helms model, fluctuation and depa rture from the desired states are expected as part of the model suggested by Rowe et al. (1994). The Unachieved White Racial Consciousne ss status encompasses the Avoidant, Dependent, and Dissonant types. Collectively, these groupings indicate the individual has failed to fully consider and/or commit to their White id entity. The Avoidant type evades dealing with the issues of Whiteness and its impact on society. Since societ y is dominated by White culture, this option is available only to White people as a privilege. Dependent types are those who rely solely on others to determine their racial identity, as in the case of children and parents. The meaning of race is not significant in their lives. Pe ople may stay in this stage their entire lives. The Dissonant type are those who are between being confident in their iden tity and being unsure, perhaps due to a recent event that caused them to reflect upon the meaning of their race. The individual is searching for explanations but uncommitted to beliefs about race. Within the Achieved White Racial Consci ousness status are included the Dominative, Conflictive, and Reactive types. For the Domina tive type, negative stereotypes about persons of Color and superiority of White persons are key themes. White is viewed as normal, and other races are avoided or treated with aggression. Quite different from Helms™s focus on healthy embraces of White identity which, are achieved by overcoming racism, Rowe et al. (1994) acknowledge the Dominative type as undesirable. Persons in the Conflictive type category can identify overt racism and may oppose it. However, they also subscribe to the American dream philosophy of self-made persons. As such, pr ograms to address past wrongs (such as Affirmative Action for college admissions or hi ring, and reparations) are strongly opposed as being unfairly based on race. I ndividuals who are Conflictive type s view all things as being equal in the present day; they do not see the need for such programs . White persons who 26 identify as Reactive are taking some type of ac tion to redress the racism they know exists in society. However, their actions are often coming from their own White experience, and therefore are uninformed. Those in the Conflicti ve group may put persons of Color on a pedestal and excuse inappropriate behavior as necessary for them to live in an unjust world. Conflictive persons may be viewed as race traitors by other Wh ite persons. The last group, Integrative types, understand their Whiteness and interact with persons of other races easily. Their view of society is multifaceted, but they may still develop and/or cy cle through other groupings or types. Rowe et al. (1994) cautioned that this group not be viewed as being in a fistate of racial self-actualization or transcendence, but more as a processfl (p. 141). In line with the philosophy of the model, change is always possible since human s have new and differing experiences each day. Unlike Helms™s stage model in which it was more likely that only older adults could reach the final stage of a healthy, White identity after accumulating many life experiences, the construct of White Racial Consciousness suggests that racial identity is not necessarily tied as closely to advanced age. Rather, the right combination of events could produce awareness in a less linear fashion. The work of Rowe et al. (1994) was noteworthy, but did not escape critique and revision. To measure the types/statuses proposed by Rowe et al. (1994), the Oklahoma Racial Attitudes Scale-Preliminary Form (ORAS-P) was deve loped by Choney and Behrens (1996) and was expected to provide fiempirical assessmentfl of the model (Rowe et al., 1995, p. 231). However, in independent studies designed to test the psychometric structure of the WRIAS and ORAS-P, both instruments were found to be lacking in thei r ability to measure di mensionality (Pope-Davis et al., 1999). The concept of White racial consciousness was re vised by LaFleur et al. (2002). The dominative and integrative types were rena med firacial acceptancefl; conflictive and reactive 27 types were renamed firacial justicefl with bot h groupings existing at opposite ends of the spectrum (p. 150). Recently, the White Racial Consciousness Development Scale (WRCDS) originally developed by Claney and Parker (1989) was revised to remedy issues with low reliability and may prove to be informative in future research (Lee et al., 2007; Ponterotto & Park-Taylor, 2007). The work of Helms (1990) and Rowe et al. (1994) stimulated research on White identity development and White racial consciousness that informed the current study. Recent studies using these theories and models developed by Helms and Rowe et al. showed many facets of social identity affected the formation of raci al identity for White wo men in higher education environments (Mueller & Pope, 2003; Robbins , 2012; Wolff & Munley, 2012). White persons who identified with an oppressed group (such as women and gay, lesbian, bisexual persons) demonstrated that these features of their id entity had an effect on their White racial consciousness, as did the dimension of ageŠthe latter suggesting the need to re-examine the model of Rowe et al. (1994) from a developmental lens (Mue ller & Pope, 2003). Multiple intersecting identities and the recognition of Wh ite privilege have been found as factors that shaped the construction of White identity in female graduate students (Robbins, 2012). Other studies examined ways White students learned a bout their own race in college through formal and informal activities (Christensen, 1997; Ford , 2012; Lewis, Neville, & Spanierman, 2012). Collectively, these studies suggest the theories and models developed by Helms (1990) and Rowe et al. (1994) related to White racial ident ity and consciousness continue to be robust areas for further research, critique, and formation of new theories. Despite the aforementioned attempts, it appe ars there is no consensus on a satisfactory measure of White racial consciousness and there is a need for more study and exploration of 28 alternative models. The current study provides much needed information about the racial identity of White college students Œ an area that is lacking in both quantitative and qualitative research. Intersectional Theory and Holistic Approac hes to Racial Identity Development. The preeminent models of White racial identity de velopment suggested by Helms (1993) and Rowe et al. (1994) focus just on the formation of race. Attention on onl y one feature of human development is a noted limitation in college stud ent development literature. Although useful to fully examine how a singular aspect of identity de velops, scholars in the fields of sociology as well as higher education have emphasized the utility of studying simultaneously the multiple ways people identify themselves. This section provides an overview of these two disciplines which have contributed to the small but growing field of holis tic human development models that incorporate multiple and intersecting dimensions of identity. The field of sociologyŠparticularly intersec tionality theoryŠsuggests racial identity is impossible to develop apart from variables such as socioeconomic status , sexual orientation, and gender. Crenshaw (1989, 1991) was the first to use the term intersectionality in the context of writing about the way racism and sexism combin ed contributed to violence against women. Weber (2001) created a conceptual framewor k outlining the domains and structures of oppression with her work demonstrating the idea that together firace, class, gender, and sexuality are interdependent systems of oppr essionfl (p. 30). Further, she stated the need to study these systems as they affect each other: fiDominant pers pectives in modern social science as well as in the media tend to interpret complex lives in very isolated and limited ways by attending to only a single dimensionfl (p. 67). Andersen and Collin s (2007) also proposed a matrix of domination framework that fiposits interl ocking levels of domination that stem from the societal 29 configuration of race, class, and gender relati onsfl (p. 5). These authors suggest studying only one element of human existence in isolation yields an incomple te description of the element being observed Œ especially when working with human beings. The idea of creating more holistic models of human development is echoed in higher education literature through the field of college student development and adult learner theory. Recent research of interest to the current study is related to examining racial, gender, and ego identities among White college stud ents (Miville et al., 2005) and the interplay between family environment, feminist identity, and White raci al consciousness (Wolff & Munley, 2012). From the field of counseling psychology, the work of Reynolds and Pope (1991) around identity development and multiple oppressions is cited heav ily in the student affa irs literature, with particular interest in the multidimensionality identity model or MIM (Evans, et al., 2010). Several researchers have called for more investig ation of how the multiple identities of college students intersect during their development (Abes, Jones, & McEwen, 2007; Evans et al., 2010; Jones & McEwen, 2005). Jones and McEwen (2000) began this work with the proposal of a model of multiple dimensions of identity. In 200 7, they provided a reconceptualized model that added the notion of meaning making and offe red a fimore complex understanding of college students' development for designing programs and environments to enhance the complexities of students' developmentfl (Abes et al., 2007, p. 20). Merriam, Caffarella, and Baumgartner (2007) present racial identity development for non-traditi onally aged adult learners in terms of being socially constructed and connected to other aspects of how the adult student grows and changes. These authors state related to adult learners, "A person's race, class, gender, and sexual orientation, among other positionalities, intersect to influence the development of that person" (p. 315). This statement echoes the themes f ound in the aforementioned college student 30 development literature which generally focuses on traditionally aged students. Each of the inquiries highlighted provide important aspects to consider. Knowledge of the research included in this section offered a multitude of lenses and perspectives for examining participants™ responses in the current study. Whiteness Studies The second body of literature reviewed for th e current study was Whiteness studies. The field of Whiteness studies is de scribed by academics as salient, controversial, and emergent (Andersen, 2003; Hartman, 2004; Owen, 2011). Highe r education and non-profit organizations have offered courses on the subject as well as hosted symposia, workshops, and conferences recently on the topics of White privilege and cri tical Whiteness studies. Scholars have noted the growth of the field is filittle short of astonishingfl (Ignatiev, 2003, p.221) and there has included fian explosion of awareness in the academy of the social and historical dimensions of Whitenessfl (Kolchin, 2002, p. 154). Conversations about Wh iteness have crossed over from the halls of academia to popular culture as well. Books, arti cles, and interviews about Whiteness have been featured in news sources such as the Washington Post and National Public Radio as well as in blogs and websites (Fears, 2003). A March 2011 article on CNN.com posed the question, fiAre Whites racially oppressed?fl with opinions ranging from expressions of fear to optimism for a future that embraces diversity. I explored the field of Whiteness studies in the United States only, with special emphasis on major research and writings in the field. Th e origins of Whiteness studies in America can be traced back to pre-Civil War slavery, and a brie f history of how the field developed is provided. Also integral to the development of Whiteness st udies is the history of racism in the United States, which grew in tandem with slavery. Scholars and researchers have documented and 31 discussed at length the harmful effects of racism in modern American society (Dalton, 2012; Doane & Bonilla-Silva, 2003; F eagin, Vera, & Batur, 2001; Neubeck & Cazenave, 2001; Sears, Sidanius, & Bobo, 2000). A basic knowledge of historical events related to slavery and racism is necessary to understanding how White racial iden tity has developed in the United States and how current White college students interpret their own race. This section is organized as follows: first, a definition for the field of Whiteness studies is offered. Second, the history of Whiteness stud ies is reviewed and explained using Twine and Gallagher™s three waves concept (2008). Third, notable contributors to the field are highlighted. Then, major themes in the research are examined and gaps are appraised. Lastly, the future of the field is considered. Defining Whiteness Studies While race is acknowledged by scholars as a socially constructed phenomenon, its influence on many aspects of huma n life is evidentŠfrom micro-level day-to-day interactions to the macro-level structuring of mode rn social systems. Whiteness studies seek to explain what it means to be racially White or Caucasian, particul arly in the United States where the culture is hegemonically White. Instead of studying rela tions among the races, Whiteness studies examine the fisocially constructed nature of White identity and the impact of Whiteness upon intergroup relationsfl (Doane, 2003, p. 3). Whiteness is descri bed by scholars as a social structure that makes everything White seem the norm (Doane, 2003; Dyer, 2012; McIntosh, 2007; Omi & Winant, 1994; Rothenberg, 2012). As a result, White people fioccupy a location of structural advantage that generates mate rial and psychological privileges and benefitsfl (Owen, 2011, p. 942). Although originating in the fields of cultural and legal studies, the analysis of Whiteness currently incorporates knowledge from a vari ety of fields including multicultural education, 32 sociology, psychology, intersectionality, and historical studies of the emergence of White racism, privilege, and racial identity (Andersen, 2003; Doane, 2003). Although at times mistakenly associated w ith White supremacist movements, Whiteness studies scholars seek not to make Whiteness the center of the discussion but instead to fidestabilizefl White identity and as Andersen (2003) states, fito expose, examine and challenge itfl (p. 22). A common a pproach for authors writing about the subject of Whiteness is to draw from their own experiences of racism, either as a victim or oppressorŠa point for which the field is often criticized as too culturally based (Andersen 2003; Kolchin, 2002). Whiteness studies have been linked to the American political left with a social justice agenda of disrupting White privilege (Fears, 2003; Hartman, 20 04; Kolchin, 2002). The term fiW hiteness studiesfl is related to exploring and acknowledging Wh ite privilege and racism, and should not be conflated with White supremacyŠthe belief White peopl e are superior to all other races. The History of Whiteness Studies Only recently have people who are White be gun to study themselves and the significance of their own race. A much longer history exists of African Americans describing the meaning of Whiteness, mostly during the time when slavery existed in the United States. Scholars have argued Black perspectives on Whiteness are what made race visible to White people in the United States, and that the fination™s keenes t students of White consciousness and White behaviorfl have been African Americans (Roe diger, 1998, p. 4). Twine and Gallagher (2008) reinforced this concept with their classificati on of the history of White ness studies into three waves, with African Americans c ontributing earliest and in each wave. These categories are a useful way to organize a brief historical overview of Whiteness studies. 33 First wave of Whiteness studies. Twine and Gallagher (2008) defined the first wave of Whiteness studies as beginning with the work of W.E.B. Du Bois, who is cited as originating the ficritical treatment of Whitenessfl (Hartman, 2004, p. 22). Scholar s have suggested that while the field of Whiteness studies seems to have gain ed attention only recently, it is in fact a firepackagingfl of Du Bois™s work (Doane, 2003, p. 4; Fears, 2003). Historian and activist, Du Bois advocated in the early to mid-1900s for the rights of African Americans. In Darkwater (1920), one of Du Bois™s many books, he wrote a ch apter entitled, fiThe Souls of White Folkfl in which he pondered from an African American perspective the meaning of Whiteness and its pervasiveness. Du Bois described a fictional dialogue between himself and a White man who pitied Du Bois for his Blackness, and suggested that someday perhaps he would be lucky enough to be reborn as White. Du Bois™ response was characteristic of the pi oneering manner in which he questioned White dominance in much of his writing: fiBut what on earth is Whiteness that one should so desire it?fl (p. 30). In the Whiteness literature, W.E.B. Du Bois is frequently cited as the first person to write about what it meant to be WhiteŠparticularly th e benefits of being a White worker in the early 1900s (Doane, 2003; Feagin et al., 2001; Hartman, 2004; Ignatiev, 2003; Roediger, 2007). Although his work was ignored for some time by the majority of White academics, Du Bois laid the groundwork that encouraged the next wave of writings about Whiteness. Second wave of Whiteness studies. Du Bois™s observations and questioning of Whiteness inspired other African American writers to continue to challenge the ubiquitous nature of White privilege. Twine and Gallagher (2008) de fined the second wave as a time when writers told of the lived experiences of Black people and examined race critically in an effort to make fiWhite supremacy and institutional racism visiblefl (p. 10). An African American author 34 prominent in the second wave was Langston Hughes. In his short story, fiSlave on the Blockfl he wrote of a female slave who searched the faces of would-be White owners, looking for clues as to their demeanor and humanity while waiting to find out her fate and eventual owner (Roediger, 1998, p. 3). This internal dialogue made visible in Hughes™s work provides a stark picture of Whiteness and how it was perceived by person who are not White. Ralph Ellison™s musings in a 1970 Time magazine article entitled, fiWhat America Would Be Like Without Blacksfl laid a foundation for future White studies theorists: Since the beginning of the nation, White Amer icans have suffered from a deep inner uncertainty as to who they really are. One of the ways that has been used to simplify the answer has been to seize upon the presence of Black Americans and use them as a marker, a symbol of limits, a metaphor for th e ‚outsider.™ Many Whites could look at the social position of Blacks and feel that color formed an easy and reliable gauge for determining to what extent one was or wa s not American (as cited in Roediger, 1998, p. 166). Ellison™s comment on the inability of White persons to comprehend their own race has echoed throughout the modern literature regarding White racial identity. The observation that Whites viewed African Americans as the fioutsiderfl is consistent with much research since the 1980s that explored the concept of persons who are White viewing persons who are not White as the fiotherfl. White scholars studying ethnicity and race commonly referred to fithe othersfl and assumed persons of Color would assimilate even tually to the pervasive White culture (Doane, 2003, p. 3). Modern scholars point to the writings of a White sociologist, Gunnar Myrdal, as influential in promoting assimilationist thi nking. The most often cited of his works is The American Dilemma, originally published in 1944 (Doane, 2003; Omi & Winant, 1994; Twine & 35 Gallagher, 2008). Myrdal acknowledged the problem of racism in the United States, and in 1944 discussed the need to determin e fiwhat goes on in the minds of White Americansfl (Myrdal, 1999, p. lxxxiii). At that time in history, theorists like Myrdal believed White prejudice was a temporary problem and that African Americans w ould eventually assimilate into the dominant culture. This idea proved to be a failure, as it did not contribute to White people comprehending the pervasiveness of their racial and cultural domin ation (Doane, 2003). James Baldwin, a contemporary of Ellison, is considered an aut hority on twentieth century White consciousness. In fiWhite Man™s Guiltfl published in 1965 in Ebony, Baldwin contemplated the meaning of White ness from a Black perspective: This is the place in which it seems to me most White Americans find themselves. Impaled. They are dimly, or vividly, aware th at the history they have fed themselves is mainly a lie, but they do not know how to re lease themselves from it, and they suffer enormously from the resulting personal incohe rence. This incoherence is heard nowhere more plainly than in those stammering, terrified dialogues which White Americans sometimes entertain with the Black conscience, the Black man in America. (p. 47) Contemporary research contains several examples of modern day White college students demonstrating the fistammeringfl Baldwin wrote about in 1965 (Bonilla-S ilva 2006; Bonilla-Silva & Forman, 2000). Whiteness studies was primarily dualistic throughout the first two waves identified by Twine and Gallagher (2008): only people who were Black and White contributed and were subjects of interest. Ignatiev (2003) observed that for several decades after the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, little was written about Whiteness resulting in almost 20 years of inactivity. Then, in the 1990s, a flurry of scholarly activity in Whiteness emerged. Several 36 important books were published, be ginning with Alexander Saxton™s The Rise and Fall of the White Republic (1990). Shortly thereafter, Roediger wrote The Wages of Whiteness (1991). Theodore Allen published two volumes entitled The Invention of the White Race in 1994 and 1997. At roughly the same time, Ignatiev produced How the Irish Became White (1995). In an effort to challenge White supremacy as the ce nter point of American history, White scholars such as Ruth Frankenberg, Matthew Frye Jacobson, and Peggy McIntosh also figured prominently in the second wave of Whiteness studies. Writing about topics such as the fiWhiteningfl of European immigrants, feminist perspectives on Whiteness, and the exclusion of the viewpoints and voices of persons of Color from American hist ory, these and other historians writing during the 1990s contributed to the boom of this second wave. Twine and Gallagher (2008) did not provide an exact end date for this wave, but placed it near the conclusion of the millennium. Third wave of Whiteness studies. While the first two waves of Whiteness studies focused largely on persons who were Black and White, the third wave diverged significantly. Continuing with Twine and Gallagher™s framework (2008) of Wh iteness studies, the third wave addressed the various tensions inherent in Whiteness studies t odayŠnamely the vastly different life experiences of White people from various social classes: Third wave Whiteness makes these contra dictions explicit by acknowledging the relational, contextual and situ ational ways in which White pr ivilege can be at the same time a taken-for-granted entitlement, a desire d social status, a perceived source of victimization, and a tenuous situational identi ty. It is these White inflections, these nuanced and locally specific ways in whic h Whiteness as a form of power is defined, 37 deployed, performed, policed and reinvented th at is the central focus of third wave Whiteness (p. 7). Three distinct features characterized the third wa ve of Whiteness studies: use of new research methodologies such as racial consciousness biographies (McKinney, 2005) to examine how White persons interpret and make meaning of their Whiteness on a daily basis; examination of how people who are White rebuilt th eir identities and reformulated Whiteness in recent years; and the movement to study people beyond the Black/ White dichotomy, namely immigrants to the United States of Latino and Caribbean origin (Twine & Gallagher, 2008, p. 12). The field has advanced quickly in the last decade. Critiques of Whiteness studies made in earlier waves have been addressed in the third wave (Anderse n, 2003; Twine & Gallagher, 2008). Although criticized by some as a fipassing intellectual fa d,fl scholars have argued recently this field is expected to continue its growth (Doane, 2003; Kolchin, 2002; Twine & Gallagher, 2008, p. 4). The study of Whiteness and White privilege will c ontinue to be salient for higher education researchers for years to come to examine th e effects of the changing U.S. demographics highlighted earlier in this study. Notable Contributions to the Field of Whiteness Studies Several names appear repeatedly in the recent literature about Whiteness studies. Scholars identify three filandmark publicationsfl that have influenced the field of Whiteness studies (Andersen, 2003, p. 22; Powell, 2000; We ber, 2001). These include the work of sociologist Ruth Frankenberg; feminist and activist, Peggy McInto sh; and professor and historian David Roediger. What follows is a brief summary of these major works and background on the authors. 38 Ruth Frankenberg. In the mid-1980s, a sociologist named Ruth Frankenberg conducted a study that involved 30 White women who were living in California. Using oral-history interviews, Frankenberg sought to answer the question, fiWhat is White women™s relationship to racism?fl (1993, p. 32). Of this work, she said, fiI wanted to know who, racially and ethnically speaking, each woman encountered and in what circumstances, how she came to conceptualize people of different racial and ethnic groups, and whether she saw herself as a racially or ethnically identified beingfl (1993, p. 26). In 1993, Frankenberg published a book detailing her research and findings called The Social Construction of Whiteness: White Women, Race Matters. This work established Frankenberg as a pioneer in the field of Whiteness studies and influenced the dynamic growth of the fiel d at this time (Andersen, 2003; McKinney, 2005; Pierce, 2003). Frankenberg™s work is often cited by other authors and scholars as proof Whiteness is a socially constructed identity (Ortiz & Rhoads, 2000; Owen, 2011; Picca & Feagin, 2007; Weber, 2001), although W.E.B. Du Bois is credited as having first written about Whiteness as a social construction (Hartman, 2004, p. 22). fiRace, class, gender, and sexuality are historically and geographically specific because they are social constructs whose meaning develops out of group struggles over socially valued resourcesfl explained Weber (p. 80). Fr ankenberg (1993) wrote about three filinked dimensionsfl of Whiteness that arose from her research and are still relevant today: First, Whiteness is a location of structural advantage, of race privileges. Second, it is a fistandpoint,fl a place from which White people look at ourselves, at others, and at society. Third, ‚Whitenessfl refers to a set of cultural practices that are usually unmarked or unnamed. (p. 1) 39 The idea of Whiteness being fiunmarkedfl and di fficult for White persons to reflect upon and explain was evident in the responses given by participants during Frankenberg™s interviews. She found the White women, who ranged in age from their twenties to over ninety, struggled to respond to questions about race and racial issues, retreating into ficolor-evasivefl responses Bonilla-Silva later called ficolo r-blind racismfl (Pierce, 2003, p. 213). The response of Cathy Thomas in Frankenberg™s study emphasized this point: fiBut to be a Heinz 57 American, a White, class-confused American, land of th e Kleenex type American, is so formless in and of itself. It only takes shape in relation to other peoplefl (1993, p. 196). Due to the pervasiveness of Whiteness and their own race privilege, Frankenber g theorized that these adult women and other White people were unable to understand the ways racism affected and struct ured the social order and the impact it had on them as individuals. Inability for White people to see their own Whiteness led Frankenberg™s exploration of a concept mentioned often in this st udy and the literature: fithe other.fl She traced the White fascination with visual racial difference to what she called ficolonial discoursesfl that occurred when the United States was formed (1993, p. 16). Although not the originator of this term, Frankenberg explained focusing on fithe Otherfl led White people away from examining self for the majority of U.S. history. Fra nkenberg™s work is particularly interesting in light of the current study due to the number of non-traditionally aged wo men she interviewed. Peggy McIntosh. In 1988, Peggy McIntosh published an essay entitled, fiWhite Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women™s Studies. fl This work was called figroundbreakingfl and inspired much research and discussion about Whiteness (Lands man & Lewis, 2006; Mitchell & Edwards, 2010; Owen, 2011). In this article, McIntosh made the now-fam ous comparison between White 40 privilege and an fiinvisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, assurances, tools, maps, guides, codebooks, passports, visas, clothes, compass, emergency gear, and blank checksfl (1988, p. 2). The thrust of McIntosh™s work was that she admitted to being largely unaware of the over 46 ways in which Whiteness afforded her fimi nor and major advantagesfl (Tatum, 2010, p. 126). This lack of awareness has been a major them e in the literature si nce the field began, but McIntosh™s representation provided an effective and compelling metaphor to de scribe privilege. David Roediger. Labor historian and professor David Roediger is often cited in relation to the study of Whiteness due to his book, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (1991). He republished this book with additional commentary in 1999 and 2007. In these works, Roediger located the identification of Whitene ss with the beginning of slavery in the United States. fiWhite worker s could, and did, define and accept their class positions by fashioning identities as ‚not slaves ™ and as ‚not Blacks™fl (2007, p. 13). This sentence is the most frequently referenced of Roediger™s writings. Based on this idea, Roediger stated White persons then viewed Black persons as fithe other,fl a phrase now well-known when describing White identity (Andersen, 2003, p. 27). Roediger examined the changing historical meaning of Whiteness and the cultural capital tied to it, with particular interest in European immigrants who aspired to and eventually clai med Whiteness to increase their wages (Doane, 2003; Feagin, et al., 2001). He emphasized the need to examine race historically as it interacted with labor and class (Andersen, 2003). Roediger has been associated with discussion on abolitionists, particularly after publishing Towards the Abolition of Whiteness: Essays on Race, Politics, and Working Class (1994). Roediger™s contributions are often characterized as fipsychological and cultural explanationsfl for White supremacy (Ignatiev, 2003, p. 231). 41 Themes in the Research Several themes emerged from the literature on Whiteness. Andersen (2003) suggested three broad categories for organizing the many id eas in this field: Whiteness as the norm, Whiteness as privilege, and Whiteness as a social c onstruction (p. 24). In the next section, I first explain the significance of each category and then provide examples to support the themes from the literature. Whiteness as the norm. The first theme across Whiteness research and writings was the idea that Whiteness is the norm. Being White wa s described as the natural way things ought to be, and White people struggled to understand, acknowledge, or explain their own race. Andersen (2003) stated fiWhite is ubiquitous, though typically not acknowledgedfl (p. 24). In this category, there are several subthemes that support the idea of Whiteness as th e standard: a low degree of self-awareness, feelings of culturelessness, difficulty in explaining Whiteness, and the notion that Whiteness is normal. For each of these subthemes, examples from the literature are provided. Low degree of self-awareness. The most common theme across the literature was that White people were described as largely unaware of their Whiteness and its meaning (Doane, 2003, p. 7). Du Bois was the first to observe this in his work of the late 1800s published in The Philadelphia Negro (Twine & Gallagher, 2008). He remarked White persons were unable to identify their own culture and privilege, and this idea still stands as pioneering and relevant in Whiteness studies literature today. Doane (2003) found fiWhite Americans have a lower degree of self-awareness about race and th eir own racial identity than members of other racial-ethnic groupsfl (p. 7). Helms (2008) described White pe ople as largely fiunconsciousfl of White culture (p. 21) and suggested they are fiobliviousfl to dimens ions of race due to fitheir privileged statusfl (p. 30). 42 Many White students have entered college un aware of their own culture because they experienced K Œ 12 school systems almost comple tely absent of students of Color (Reason & Evans, 2007; Tatum, 2007). Without an event th at forced them to fiseefl their own race, White students have been observed to complete co llege unaware of their own identity and the hegemony of Whiteness (Chesler et al., 2003, p. 224). In one study, White students described their social experiences on campus as satisfyi ng and predicted students of Color would feel similarly even when contrary evidence was pres ented to them (Harper & Hurtado, 2007, p. 212). Scholars attributed this low leve l of awareness among White, traditio nal age students to a lack of fimeaningfulfl or firequiredfl programs that encour age reflection on racial identity and privilege during college (Chesler et al., 2003, p. 224; Harper & Hurtado, 2007, p. 212). Whiteness is described as fideep and hidden in the individual psychefl as well as a fihidden ident ityfl (Feagin et al., 2001, p. 26). There is ample evidence in the lite rature that overall, White people have failed to see and understand their own identity (Lipsitz, 2012). Feelings of culturelessness. In many of the studies on Whiteness, White persons have described feeling they lack a definable culture. However, much of the literature named Whiteness as the finormative centerfl in societ y (Doane, 2003, p. 7; McIntosh, 2007; Rothenberg, 2012). While this may seem contradictory, it is fo r exactly this reason White people were unable to name their culture. Whiteness was described as so pervasive and fiuniversalizedfl that it escaped the consciousness of most White pe rsons (Ortiz & Rhoads, 2000; Dalton, 2012). Consistently, White participants have indicated they believe persons of Color have a culture, while person who are White do not. White people have described fia sense of culturelessness and racelessnessfl and identified less with their ethnic backgrounds than did previous generationsŠan idea that supports the fimainstreaming or normalization of Whitenessfl (Doane, 2003, p. 7). 43 When asked about their culture, Ortiz and Rhoads (2000) reported White college students often responded, fiWhat do you mean by White cultu re? There isn™t onefl (p. 224). Due to their privileged status, Whites may not have personally suffered acts of racial discrimination and often were surprised when persons of Color reported such incidents. Frankenberg (1993) found this lack of culturelessness to be one of the major reasons many White participants in her studies reported being unaware of racism: th ey viewed racism as a problem for people of Color only. As a result, White interv iews dismissed their role and ability to address racism because they viewed it as fisomething external to us rather than as a system that shapes our daily experiences and sense of selffl (Frankenberg, 1993, p. 6). These examples demonstrate well the concept of White people not being able to name their customs and practices as a culture. Difficulty in explaining Whiteness. Across works about Whiteness, authors and researchers have found White people have difficulty talking about their own race. Helms (2008) noted many studies that reported White persons we re unable to talk about their race easily. Instead of explaining what it meant to be White, participants often identif ied fitheir nationality, American or a specific ethnicity such as Italian, Irish, Jewish, Polish, or in many cases, ‚mutt™ or ‚mongrel™fl (Helms, 2008, p. 19). Other research ers also reported their White participants struggled with explaining race in studies (B onilla-Silva, 2006; Frankenberg, 1993; McKinney, 2005). Further complicating this issue is the langua ge White persons used when communicating with or about people of other races. Helms (200 8) argued that Whites™ discomfort and inability to express their feelings about Whiteness was fiembedded in our languagefl and is further complicated by the many affirmative images connected with Whiteness and the negative images linked to Blackness (p. 16). She provided an example of a White mother responding to her child 44 who commented when seeing a Person of Color in a store. The mother considered a variety of responses from ignoring to scolding to explaining the color differences to the child. In Helms™s view, the unfortunate result of Wh ite people being so uncomfortable talking about race was that the child fiSally Jane learns that White is the be st color to be and there is something wrong with persons who are other than Whitefl (p. 15). Othe r scholars pointed to the limitations of using words that were not filinguistically neutralfl (such as firacismfl) to describe experiences and categorize people in a privileged world (Wildman & Davis, 2012). Further, these authors stated, fiThus, the very vocabulary we use to talk about discrimination obfuscates these power systems and the privilege that is their natural companionfl (p. 110). The result of each of these examples was that White people were uncomfortable talk ing about raceŠboth their own and that of those they perceive as fiothers.fl Whiteness as normal. A pervasive theme in Whiteness studies was that being White was the standard way of being and what was expected in the United States. Andersen (2003) provided a concise statement that summarized the ubiquitous nature of Whiteness and the position of those who studied it: –Whiteness scholars assert that fiWhitefl has been the unexamined norm, implicitly standing for all that is presumed to be righ t and normal. Whiteness is the location from which others are defined and judged, since it is White people who hold the power to do so. (p. 24) Doane (2003) advanced this argument by quoting T oni Morrison who said fideep within the word ‚American™ is its association with race – Americ an means Whitefl (p. 12). Going a step further, Dyer (2012) noted fiWhites are not of a certain race, they™re just the human racefl (p. 11). Throughout the literature, White was labeled as typical and unseen. Helms suggested this 45 unnoticed quality made White persons unaware th eir culture was being forced on persons who were not White as the fibest culturefl (2008, p. 21). Chesler et al., (2003) described the response of a White participant in their study at the University of Michigan, who was asked why all Black students sat together during lunch there. After hearing a Blac k student ask the same question about White students, the White pa rticipant said, fiI was speechless. I thought that was a dumb question until I realized that I see White people sitting toge ther as normal and Black people sitting together as a problemfl (Chesler et al ., 2003, p. 224). Other researchers have noted the finormative statusfl of Whitene ss (McIntosh, 2007; Ortiz & Rhoads, 2000, p. 224; Rothenberg, 2012). Whiteness as Privilege. A second theme across readings about Whiteness was that it fiexists as a system of privilege, mapped on to the domination of ‚others™fl (Andersen, 2003, p. 24). The issue of White privilege appeared freq uently in studies of Wh iteness and was named as a central concern in the literature. White pr ivilege was often described as the fiunearned benefitsfl accrued without any action necessary on their own part (Doane, 2003, p. 7). Helms (2008) named White privilege as fithe foundation of racismfl (p. 19). Privilege has been described as fisystemic, not an occasional occurrencefl (Wildman & Davis, 2012, p. 112). In addition, these authors explained three of the characteristics privilege often grants those in power, fimembership in the norm, the ability to choose whether to object to the power system, and the invisibility of its benefi tfl (p. 112). These three traits were seen across the literature on White privilege. Rothenberg (20 12) and Doane (2003) among many others noted White people were often unaware they had pr ivilege. Since White persons were not called upon to speak for their entire race, they chose to remain silent when confronted with racist behaviors (Andersen, 2003, p. 21; Helms, 1993 ; Wildman & Davis, p. 111). McIntosh™s 46 aforementioned fiUnpacking the Invisible Knapsackfl is one of the most referenced writings on White privilege. A quotation frequently cited in works on Whiteness was McIntosh™s statement: fiAs a White person, I realiz ed I had been taught about racism as something which puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, White privilege, which puts me at an advantagefl (McIntosh, 2007, p. 98). This quote emphasizes the invisibility of both Whiteness and White privilege echoed in much of the Whiteness studies literature. Another feature I observed in the Whiteness literature related to privilege was the question of the usefulness of examining White privilege without working to dismantle it. A common concern was that focusing on persons who were White instead of those being marginalized once again afforded those in pow er with additional advantagesŠeven if that benefit was fia sense of relieffl (Andersen, 2003, p. 26; Doane, 2003; Helms, 2008; Wildman & Davis, 2012). The common thread woven throughout these works was Whiteness provided many automatic benefits whether or not the person receiving them realized these advantages or willingly accepted them. Whiteness as a social construction. The third theme evident in much of the literature on Whiteness was that race is a socially constructed category. Within this broad idea, four subcategories were helpful to me in organizing the research: Refuting ra ce as not biologically based; the changing definition of race; race as a control mechanism; and colorblindness as the new racism. Each of these categories are explai ned briefly with examples provided. The theme of color-blindness was examined in-depth due to its relevance to the current study. Refuting race as not biologically based. No scientific evidence exists to support a biological basis for categorizing people by race. Instead, Doane named race as an fiideologyfl and a fihistorically contingent social identityfl (2003, p. 9). The importance of considering race 47 within its corresponding historical context was mentioned in the literature by several authors, who instructed readers to interpret events holistically and not merely through the lens of race. Wander, Martin, and Nakayama (2012) noted the or igins of race categories as having emerged from fithe naturalistic science of the 18 th and 19th centuriesfl (p. 34). The theory of biological determinism was predominant at that time, and dis tinguished the existence of distinct races with genetic differences among races (Makalani, 2003). This theory helped to justify slavery as acceptable labor for Black people. The early 19 00s brought the advent of the fiChicago schoolfl of sociology, the theory of assimilation, and the fiethnicity paradigmfl which replaced biologically-based arguments (Omi & Winant, 1994, p. 15). A broad range of paradigms and theories have been offered since, related to class, nation, and politics (Omi & Winant, 1994; Rothenberg, 2010). These authors acknowledged no single theory exists that fully explains race. In summary, the vast majority of writers about Whiteness refuted the previously held notion that race was a biologically-supported category and ma intained the idea that race is a social construction. The changing definition of race. Another verification for the idea race is socially constructed was the evidence that the meaning of race has transformed many times in history. Rothenberg (2012) highlighted this transitory nature of race: fiThe changing meanings of Whiteness and who was allowed to be White are at the heart of the claim that Whiteness is a social constructfl (p. 3). As the social and political environments of the United States have changed, so has the meaning of race. The majo rity of writers on Whiteness stated that the varying explanations for race were far from arbitrary. American labor needs led to shifts in the definition of Whiteness for over 100 years, at ti mes welcoming various European immigrants and at others excluding them (Ignatiev 2003; Ro ediger 1998, 2007). Some suggested this theme 48 is seen currently with the effort s to limit immigration from Mexico to improve job prospects for fiWhitesfl. Omi and Winant predicted race would c ontinue to fiundergo a constant process of re- formationfl (as cited in Doane, 2003, p. 9). Race as a control mechanism. Throughout American history, race-based laws have been created by White persons in an attempt to contro l the actions and rights of persons of Color Œ particularly those of Black slaves. Four of the most commonly referenced laws from the Whiteness literature are highlighted because they show how race was used to legitimate actions by the United States during various times in hi story. During the Constitutional Convention of 1878, the 3/5 Compromise was adopted, essentially defining Black slaves as counting for 3/5 of a person to strengthen Southern representation in Congress (Feagin et al., 2001). The fione dropfl theory of the early 1900s stated if a person had even one drop of finon-White bloodfl they ficould not qualify as Whitefl (Wander et al., 2012, p.37). The eugenics movement, popular from the beginning of the 20 th century until World War II, fiplayed a vi tal role – both in rationalizing the changing demography of race and in justifying the continuation of racial hierarchyfl (Winant, 2001, p. 109). The Jim Crow laws and system were implemented in the 1880s as fisegregation statutesfl (Woodward, 1955, p. 7) that codified all aspects of life for Black persons living in primarily in the southern United States, severely restricting the rights of Blacks and explicitly providing Whites with power and privilege (Pilgri m, 2012). The Jim Crow era was in place until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted (Alexander, 2012). In the Whiteness literature, these events and laws are cited as proof that race is a flexible and so cially constructed category that assigns and protects White privilege. Color-blindness as the new racism. The topic of color-blind racism appeared frequently in the literature on Whiteness beginning in the late 1990s. Reason and Evans (2007) offered a 49 definition of racism, stating it fiinvol ves overt actions of an aggressive or blatantly discriminatory nature taken by one person against another because of that person™s racefl (p. 68). The term color-blind racism refers to the beliefs and attitudes that in the post-civil rights era, race is not a barrier to racial equality. Doane (2003) explained this finewfl view holds firacism is no longer a structural phenomenon but is limited to hate cr imes or other acts of discrimination committed by a small number of prejudiced individualsfl (p. 13). Bonilla-Silva (2006) offered that color-blind racism is a foil to Jim Crow racism, which focuse s on fibiological and moral inferiorityfl of Black persons (p. 2). A person of any race can adopt a color-blind perspective, however much of the literature focused on how White peopl e have wielded this perspective. Due to its relevance to the current study, the theme of color-blindness wa s examined in-depth. Reason and Evans (2007) highlighted four categories Forman (2004) used to explain how those espousing a color-blind perspective have deemed it as valid and warranted. These fibeliefsfl included: Racial groups receive privileges based on merit, most people do not care about or pay attention to race, pa tterns of social inequity are the result of cultural deficits of individuals or racial/ethnic groups, and no systematic attention need s to be given to any existing inequities (Forman, 2004; Reason & Evans, 2007, p. 68). These beliefs set forth by Forman provide useful categories for organizing the information on color-blind racism. The next sections include an explanation of Forman™s cat egories and then cite writings within Whiteness studies that contested the validity of the color-blind perspective. Racial groups receive privileges based on merit. From this color-blind perspective, anyone who has worked hard enough can have social, economic, and political benefits in American society. Feagin et al . (2001) addressed this concept as a fisincere fictionfl White people have about themselves, which blinds them to their own privilege (p. 4). As a counter to 50 this fiction, Bonilla-Silva (2006) offered statistical evidence of the many inequalities White people had to ignore in order to believe in color-blind racism, as fiBlacks and dark-skinned racial minorities lag well behind Whites in virtually every area of social lifefl (p. 2). Black and Latino persons do not have equal access in American society, as evidenced by receiving lower wages for comparable work, lower levels of home ownership, lesser quality of education, and the existence of racial profiling (Bonilla-Silva, 2006, p. 2). The majority of researchers on Whiteness cited in this literature review emphasized that in di rect opposition to this color-blind misconception, Black persons and other persons of Color cannot work their way out of or overcome the systematic and oppressive structur es protecting White privilege. Most people do not care about or pay attention to race. This second color-blind perspective argued there are many signs indica ting Americans have moved beyond seeing race, such as electing Barack Obama as the first biraci al president and recently re-electing him, as well as the changing demographics in the United States . Neville™s fiInvisibility of Racefl type in the Color-Blind Racial Attitudes Scale (as cited in Helms, 2008, p. 13) corroborates this belief. As Reason and Evans (2007) suggested, color-blind racism is the fib elief that ‚good™ White people can and comfortably do ignore racefl (p. 73). However, recent studies have proven White co llege students are indeed paying attention to race. In their book, Two-Faced Racism: Whites in the Backstage and Frontstage, Picca and Feagin (2007) presented findings from their research with over 600 White college students who composed daily firacial eventfl journals (p. xiv). In direct conflict to the color-blind belief that people ignore race in modern times, the researcher s reported being fisurprised at the large scale and frequency of the racist events recounted by the hundreds of White students as they proceeded through their everyday livesfl (p. xvi). Examples provided in this research included 51 White students who told racist jokes, used coded and racialized language, discouraged interracial relationships, and had little more than cursor y interactions with persons of Color. In an earlier study involving White college students, Boni lla-Silva and Forman (2000) found White students demonstrated awareness of race and went to great lengths to avoid appearing racist in their interview responses. By using fisemantic movesfl and phrases like, fiI am not a racist but –fl, White colle ge students repeatedly demonstr ated they were actually very conscious of race (p. 69). When interviewe d in person, the majority of White students demonstrated more racist views than they had in a previously gathered written survey response. In the face-to-face interviews, White college st udents openly criticized Black people for their unequal place in society, opposed interracial marri age, used fiotheringfl language, and admitted they did not have any African American frie nds (2000, p. 57). The participants opposed any programs to rectify racial inequality such as a ffirmative action for hiring or education (p. 69). This quote summarizes the extent to which th e White college students in Bonilla-Silva and Forman™s 2000 study paid attention to race: Specifically, they construe Blacks as cultura lly inferior: as living in a tangle of pathology. Thus, not surprisingly, most of our White respondents blamed Blacks themselves for their lower status. At best, the students felt pity for Blacks, at worst many openly expressed contempt and hostility toward Blacks. (p. 78) Whiteness studies scholars suggested Forman™s second fibelieffl that people do not care about race has supported White privilege and hegemo ny because those who have cared and spoken about racial issues were labeled as racist or playing the race card (Doane, 2003, p. 13). Patterns of social inequity are the result of cultural deficits of individuals or racial/ethnic groups. This way of thinking supports Forman™s fi rst belief by stating the opposite: a person or 52 group can pull themselves up by the bootstraps if they work hard enough (example of Forman™s first belief), and if they do not, the individual or group is deficient and at fault (example of Forman™s third belief). This belief also ali gns with Neville™s work on the Color-Blind Racial Attitudes Scale, specifically fipower-evasi onfl which postulated fieveryone has the same opportunities regardless of racefl (as cited in Helms, 2008, p. 13). In their research with over 240 White individuals regarding views on racial inequality, Ditomaso, Parks-Yancy, and Post (2003) found the color-blind belief system of blaming individuals/groups en abled participants to fidirect attention away from the larger patterns of racial inequality in societyfl (p. 193). Bonilla-Silva (2006) countered that this belief helped White pe ople firationalize minorities™ contemporary statusfl (p. 2). Examples to support this idea included White persons stating that Latino people naturally have a relaxed fimanan afl work ethic which explained their lower society achievements when compared to Whites (Bonilla-Silva, 2006, p. 2). Neubeck and Cazenave (2001) renamed color-blindness as firacism blindnessfl and stated it finot only ignores the powerful impact that systemic White racism has on de termining who is poor in the Un ited States but damages all poor people by helping to shape this nation™s response to povertyfl (p. 221). Neubeck and Cazenave expressed fear that such color-b lindness could affect welfare policies, and this was realized in Picca and Feagin™s research with White coll ege students who characterized Black men and women as fiwelfare leechesfl (2007, p. 247). No systematic attention needs to be given to any existing inequities. The fourth belief Forman identified as supporting co lor-blindness stated that because of the previous three beliefs, no further action was necessary to achieve equity. In essence, t hose who were not achieving the levels of success of Whites were to blame due to their own lack of individual efforts. Many historians and race scholars have disagreed. Omi and Winant (1994) stated, fiIt is not possible or 53 even desirable to be ‚color-blind™fl (p. 159) and their sentiments are echoed in much of the Whiteness literature (Bonilla-Silva, 2010; Helms, 2008). Reason and Evans (2007) argued color-blindness was very much alive in higher education a nd difficult for White students to acknowledge, but necessary to address. These authors have suggested required course work on race as well as programming to facilitate ficri ticalfl reflection on privilege (p. 73). After completing an extensive review of the literature on campus racial climates, Harper and Hurtado (2007) found the need to address inadequacies ac ross higher education institutions. These authors argued fiexclusion, institutional rhetoric rather than action, and marginalityfl are still very much a part of campus life (p. 214) and call for figr eater transparency regarding racial realities in learning environments at predominantly White institutionsfl (p. 213). In her study of over 200 White university students, McKinney (2005) found Whites felt they were due fi more preferences and advantage, because they are unfairly penali zed for their racefl (p. 225). This finding was consistent with a small but important segment of Whiteness studies literature that addressed Whites™ feelings of reverse discrimination. Schola rs writing about this area typically addressed affirmative action as a major concern of Whites in relation to college admissions processes and hiring practices (Bonilla-Silva & Forman 2000; Chesler et al., 2003; Doane, 2003; Lipsitz, 2012; Tatum, 2007). However, as several of these authors noted, reverse discrimination is uncommon and an exception to the rule of actual racial discrimination levied agai nst People of Color. Color-blind racism reinforces the concept th at race is socially constructed. Omi and Winant (1994) stated while it might make for an fiappealing ideology,fl even a ficursory glance at American history reveals that fa r from being color-blind, the United States is an extremely ‚color conscious™ societyfl (p. 1). There is an abundance of research and writing in the Whiteness studies literature indicating Om i and Winant™s 1994 statement is still true almost two decades 54 later. Several recent studies proved the color-blind ideology was still active among college students and that the subject is worthy of further consideration (Bonilla-Silva & Dietrich, 2011; Neville, Yeung, Todd, Spanierman, & Reed, 2011; Poteat & Spanierman, 2012; Todd, Spanierman, & Poteat, 2011). Gaps and criticisms of research on Whiteness Several authors have called upon the scholars in the field of sociology to better address and contribute to Whiteness studies (Anderse n, 2003; Twine & Gallagher, 2008). Researchers have noted the bulk of Whiteness studies have fa iled to take the important sociological element of social class into account (Hartman, 2004; Kolchin, 2002), which coincided with a call for more research within in the fi elds of intersectionality and Whiteness. Collins (2009) explained fiintersectionality refers to part icular forms of intersecting oppre ssionsfl that fiwork together in producing injusticefl (p. 21). Weber™s (2001) conceptual framework suggested the many possibilities for using the lens of Whiteness combin ed with dis/ability, class, gender, and sexual orientation to extend the current field of Whitene ss studies. Considering the nature of college campuses and the availability of student participants, postsecondary educational environments provide an excellent place for future intersectional research on Whiteness to be conducted. Several authors pointed to the lack of research on the mean ing White people attach to their own racial identity (Doane, 2003; Evans et al., 2010; Ortiz & Rhoads, 2000). Specifically, there was a call for researchers to stop asking White persons about their view of the fiotherfl and instead ask research participants in studies direct questions to interrogate their own privilege (Bonilla-Silva & Forman, 2000; Chesler et al., 2003). The current study is an attempt to contribute to this area of the field. Additionall y, more research is needed outside the Black- White dichotomyŠparticularly related to how La tinos figure into Whiteness and the racial 55 privilege equation (Bonilla-Silva, 2006; Doane, 2003). Encomp assing all of these elements and more, Twine and Gallagher (2008) requested more investigation of fithe complicated meaning of Whiteness and White identities to the Hispanic/Latino populations – particularly as it intersects with age, class, skin colour , tenure and region in the United Statesfl (p. 14). From a review of the Whitene ss studies literature, several key criticisms emerged. A primary concern about the field was what Ande rsen (2003) called the fireification of Whiteness as a concept, as an experience, and as an identityfl (p. 28). The danger Andersen identified was when fiWhiteness has come to mean just about anything, it ends up meaning hardly anythingfl (p. 28). Whiteness was identified as pervasive and hegemonic in the United States, and there was concern in the field that a central focus on White ness would detract from addressing true racism (Andersen, 2003). This omnipresent nature of Wh iteness has led to a lack of empirical studies on the topic due to the difficulty of measurement (Doane, 2003). Kolchin (2002) emphasized this last point by urging scholars to consider fihistorical contextfl and ficontextual variationsfl in future work when examining Whiteness to ensure a full understanding of its meaning (p. 161). Another feature of the Whiteness literature critics challe nged was the autobiographical element evident in much of the work. Both Andersen (2003) and Kolchin (2002) noted the abundance of personal journey stories of Whiteness authors™ own experiences with confronting their racist history or tendencies. Andersen noted much of the work in the field fiquickly devolves into highly individualized identity narrativesfl or fivoyeuristic, ethnographic accounts of various aspects of White worki ng-class and White popular cultur efl (p. 29). Instead, critics expressed a desire for analytical scholarship that addresses White privilege. 56 The Future of Whiteness Studies In their 1994 book, Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to 1990s , Omi and Winant stated: fiRace will always be at the center of the Amer ican experiencefl (p. 5). This statement underscores the reality that the study of Whiteness has expanded far beyond its origins in the areas of legal and cultural studies. The field of Whiteness literature continues to query the experience and effects of Whiteness on both persons who are White and persons of Color and there are multiple indications the field of Whiteness will continue to grow. An unresolved tension debated in the Whitene ss studies literature is the question of whether the study of Whiteness shou ld be fiabandonedfl or directed more purposefully toward racial cognizance and the dismantling of sy stems of oppression (Andersen, 2003, p. 21). The nucleus of this argument is with the potential of Whiteness studies to deflect from the work of addressing racism (Doane, 2003, p. 17). Scholars such as Roediger and Ignatiev were identified as fiabolitionistsfl who have called for an end to Whiteness (Kolchin, 2002, p. 168). Rather than eliminating or abandoning Whiteness, critical ra ce theory (CRT) was identified as a figrowing bodyfl of Whiteness scholarship that attempts to address this tension by exposing and interrogating White pr ivilege as it operates in modern so ciety (Ortiz & Rhoads, 2000). Delgado and Stefancic (2001) stated fiUnlike traditional civil rights, wh ich embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical r ace theory questions the very f oundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightment ratio nalism, and neutral principles of constitutional lawfl (p. 3). In response to the question of who can make the needed changes in our society, Owen (2011) said CRT fiimplies that responsibility for change, the responsibility to engage, challenge, unmask, disrupt, and attack the structures of Whiteness that shape all aspects of modern social systems, lies with each and ev ery member of these social systemsfl (p. 946). 57 Several recent articles and writings within the fi eld of college student development and student affairs suggested an examination of Whiteness through the lens of CRT was valid, useful, and necessary (Bondi, 2012; Evans et al., 2010, Hardiman & Keehn, 2012, p. 122). An area of the field several scholars predicted will grow was related to the aforementioned topic of expandi ng the discussion of Whiteness beyond just Black and White. Twine and Gallagher (2008) discussed the likelihood that the fiWhite categoryfl would continue to expand and contract much in line with its history (p. 14). Kolchin (2002) saw ficonsiderable unfulfilled potentialfl in the field of Whiteness, and echoed a desire to move the field beyond fia strictly binary approach to r acefl (172). Similarly, Ignatiev (2003) wondered fiwhich groups will be socially White in the twenty-first centuryfl (233). Recent research and writings revealed White college students have engaged in racist behaviors both consciously and unconsciously (Gillespie, Ashbaugh, & DeFiore, 2002; Picca & Feagin, 2007; Reason & Evans, 2007). These and other scholars have insisted efforts are needed at the postsecondary level to require White students to interrogate and acknowledge their own privilege and racial identity so they may ch allenge the hegemony of Whiteness (Cabrera, 2012; Feagin & Vera, 2012; Harper & Hurtado, 2007; Ortiz & Rhoads, 2000; Tatum, 2007; Todd et al., 2011). These authors are just a few examples of the plethora of recent studies and articles interrogating Whiteness on college ca mpuses, suggesting continued future interest in this area of research. The current study contributes to the research on Whiteness and the way in which White college students interpret their racial identity. A number of researchers c ited the need to examine Whiteness, its oppressive structure within societal institutions such as higher education, and the policies affecting and created for these spaces . Du Bois said the following in 1920, fiThe 58 discovery of personal Whiteness is a very mode rn thingŠa nineteenth and twentieth century matter, indeedfl (p. 29). Almost a century later, there is still much to learn about the changing nature of Whiteness. As postsecondary institutions endeavor to prepare students to work in an increasing diverse world, there is ample evidence further research concerning White students is needed. Chapter Summary This chapter provided a review of the literature in two broad areas: college student development theory and Whiteness studies. Th roughout the chapter, gaps in both bodies of literature were identified, providing justification for the current study. The next chapter delivers an explanation of the methods used in the cu rrent study in which White college students were interviewed about their race. 59 CHAPTER THREE: METHODS AND METHODOLOGY The purpose of the current study was to examine the phenomena of how White college students at Midwestern University came to unde rstand their race. The research design is explained in this chapter and rationales ar e provided to support why each component was selected for this study. To design a study, Creswell (2003) proposed researchers include three fiframework elementsfl: fiphilosophic al assumptions about what constitutes knowledge claims; general procedures of research called strategies of inquiry; and detailed procedures of data collection, analysis, and writing called methodsfl (p. 3). These three features were used to structure and organize the beginning of this chapter. First, I considered my own ideas and belie fs about what comprises knowledge. Creswell (2003) referred to these ideas as knowledge claims and explained firesearchers start a project with certain assumptions about how they will learn an d what they will learn during their inquiryfl (p. 6). For the current study, I identified a constructivist paradigm, ontology of relativism, subjectivist epistemology, and qualitative methodol ogy. Next, I selected the interview as the best strategy of inquiry for studying how White college students came to make sense of their race. The methods used in the study are outlined , beginning with an analysis of my background to situate myself as the researcher. Procedur es for data collection, recording, analysis, and interpretation are outlined. The processes used to verify findings are provided. Finally, the format for reporting findings is explained. Knowledge Claims Before engaging in a study, researchers are called to identify the preconceived notions they bring to their work. Creswell calls these knowledge claims and explained the importance of researchers recognizing and acknowledging their thoughts and ways of viewing the world before 60 engaging in a study: fiPhilosophically, researchers make claims about what is knowledge (ontology), how we know it (epistemology), what values go into it (axiology), how we write about it (rhetoric), and the processes for studying it (methodol ogy)fl (2003, p. 6). Lincoln and Guba (2000) referred to these claims as paradigms . The research paradigm, ontology, epistemology, and methodology for the current study are explained in the next few paragraphs. Constructivist Paradigm The current study was influenced by the c onstructivist paradigm (Lincoln and Guba, 2000). This paradigm was appropriate for my re search considering Glesne™s (2006) explanation of the constructivist perspective as a theory that fimaintains that human beings construct their perceptions of the world, that no one perception is ‚right™ or more ‚real™ than another, and that these realities must be seen as wholes rather than divided into discrete variables that are analyzed separatelyfl (p. 7). White college students were asked to talk about their understanding of their own race so I could identify the participants™ varying in terpretations of the White experience. I sought to learn how students made meaning of their race. Each description was understood as created by the participant and therefore valid and fireal,fl in line with a constructivist paradigm. Relativism Ontology Denzin and Lincoln (2000) explained a researcher who believes that knowledge about the world is constructed by the individual then fiassumes a relativist ontologyfl in which there are fimultiple realitiesfl (p. 21). This position was appropriate to the curren t study in which students were asked to describe their own life experiences related to race. Students spoke from a unique set of happenings and encounters, resulting in numerous representations. Each of the participant™s responses was considered as thei r part of their reality. Although there was difference in the reports of each White student, I accepted each of the participant™s responses as 61 their own experience and one of the infinite possible representations. These perspectives are in line with the filocal and specific constructed realitiesfl described by Lincoln and Guba (2000, p. 165) as part of the ontology of relativism. Subjectivist Epistemology Epistemology describes how we come to know about the world (Glesne, 2006; Creswell, 2003). A subjectivist epistemology is assumed wh en using the constructivist paradigm, meaning the fiknower and respondent cocreate understandingsfl (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000, p.21). Pratt (2002) explained the subjectivist perspective as follows: For subjectivists, we see the world as we are; which we have inside, we see outside. Therefore, knowledge is neither a copy nor a mirror of some ex ternal reality but, rather, a construction of the individual experiencing it. People (learners) do not merely respond to the world; they impose meaning and value upon it and interpret it in ways that fit, or make sense to them. (p. 24) Further, Jansen and Peshkin (1992) differentiated the subjective perspective by contrasting it with the objective epistemology: fiWhereas objectivists assume that human beings are actors without purpose in an objective world, subjectivists see human actions as purposefulfl (p. 686). In the current study, White college students who could fiseefl their own race were interviewed about events that led them to examine their Whiteness (Chesler et al., 2003). Students were asked to explain the meaning they attached to th eir race and whether any experiences in college caused them to think about being White. The su bjectivist epistemology f it with the current study particularly because race is id entified by many scholars as a social construction and thus, created by each individual. While an objectivist might point to the U.S. Census definition of the White race as the firightfl answer, the subjectivist pers pective is more concer ned with the varying 62 definitions created by each person. For the curre nt study, I interviewed students to discover how each participant at Midwestern University ge nerated their own definition of being a White person in college. Qualitative Methodology Qualitative methodology was selected as the process for study in my research for several reasons. First, I sought to discover how aware White college students at Midwestern University were of their race, the perspect ives they held about their own race, and how their idea of being White had changed since they entered college. The goal of qualitative research was described by Glesne (2006) as fito understand and interpret how the various participants in a social setting construct the world around themfl ( p. 4). Second, qualitative researchers fistudy things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or to interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to themfl (Denzin & Lincol n, 2000, p. 3). Participants in this study were interviewed on their own university campus or another place of their choosing, which is considered a natural setting for them, in lin e with the qualitative methodology. Lastly, qualitative methods are often selected when fiv ariables are complex, interwoven, and difficult to measurefl as opposed to a quantitative approach that attempts to calculate data explicitly and definitively (Glesne, 2006, p. 5). The concept of race has indeed been identified as multifaceted, changeable, overlapping, and problematic to assess accurately (Gunaratnam, 2003; Zuberi, 2001; Twine & Warren, 2000). Of race, James (2008) said it is fian exceedingly slippery concept. Although it appears in social life as ubiquitous, omni present, and real, it is hard to pin down the construct in any objective sense. This is becau se the idea of race is riddled with apparent contradictionsfl (p. 32). For these reasons, using a qualitative approach and methods for the current study was justified. 63 Strategy of Inquiry The specific approach a researcher select s to investigate a phenomenon is called the strategy of inquiry. Wolcott (1992) used the analogy of a tree and demonstrated that approaches to performing qualitative research were interrelat ed and essentially branched out from three main roots or ways of coming to know about the world: experiencing, enquiring, and examining (p. 23). From these foundations, the strategies of nonparticipant and participant observation, archival research, and interviewing constituted th e trunk of the tree and then formed branches that contained specific methods for accomplishing each strategy. The interview is one of the most powerful and widely used qualitative mean s for people to understand each other (Fontana & Frey, 2000; McCracken, 1988). Patton (1990) identified three types of interviews: the informal conversational interview, the general interview guide approach, and the standardized open-ended interview (p.280). The current study used a combination of both the general interview guide approach and the standardized open-ended interview. I developed a list of written questions for participants , but varied the sequence and wording of questions to suit each specific interview situation. Instead of using a rigid, structured interview protocol, this flexible semi-structured approach allowed me to probe and gain a deeper understanding of student responses. Research Questions Acknowledging the aforementioned paradigm a nd knowledge claims, the following research questions were created for th e current study: 1. What is the nature of the experiences of White college students related to race? 2. For White college students w ho can fiseefl their own race, what events led to this occurrence? (Chesler et al., 2003). 64 The following sub-questions were used in conjunction with the questions above: What does it mean to White college st udents to be White? (e.g., How do White college students describe their experiences of race?) What do these students believe has shaped their ideas about race? (e.g., What types of educational and other experiences affect how White college students view their own race?) Methods This section contains an explanation of how I prepared for and executed my study. First, I explored my background as a preparation to conduct re search. Then, the procedures I used for data collection are explained including selection of the research site and participants, and types of data collected. Data recording procedures are then described. The process I used to analyze data and interpret themes are detailed. Steps ta ken to validate the accuracy of my findings are provided. Finally, the reporti ng of findings is explained. Background and Role of Researcher Situating the researcher in relation to the study being undertaken is crucial as it provides the reader with valuable background information and data to judge the trustworthiness of the work. This section provides information abou t myself (as the sole researcher) and includes demographic characteristics, empl oyment information, and descriptio ns of other experiences that may have influenced my choices, observations, and interpretations in the current study. Throughout this section, I detailed the steps taken to ensure the soundness of the current research project. At the time of this study, I identified as a White female, 40+ years of age, and from a working class background. I have lived within 20 minutes of Detroit, Mi chigan my entire life, 65 and have lived and worked in the City of LivoniaŠonce identified as the fiWhitestfl city in the United States (Beam, 2005; Upton, 2002). For th e duration of this study, I lived in Taylor, Michigan, a predominantly White, working class suburb about 10 minutes from Detroit. During the time this study was completed, I was employed in various capacities at Madonna University, a small, private, Catholic post-secondary institution located 20 minutes from the City of Detroit. I began my employment at Madonna Universi ty in 2003 as an Academic Advisor and Coordinator of Student Life, became the Director of the First-Year Experience in 2005, the Associate Dean for Academic Advising and the Fi rst-Year Experience in 2007, and then became the Associate Dean for Student Affairs and co-dir ector of the graduate studies program in higher education/student affairs in August 2014. In addition to being an employee of Madonna University, I also earned a Bachelor of Arts, teaching certificate, and Master of Arts degree there. My work as an adjunct instructor teachi ng first-year seminars as well as graduate courses provided me with many opportunities to incorporate service-learning into my courses, and I have conducted these projects in Southwest Detroit since 2003. Since 2007, I have been pursuing a doctoral degree in higher, adult, and lifelong education (HALE) at Michigan State University. My cognate area of study was sociology in which I completed courses related to race politics and social structure; intersections of race, class, and gender; and gender and power. The sum of these experiences allowed me to formulate insightful study questions and have a deep understanding of students experiencing higher education, yet also may have influenced my ideas and interpretations within the current study. During the 2011 Œ 2012 academic year, I participat ed in an educational experience called, fiRace, Dis/ability and Class: Confronting Interlocking Privilege and Oppressionfl which was funded by a grant for Creating Inclusive Excellence by the Office of Inclusion at Michigan State 66 University. As a part of this intensive imme rsion experience, I lived with 20 other graduate students from Michigan State University fo r three weekends (six days) exploring the intersections of racism, ableism, and classism. I received training from Allies for Change, a network of fieducators and activists who share a passion for social justi ce and a commitment to creating and sustaining life-giving ally relationships and communitiesfl (Allies for Change website). In 2014, I completed a six-day traini ng sponsored by Allies for Change entitled, fiDoing Our Own Work: A Seminar for Anti-Raci st White Peoplefl. These 45 hours of class time involved reading about and di scussing racism and White priv ilege, forming an anti-racist identity, receiving ally training, practice with interrupting racism, and developing a project to make institutional change. I consider myself constantly on the journey of becoming and remaining an anti-racist White person dedicate d to exposing privilege and eliminating oppression as a result of race, class, gender, ability status , and sexual orientationŠpar ticularly within higher education. At times, I struggled during this st udy because I wanted to challenge students™ responses in a more direct way or share resources to educate them about their privilege. The current qualitative study used interviews of White college students at Midwestern University (a pseudonym) conducted during the Summer 2014, Fall 2014, and Spring 2015 academic semesters. Additionally, I completed a pilot study during the Winter 2013 semester at Madonna University to inform and guide the study at Midwestern University. For this study, I conducted face-to-face interviews with students. Th e interview is finot a neutral toolfl and as a method, it is fiinfluenced by the pe rsonal characteristics of the interviewer, including race, class, ethnicity, and genderfl (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000, p. 633). As the sole researcher for this study, I completed all of the interviews. My demogra phic characteristics and employment experiences could have influenced my views and perceptions in this study. Steps I took to acknowledge and 67 mitigate potential biases are detailed later in this section. The aforementioned background characteristics may have informed my actions and d ecisions as a researcher, and it is important to recognize their possible influence on the current study. McCracken (1988) emphasized the significance of this process of identifying fione™s own deeply embedded cultural assumptionsfl as a researcher. As a result, fiThis clearer understanding of one™s own vision of the world permits a critical distance from itfl (pp. 33-34). The next sections identify the careful steps taken for the collection of data to ensure participant responses were represented in their own words. Procedures for Data Collection In this section, the data collection procedures used for the current study are described. Janesick (2000) stated fiQualitative research requ ires the researcher to become the research instrumentfl (p. 386). Rationales are provided for the choices I ma de related to site selection, participant selection, and the types of data collected. The strengths and weaknesses of these many research decisions are highlight ed within each section. The current study was reviewed and approved by the Michigan State University Institutional Review Board (IRB). Additionally, the pilot study used to inform and shape this research was approved by the Madonna University Human Subjects Research Committee (HSRC). All participants were informed of thei r rights in advance of interviews. Students were notified they could stop the interview at any time and request their responses not be used in the current study. Participants were invited to partake in the study via an invitation sent to their university email address. All students in the cu rrent study were assured their responses would be kept confidential and pseudonyms of their own choice would be used in all notes and recordings. 68 Students were encouraged to provide honest responses, ask clarifying questions, and told they had the option to decline to answer questions that made them feel uncomfortable. Site selection. Midwestern University (a pseudonym) was selected as the site for this study for several reasons. First, Midwestern University had a student body of almost 9,000 students in which over 65% of students identified as White during the Fall of 2013 (NCES, 2014b). This provided a sizeable pool of students from which to recruit participants. A second reason Midwestern University was selected is that it is a regional public university located close to Detroit, Michigan. Previously in this section, it was noted Livonia, Michigan was identified recently as the Whitest city in the United States. The Metropolitan Detroit areaŠspecifically the cities of Livonia, Detroit, and DearbornŠwas named the most ra cially segregated region in the United States with large populations of Whites in Livonia, African Americans in Detroit, and Arab Americans in Dearborn (Logan & Stul ts, 2011; U.S. Census, 2000). Midwestern University provided a unique place to poll White students living in one of the most racially separated communities in the country about their experiences related to race. A third reason Midwestern University was selected as the s ite for study was because it is a mid-sized campus where the overwhelming majority of students live in the most segregated urban area in the United States and commute to campus. The uni queness of the research location provides a compelling contribution to the conversation abou t how White students conceive of their own race. Additionally, the research that influenced this study had b een done primarily with either sizable populations of residential undergraduate students of traditional college-going age, and graduate students, or at large state and rese arch institutions (Bonilla-Silva & Forman, 2000; McKinney, 2005; Picca & Feagin, 2007). Midweste rn University provided access to a large number of commuter students and a high number of non-traditiona lly aged students. Lastly, 69 when approached about the feasibility of the current study, Midwestern Un iversity welcomed my interest in conducting research on campus and encouraged me to connect with several key faculty and staff for assistance. Participant selection. Participants for the current st udy were recruited intentionally using a multi-stage process. Through a colleague, I was referred to a faculty member at Midwestern University who is th e director of a program serving a large number of students. I created an email invitation that explained the go al of my research (See Appendix B) and asked my contact to send it to students who could provide helpful info rmation for the study. In July 2014, she sent an invitation to students served by her office, and to faculty and staff contacts in several other resource centers and student support and engagement offices on campus. Four students also shared the email invitations with their peers attending the same institution. From this initial round of invitations, over 100 students were invited to participate in my study. I received 11 emails from intere sted students whom I then sent an email questionnaire (See Appendix B). Since my focus was to interview students who identified as White, the questionnaire I sent asked students to identify their race among other demographic variables such as major and age. All of the questionnaire responses I received were from students who selected fiCaucasian/White (non-Hispanic)fl as their race. Additionally, I included the Oklahoma Racial Attitudes Scale Œ Revised (ORAS-R) with permissi on of the copyright owner. This instrument consisted of 21 statements used to determine a participant™s racial cons ciousness using several measures: racial acceptance (one bi-polar scale Œ Dominative/Integrative) and racial justice (2 scales Œ Conflictive; Reactive). Students were asked to indicate their feelings about each statement using a scale of 1 for Strongly Disagree to 5 for Strongly Agree. I scored each 70 questionnaire using the ORAS-Revised Basic Conceptual and Scoring Information guide (Vandiver & Leach, 2005) used with permission by the copyright hol der. To provide a variety of responses for consideration during the data analysis phase, I selected seven students across the three scales to interview. During the Summer 2014 and Fall 2014 semesters, I interviewed each of these students two times. To increase the number of par ticipants in my study, I request ed the program director at Midwestern University send out a second invitation to participate in December 2014. This time, she sent the invitation to approximately 110 studentsŠsome of whom may have received the initial invitation. Twelve students replied with interest and I sent them the same questionnaire sent to the first group of students recruited. After scoring this second batch of interested students, I selected three students whose scores on the ORAS-R Dominative/Integrative and Reactive scales were higher than those of the students I had interviewed from the first round. My purpose in selecting these students was to focus the bulk of my st udy on students who might be able to fiseefl their own race and some of the privilege experienced by White persons, as this was an area of need noted during my literature review. I also a ttempted to select a diverse pool of participants who represented a variety of majors, academic standings, and housing statuses (e.g., on-campus or off-campus). I found three st udents who helped round out my participant population. I interviewed these last three students two times during January 2015, bringing the total number of participants in my study to 10 inte ntionally selected students. A detailed profile of each participant is included in Chapter Four of this document. Types of data collected: Interviews. Semi-structured interviews were conducted for the current study. As the name implies, semi-str uctured interviews have some form, but also allow the interviewer to be flexible and adapt to the participant. Structured interviews focus on 71 replicating a formal interview process by ensuring all participants receive the same questions in the same manner, with little room for open-e nded questions or deviation from the interview protocol. Consequently, unstructured interviews involve broad and general ideas and questions with few rules and expectations for the meeting of researcher and respondent. Fontana and Frey (2000) demarcated the opposing collection methods of structured and unstructured interviewing as follows: The former aims at capturing precise data of a codable nature in order to explain behavior within preestablished categories, whereas the latter attempts to understand the complex behavior of members of society without im posing any a priori categorization that may limit the field of inquiry. (p. 653) The space in between these terms is that of th e semi-structured interview. Patton (1990) explained approaches to intervie wing range from very informal to highly standardized based on the amount of preparation of questions and proc edures the interviewer does in advance of meeting with participants. For the current study, I developed a list of questions that guided the direction of the interview (see Appendix A). However, if a participant™s response went outside of these questions, I allowed this digression and noted it. I did not establish a coding system for responses prior to interviewing and instead documented participant replies as they occurred to allow for the broadest range of responses. In many cases, I asked for clarification of words, phrases, and given answers to better understand the in tent of the participant. This approach was in line with the general interview guide approach described by Patton (1990). Interviews were conducted in various locations of the participants™ choice. I met with students on campus at Midwestern University in the library and a conference room, off campus at a local coffee shop and restaurant, and at one student™s home. Partic ipants were asked via 72 email where they preferred to meet and I negot iated based on needs for the interviews (e.g., a space without too much background noise where th e student would feel comfortable answering questions). Participant preference was a priority to provide a natural setting for the interview. Lincoln and Guba (1985) emphasized the valu e of researchers observing and interviewing participants in their normal, ordinary envir onment fibecause phenomena of study, whatever they may beŠphysical, chemical, biol ogical, social, psychologicalŠtake their meaning as much from their contexts as they do from themselvesfl (p. 189). During the initial meeting, I introduced myself, explained the purpose of the study as well as the rights of the participants, and attempted to ask all questions included in the Intervie w Protocol (Appendix A). After each initial interview, I reviewed the data collected and dete rmined what sort of clarification and follow-up questions needed to be asked. At the second interview, I shared the first interview transcript, asked follow-up questions, and queried the participants if they had any more information to contribute to the study. Interviewing as a practice of data gather ing is both beneficial and limited. Through the interview, researchers can obtain information from participants without direct observation of the phenomenon being studied, clarify responses and interpretations immedi ately, and direct the flow of questions and convers ation (Creswell, 2007; Glesne, 2006; Marshall & Rossman, 1995). Interviews can provide different information and data than surveys as shown in the work of Bonilla-Silva and Forman (2000) who found White college students fiexhibited more prejudiced views in the interview than in their survey responsesfl (pp. 75-76). These researchers compared data gathered from a 20 page survey with data from a 2 hour interview and found the results to be different and compelling. 73 Many difficulties can be encountered while interviewing and are noted as limitations of the technique. By reporting their own opinions and experiences, participants™ responses are fifiltered throughfl their ow n interpretations (Creswell, 2007, p. 186). Likewise, the interviewer may misunderstand the responses of interviewees, or not be skillful to ask high-quality questions that evoke substantive responses (Marshall & Rossman, 1995). A researcher can influence the responses of participants either by virtue of who they are (e.g., gender, age, race, role, etc.) or through action and language. A number of scholars have noted the race of the interviewer has had an effect on interviewee responses (Bonilla-Silva & Forman, 2000; Gunaratnam, 2003; McKinney, 2005; Twine, 2000). Due to the fiunstable quality of White identityfl (p. 93), Blee (2000) noted White firesearchers can simultaneously be ‚insiders™ and ‚outsiders™ to the culture and meaning-systems of those they seek to study fl when interviewing White participants (p. 108). In her work studying White supremacists, Blee found interviewees saw her as outside of their group which slowed her progress but also led to participants explaining their ideas about race in fiintricate waysfl that benefitte d her study. Similarly, McKinney (2005) emphasized the potential benefits of White interviewers working with sa me-race participants: fiAn indigenous, ‚insider™ perspective can be used to gain different insights into data than would come from an outsider™s perspective. Especially in Whiteness studies, the indigenous perspective can be a useful resourcefl (p. xix). Having an awareness of these potential challenges helped me better prepare for my own interviews. Many times during the over 20 hours of interviewing conducted, I paused based on the response of participants and then asked them fo r clarification or more details about what they had just said. My intention was to better understand their meaning and mitigate the potential interviewing issues noted in this section. 74 Procedures for Data Recording Before any data were collected for my study, I spent a significant amount of time considering how to best obtain useable data a nd the necessary steps to ensure participant confidentiality. The methods used for record ing data in the current study included audio recordings, transcripts, interviewer notes, and writings in a reflectiv e research journal. Each of these methods for documenting the research is disc ussed in more detail in this section and I address steps taken to maintain confidentiality throughout. Interviews began with an explanation of the purpose of the interview and participants were provided with a paper copy of the Research Participant Information and Consent Form (included in Appendix C of this document). St udents were asked if they understood the form and had any questions. After answering questions, I asked the interviewees to sign two duplicate copies of the form. One copy was provided to the participant and I kept the other for documentation purposes. None of the particip ants I met with for interviews declined participation at this point, although I informed them they could end the interview at any time without any ramifications. Participants were asked to select a pseudonym, which I noted separately from the consent form. Consent forms were filed at my home in a locked storage cabinet and all subsequent documentation, notes, and audio recordings involving the participant used the alias chosen. Each interview was digitally recorded using three handheld devices to ensure capture of information. All participants ag reed to be audio recorded for both of their interviews. Each participant™s body language and facial expressions were noted in handwritten field notes during the interviews. Immediately following questioning, I made field notes in a notebook about observable interviewee behaviors and other relevant thoughts related to the interview. Within a 75 few hours of each interview, back-up copies of fi les were saved on an external hard drive and on a flash drive with password protection. Within three weeks of each interview, I created a transcript of the interview. After the initial transcript was made, I li stened to the recording slowly two times while reviewing the transcripts a nd made corrections to qua lity check my work. During the second interview, I provided participants with a paper copy of the first interview transcript and asked them to review it. All of the students approved their transcripts without correction. Then, I asked follow-up questions I created during the transcription process based on student responses from the first interview. The ma jority of these questions were to seek clarity about answers students had given, to ask students to expand on a vague or brief answer, or to ask about an emerging theme I noted in my data. Finally, I asked participants if they had any more information that might be useful for my study. Students were offered the option to review the transcript of this second interview, but all 10 participants declined, with several stating the first transcript looked accurate. Throughout the data collection process, I kept a reflective research journal. Glesne (2006) indicated the value of making such analytical and autobiographical notes: They become a means for thinking about how the research is cocreated among you and research participants; how each of your actions and interactions shape what follows. They sometimes become a place to vent or express frustration and then, through continued writing, to better understand those emotions and derive more questions or devise new strategies. (p. 60) This reflective journal differed from the field notes made during and after interviews. Rather than focusing specifically on the responses of pa rticipants, the journal was used as a place to contemplate the larger significance of the curre nt study. Notes were made about my personal 76 progress as a researcher, reactions to participant responses, and feelings about the study. Together, the field notes and reflective research journal assisted me in planning for, responding to, and analyzing information gathered in the current study. Data Analysis and Interpretation From the data recorded for the current study, several methods were used to make meaning of the information. Words and phrases in interview transcripts were analyzed in a variety of ways. Each of these techniques is explained below and the rationale for selection provided. Analyzing words is part of what Ryan and Bernard (2000) identified as network or structural analysis. Noting the frequency and timing of word choice across participant responses can fiproduce information that engenders deeper in terpretations of the meanings in the original corpus of qualitative datafl (p.777). Each interview transcript was reviewed numerous times and repeated words and phrases were noted in a spreadsheet. The number of times participants used various words or phrases and in what order was tracked. Key words and phrases were highlighted and analyzed through examination of the statements made before and after the highlighted these key words and phrases, which provided additional ideas about the data. Related to the use of words and phrases, an important consideration for the current study is the emerging field of discourse analysis. Th ere is a body of knowledge that has explored the ways in which participants have used language when discussing race during interviews (Myers & Williamson, 2001; Van den Berg, Wetherell, & H outkoop-Steenstra, 2003). A number of studies have identified significant linguistic patterns used by White persons when discussing race and racism, particularly White college students. Bonilla-Silva and Forman (2000) identified a number of fidiscursive maneuvers and ‚semantic moves™fl used by college students to fiavoid 77 direct racial discoursefl (p. 50). These authors also noted pauses and stuttering behaviors among interviewees. Picca and Feagin (2007) called these language cues fiverbal mechanismsfl and include whispering, purposely vague language, and code words as linguistic markers. White college students have been noted to use phrases such as, fiI am not a racist, but –fl when discussing their own race and that of other racial groups (Bonilla-Silva, 2006; Bonilla-Silva & Forman, 2000) While analyzing the transcripts of the current study, I looked for several of these conventions and noted the placement and frequency with which they occurred, which helped highlight areas that required further analysis. I reviewed transcripts from each interview a nd identified themes and areas that emerged as significant, redundant, or curious. To better analyze themes, I created a spreadsheet including individual worksheets for each of the 19 questions from the first interview. All 10 participants™ related answers were included in each worksheet by question so I might analyze the information for patterns across each interview question. I created key words or codes that captured what students had said or what I had thought of when reading their answers. I also entered participants™ responses for the second interview in to separate worksheets within this spreadsheet and then searched the entire document for specifi c words and phrases. Next, I created a list of 133 codes I felt emerged from participants™ respon ses. I reviewed the list of codes, grouped them by similar ideas, refined those ideas into a rough outline, and began listing possible themes. Then, I reviewed the data again and created a tabl e, including examples of participants™ words to support each element of my outline and the various themes that emerged. At this point, I made choices to combine and eliminate themes, reducing my list of themes from over 30 to four main themes with multiple supporting ideas. I made no tes and used visuals to depict the concepts and my thinking, and then I refined those ideas further. Throughout my various approaches to collect 78 and analyze data, I continually made attempts to explain, explore, negate, compare, and contrast the findings. Woods (1992) referred to this pr ocess as ficomparative analysisfl and emphasized the value of this method for qualitative research ers (p.386). Lastly, findings and results were documented in a written format. Validating the Accuracy of Findings Denzin and Lincoln (2000) stated the followi ng criteria must be sa tisfied when discussing the validity of qualitative research: credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. A discussion of each of these terms and their handling in the current study follows. These rationales are provided to prove trustworthiness in the research conducted. Credibility. Researchers completing qualitative studies operate from a foundational belief that there are always multiple understand ings of the phenomenon being studied (Janesick, 2000). As such, a researcher must provide eviden ce of steps taken to ensure the integrity of work in order for readers to believe the resulting interpretations. Lincoln and Guba (1985) suggested several fitechniquesfl for establishing cr edibility in qualitativ e research including triangulation, peer debriefing, and member check ing (p. 219). Each of these elements is discussed in this section. Triangulation was defined as the use of a variety of means for collecting data related a particular idea or argument (Glesne, 2006; Marshall & Rossman, 1995). In the current study, the concept of triangulation was implem ented in several ways. First, I asked faculty and staff for nominations of students for the study. A brie f questionnaire was distributed to potential participants to collect demographic information. Interviews were conducted with a variety of students who identified as White, resulting in multiple transcripts for examination and evaluation. Participants were interviewed at least twice, providing several opportunities to 79 collect data, explore ideas, and clarify interpretations. These deliberate activities yielded ideas that served as alternative explanations for initia l interpretations made. In addition to triangulation, peer debrie fing was used as a technique for ensuring credibility in the current study. Peer debriefing was identified as a strategy to fienhance the accuracy of the accountfl provided by the resear cher (Creswell, 2003, p. 196). Two individuals working at higher education institutions outside of Mi dwestern University were identified and met me periodically throughout the study. During these meetings, these peers reviewed findings, discussed interpretations, and provided alternate understandings of the research. Marshall and Rossman (1995) called this role a fidevil™s advoc atefl and noted its usefulness as a control in qualitative research (p. 145). Another strategy used to increase credibil ity was member checking. This technique was defined as fisharing interview transcripts, analytical thoughts, and/or drafts of the final report with research participants to make sure you ar e representing them and their ideas accuratelyfl (Glesne, 2006, p. 38). Member checking is cited by multiple scholars as a strong way to ensure validity in qualitative research (Creswell, 2003; Janesick, 2000; Rossman & Rallis, 1998). In the current study, transcripts of the first interview were provided to all participants for review during their second interview, which created an opportunity to clarify and better understand the participants™ responses. Students were invited to meet with me to review the transcripts of their second interviews as well, and to offer comment and feedback. Transferability. To understand the category of transf erability, Lincoln and Guba (1985) suggested the researcher consider fithe degree to which the findings of an inquiry may have applicability in other contexts or with ot her respondentsfl (p.218). The judgment of transferability is ultimately the decision of th e readers, who must determine how they feel 80 comfortable making a comparison of the study in question to other contexts based on the data and rationales provided. Two me thods for developing transferability in qualitative research studies include triangulation and the use of ficoncepts and modelsfl to develop the direction of the research (Marshall & Rossman, 1995, p. 144). Exampl es of both of these ideas are evident in the current study. The previous section contained a discussion of the types and range of data collected to provide triangulati on. A review of existing White racial identity models and the field of Whiteness studies provided in the literatu re review for this study guided the direction for this study. I read research that focused on how White college students experienced race, which influenced the questions included in the interview protocol and provided possible explanations for participant responses. Thick description (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 219) was also suggested as a way to strengthen transferability and was used in the reporting of findings within the current document. Collectively, these efforts were made to increase the transferability of the research. Dependability. Proving dependability can be challenging due to the nature and assumptions inherent in the qualitative re search method. Marshall and Rossman (1995) explained this construct as that fiin which th e researcher attempts to account for changing conditions in the phenomenon chosen for study as well as changes in the design created by increasingly refined understanding of the settingfl (p. 145). I embarked upon the current study knowing the participants™ concept of race woul d be fluid and dynamic, as would many other aspects of their identity as college students. Acknowledgement of constant change led me to develop interview questions carefully and make fi eld notes judiciously in an effort to detail participant responses. After each interview, I re viewed my interview protocol, reflected on the answers provided by the most recent interviewe e and previous respondents, and determined additional questions for the second interview based on my evolving knowledge of how White 81 college students explain their ow n race. Practices such as aud iting and accounting for decisions made were recommended as additional proofs of dependability (Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Marshall & Rossman, 1995). The use of an external audi tor provides increased validity in qualitative studies (Creswell, 2003; Glesne, 2006). An external auditor reviewed documents and procedures midway through the current study and after the findings were reported. At both times, this individual reviewed field notes, interview transcripts and narratives and provided feedback about process and conclusions. Confirmability. Instead of the fipositivist criteriafl of objectivity, a constructivist paradigm utilizes the term conf irmability (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000, p.21). In essence, this proof requires the researcher to show evidence that the fifindings of the study could be confirmed by anotherfl (Marshall & Rossman, 1995, p. 145). Se veral of the strategies already described (including the use of an external auditor and peer debriefers) provides assurance that the current study demonstrated confirmability. Careful docum entation of processes and practices followed is another way to strengthen confirmability. In the current study, I kept detailed and organized records, which led to the external auditor and peer debriefers having a thorough understanding of the design and confirming my results. Chapter Summary The current study explored th e interpretations of White college students who could fiseefl their own race. In order to perform this research at Midw estern University, I carefully considered my own biases, determined the optimal site and pool of participants, and selected methods that yielded accurate data. Data collection involved making audio recordings, transcripts, and field notes of interviews. Interview transcript s and notes were analyzed and interpreted. A reflective research journal provid ed valuable insights about the progress of the 82 project. Initial ideas were then validated against the constructive proofs of credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. Fi ndings were then represented in this written report. 83 CHAPTER FOUR: BACK GROUND INFORMATION In order to contextualize the information prov ided, this chapter includes a profile of each participant interviewed for this study. Ten partic ipants were chosen at Midwestern University because they met the criteria of identifying as White college students currently enrolled in courses, were willing to complete the Oklahom a Racial Attitude Scale Œ Revised (ORAS-R), and agreed to be interviewed twice about their racial identity. W ithin the description about each participant, the following data are provided as background information: name (pseudonym selected by interviewee), other institutions attended prior to Midwestern University (pseudonyms selected by interviewer), age, gender, program of study, demographic information about neighborhoods and primary/secondary schools atte nded, and socioeconomic status as revealed directly and indirectly. All of the contributors in my study were willing to share many details about their life through telling stories, particul arly the non-traditionally aged college students who talked at length about their lives outside of college. Meaningful details and quotes are included in the descriptions that follow in an attemp t to create a vivid portrait of each participant. The participants™ summaries are provided in alphabetical order. Students were selected for interviews based on their ORAS-R scores, at first to provide representation from each of the four types of White racial c onsciousness described by Rowe, Bennett, and Atkinson (1994) and then to increase the number of students who identified as Integrative, the type which depicted a higher level of comfort with and acceptance of persons of Color (Vandiver & Leach, 2005). While I tried to identify students who could recognize and describe what it meant to be White for this study, the ORAS-R was not designed to measure or indicate that dimension. Student s with high Integrative scores were chosen because they were tolerant of other races and also conceptualized their own race desp ite its prevalence in society. 84 The descriptions that follow include a narrative about each participan t within my sample and then explain how each scored on the ORAS-R, as this tool was used as a lens through which to interpret and make sense of the results. The ORAS-R is a 21 statement instrument with a five- point answer scale ranging from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. Once scored, the questionnaire results in three subscale scores that relate to eith er racial acceptance or racial justice. Within racial accepta nce, the scale is described as fibi-polarfl (Vandiver & Leach, 2005, p.1) with lower scores indicating a Dominative or negative identi ty and a higher score indicating an Integrative identity. The ra cial justice scale contains scor es for both Conflictive and Reactive types. This is not a bi-polar scale, and both types were considered to understand the participants™ attitudes toward race. For thes e two scales, a higher score suggested an indi vidual showed more evidence of being that type. Also, the ORAS-R scores provided only represent how participants were thinking on the day they completed the surv ey. A person™s attitude can change due to experiences and events (LaFleur, Rowe, & Leach, 2002) and therefore, their type may fluctuate based on life encounters and occurrences. Although the ORAS-R is intended to be used with larger sample sizes (M.M. Leach, personal communication, November 23, 2013), the tool was useful because it assisted me in selecting stude nts to interview, provided me with a way to diversify my sample, helped me ask deeper, rich er questions of my pa rticipants, and provided triangulation among the survey and two interview responses. Abigail Abigail was 18 years of age and a first-year, full-time student who was in her second semester at Midwestern Universi ty at the time of our interview. She was in the process of changing her major to biology with a minor in psychology, and said she was pre-med. Abigail lived in the campus apartments and did not work while attending college. She said her hobbies 85 included running and riding horses, and she identified as middle class. Abigail described herself as fivery studiousfl and said she loved learning, studying, and being in schoolŠwhich she felt meant she was finot the normfl. She was th e youngest student in my study. The oldest of five children, Abigail said she was a family person, but needed to move away from home because she needed some quiet . Prior to attending Midwestern University, Abigail lived in a rural area about an hour from campus. She said her high school and neighborhood were fi95% Whitefl. Abigail said her mother™s father was an engineer at a major automotive corporation and this meant Abigail™ s mother lived in many places outside of the United States, including Japan, Mexico, and Indonesia. Abigail described with fondness that her mother was a pre-school teacher at the time of our interview, which meant Abigail had opportunities to visit her mother™s classroom with a large populat ion of students she said were Latino. Regarding her own background, Abigail said, fiI™m like a third Irish, and then German, French, and just different Europeanfl. When reviewing Abigail™s scores on the ORAS-R, she had the second highest score (28) in my participant pool on the Integrative scale, indicating her racial acceptance score was only two points away from the maximum of 30. She selected Strongly Agree for the statement fiI don™t mind being one of the few Whites in a group of minority peoplefl and selected Strongly Disagree for the statement, fiI don™t want to deal with minorities because they are different in ways that I don™t like.fl These answers prior to our interview were consistent with Abigail™s responses during the interview, and particularly when she talked about being raised in a finon-discriminatoryfl family where her mother and fath er would have helped persons of any race. Abigail said she hoped to have roommates of ot her races at Midwestern University and was disappointed when she discovered this was not the case during her first year. Throughout both 86 interviews, she expressed interest and openness toward learning about her classmates who were racially, ethnically, or culturally different. Abigail talked with particular enthusiasm about students she described as Arab American and Mi ddle Eastern at Midwestern University and provided several examples of her inte ractions with these classmates. April April was a full-time graduate student in he r second year at Midwestern University and was 23 years old when we met for interviews. April was working toward a master™s degree in teaching with a Spanish major and English minor, and she hoped to teach high school or English overseas when she graduated. April said she was born in Detroit and lived there for a few years, but now lived with her mother in a suburb near by. She said her dad was finot in my life anymorefl but described how he had been a primar y force in shaping her awareness and interest in cultures, religions, and people as a child. Several times during the interview, April identified as lower middle class, stating her mother made fia good livingfl but she raised April as a single parent. She also described feeling out of place at the first college she attended for her undergraduate degree because she felt fipoorfl there, but was not quite eligible for scholarship or grant assistance. April attended a variety of Catholic schools before high school, and said because of this, she thought fieverybody was Catholicfl. She said she quickly realized when she started attending public high school that there were many other re ligions and faiths. Although there were few persons of Color in her primary and secondary schools, April said she befriended many of these students easily and identified her friends at that time as African American, Mexican, Puerto Rican, and bi-racial. Although her high school was predominantly White, April choose to make friends with students of other races. Her best fr iend was fia Christian from Jordan.fl She said, fiI 87 noticed, my friend group changed and I was friend s with a lot of bi-racial African American students.fl Having a diverse group of friends in high school led April to leave her first university, which she described as fivery White, very conser vative, very um – wealthy. And I didn™t feel like I fit in there, because I wasn™t used to it.fl April transferred to an urban institution in Detroit, which she said, fiwas a complete opposite. I wa s a minority –fl Although the website for this institution indicated only 41% of the student body were students of Color at the time April referenced, she said she felt like the only White person in her residence hall. She said, I lived on campus for a year, um, and – I fe lt like – I was the only White person that lived in my building, which is n™t true. But I felt like it. And, um, I felt like everybody was staring at me, because I stuck out. April also described hearing Black men make ficat callsfl at her often while on campus. She told me she had been the victim of several acts of violence perpetrated by African American men prior to attending college and while at the institution in Detroit. She explained these events had fiturned her offfl to African American culture. Sh e explained, fiI™ve had more experiences than I could count, um, negative experiences –um – (l ong pause) that turned me off to it.fl At the time of our interviews, April shared she was in a relationshi p with another student at Midwestern who was African American. She said while her fa mily was fivery acceptingfl of him, his family did not accept her. When I asked how she felt about being rejected by her boyfriend™s family, April said her mother was concerned a few years ago that people would criticize April and make life hard for her as a result of interracial dating. However, she said now, fi–my mom doesn™t feel like she needs to be as protective because society has changed.fl However, April said her boyfriend™s family did not receive her warmly nor had they treated her with any kindness. She said she often had conversations with him about, fi–the stigma of both, 88 like, the stereotypes of both races a lot because um, it™s important.fl April said her boyfriend wanted to work for a non-profit and they both want ed to work with children. She said, fi...we talk a lot about what we can do to – tear down those stereotypes and what we can do, um, to – combat the – stigmas that are already there.fl As a result of feeling society in the United States was so racially focused and violently charged, April said she and her boyfriend had often discussed moving out of the country because th ey perceived other countries as more open minded and tolerant of racial differences. April™s responses on the ORAS-R and in her interviews reflected her uncertainty and changing ideas about race. Her score on the Do minative/Integrative scale placed her in the middle within my sample, indicative of her vacilla tion related to racial acc eptance. She scored low related to other participants on the Conflictive scale, selecting Strongly Disagree for the following statements: fiAbout all that is necessary to achieve racial equality in the U.S. has been donefl and fiOver the past few years the government has paid more attention to minority concerns than they deserve.fl While she did not think persons of Color unfairly benefit more from American society than White persons, April al so did not think being White meant having a responsibility toward fiminoritiesfl (ORAS-R question # 5). April responded Neither Agree nor Disagree when presented with the statement, fiWhite s have an unfair advantage over minorities.fl Throughout April™s interview, she seemed to fl uctuate between feeling pain due to recent negative interactions with a few African Amer ican men and women and knowing she needed to heal those wounds in order to be true to her deeply held values and nature of accepting all persons. She knew moving forward was particul arly important for he r chosen career of education, and she was visibly working through her struggle. 89 Faith My interviews with Faith took place in a conference room near where she worked full- time at Midwestern University. Faith identified herself in response to the study email invitation by saying, fiI am not the ‚traditi onal™ student. I am 37 and returning to school and only taking 6 credit hours and work a full-time day job.fl Fait h was pursuing a bachelor™s degree in general studies with concentrations in psychology, communication, and philosophy after being away from school for a number of years. She earned an associate™s degree at a community college in Illinois and then moved to Michigan in 1999. She intended to continue her education right away but said the figolden handcuffsfl of being employe d and earning money kept her from re-enrolling until recently. Although Faith lived in a working class suburb that bordered Detroit, she grew up in a small, rural town of about 250 persons in Southe rn Illinois. She described her grade school as having only 12 people in class, and said, fiI™ve felt very sheltered kind of growing up in, in that way.fl She noted her family was traditional and somewhat religious, but more fiopen mindedfl than many other families in that area where she sa id, fithere™s still people that fly the confederate flag in front of their house.fl Faith said growing up, she had cousins from fia mixed marriage.fl Of this, she said, fiI™m very lu cky in the fact that my family was very supportive – I™ve never dwelled on those differences.fl She mentioned l earning about finew thingsfl from her siblings, with Faith being the youngest of four children. Although her family attended Christian religious services on Sunday mornings and evenings, Faith enjoyed reading about Buddhism as a child and said, fiI always felt like an old hippie soul (laugh).fl Faith said she had always had strong feelings about fiwomen™s equality and other races and other religions.fl She also said being a non-traditional student had the benefit of meaning she was much more comfortable with herself 90 as a person than she was when younger. fiI™ve had a lot of time to, do soul searching and figure out who I am.fl Moving to the Detroit area was fiinterestingfl for Faith due to the fact she found it to be very divided along racial lines. In her travels in and around the city, she noted sharp contrasts between areas related to race, so cioeconomic status, and location. She attributed this division to racism: fiWell, yeah, it does kind of go back to racism and the fact that some people had more privilege than others–fl Faith said from speakin g with her husband™s family members, who had grown up in the area, she learned Detroit and the suburbs had not fully recovered from the firace riotsfl that had occurred in the late 1960s. Her sense was fia lot of healingfl still needed to be done. One area she identified as particularly lacking and contributing to the divide was public transportation, which she heard was unreliable and resulted in many pe rsons in her neighborhood using bicycles in moderate weather. Faith talked about struggling to complete the ORAS-R due to wanting to fiqualify and defend my answers,fl which she said she fididn™ t expect at firstfl. Faith™s score on the Dominative/Integrative scale was the highest in th e sample (29), which is consistent with the openness and acceptance I observed during our interviews. The only statement within this scale Faith did not allot the maximum score to was, fiI am comfortable with my non-racist attitude toward minorities.fl She scored this as Somewhat Agree and after our two interviews, I found evidence Faith™s mindset was one of constantly learning and being open to new information. She did demonstrate a non-racist att itude during our interviews, and also displayed an authentic assessment of her limited life experiences, wanti ng to improve her knowledge and understanding of all persons with whom she interacted. 91 John John was a 21-year-old student majoring in communications with tracks in journalism and screen studies when we met. He said he decl ared this major within the last year, and was not really sure what he wanted to do after college or with his life. John was a full-time student who lived with his parents and was not employed while in college. He was proud of the fact he had received a scholarship he described as fipretty mu ch a full-ride,fl which he said was based on his grade point average in high school and ACT scores. While he mentioned he was finot too active sociallyfl on campus, John did mention being invo lved in one student organization for social reasons. Instead of participating in events on campus, John said he and his friends mostly met off campus. But he said for the most part, fiI mostly stick to myself.fl Of his neighborhood now and while growing up, John said it was fipretty much all White.fl He attended public elementary school s through fourth grade with fipeople like mefl and then transferred to a charter school system through high school. John described this academy as fia bit more diversifiedfl and said he had fia coupl e friends who were Indian and – Black friends, I had a few people. But yeah, it was majority White.fl When I asked about any family discussions John remembered about being White, he said his mother talked about their family having Eu ropean ancestry and his father said, fiWe are German.fl John was largely unsatis fied with this answer and expressed curiosity about how his ancestors came to the United States. Then rath er abruptly, John told me fisome aspects of my family members can be a bit racist, too.fl He expl ained his father worked in factories all his life and had negative experiences with persons of other races. While John did not specifically name which other races he was referring to, he then to ld me a story about his father being upset and complaining about an interaction with a Black man at a sporting event. Several times across 92 both interviews, John seemed guarded when he told me he disagreed with this father™s racist comments and remarks but could and would not in tervene because fiit™s ha rd to get past old identities or old ideas.fl John felt his father was wrong, but I also observed John™s responses were heavily influenced by being raised in an intolerant environment. On the ORAS-R, John™s Conflictive score was near the higher end of my sample, suggesting he was opposed to programs benefitting t hose who are not White. The majority of his responses to Conflictive statements were Neither Agree nor Disagree which indicated he was not willing to commit either way. However, John scored among the lowest of participants related to the reactive type. He responded Strongly Disagree to each of the following statements: fiBeing White gives us a responsibility toward minoritie sfl and fiSometimes, I feel guilty about being White when I think about all the bad things White s have done to minoritiesfl and fiI believe that it™s society™s responsibility to help minority pe ople whether they want it or not.fl What was interesting about John™s responses is while he told me he really enjoyed participating in the study and answering my questions, there was a general uneasiness in his demea norŠalmost as if he were betraying his father by telling me about his intolerance and bigotry. At the same time, John seemed relieved to be telling me about his feelings and frustration with his father. The theme of participants in my study feeling confused or fr ustrated with their family members™ racial attitudes is addressed further in Chapter 5. Kimberly The interviews with Kimberly were the l ongest in my study. Although my consent form suggested the total time across bo th interviews would take approximately 75-90 minutes of time, I spent almost three hours talking with Kimberly and she wanted to talk more. Kimberly was 21 years old when we met and an i ndustrial engineering and chemistry major. She said she felt this 93 combination of focus areas was perfect because it would enable her to understand how the world works, make it better, and make it more streamlined. She was a fourth year senior and full-time student with a manufacturing en gineering internship at a firm that created climate control systems for large automotive companies. The internship was an eye-opening experience for Kimberly because she said she was not a mechan ical person and was working with a lot of men who she said were her father™s ageŠwhich was also new for her. She said, fiSo, I™m just working with a bunch of dads (laugh)!fl Aside from her studies, Kimberly described herself as the fiquintessential nerdfl who loved learning and documentaries. Kimberly grew up and lived in a suburb lo cated about 30 minutes from Detroit for her entire life. She said she believed all of the students in her Catholic primary and middle schools lived within 20 minutes of the school and fiever yone was White, middle class kids from the areafl. She said the classes were small and fieverybody kind of knew each otherfl. Kimberly went to a small, Catholic, all girls™ college pr eparatory high school nearby where she said there was finot a whole lot of diversityfl. Of her family, Kimberly said her mother was a first generation American, with grandparents from Germany and Hungary who did not speak English and fidon™t really get what it means to be Amer ican.fl While her mother was born in the United States, she traveled frequently to other count ries because her grandfather was a physician who participated in Doctors without Borders, an international humanitari an organization. She described her family being very active in the cu ltural groups affiliated with her ancestry and her grandfather™s friends who were also a part of these groups. Kimberly noted she identified closely with the values of her immigrant grandparents, which her fa mily saw as different than the typical culture of fiWhite American peoplefl as she described it. She said her relatives™ idea of becoming an adult meant, fitaking a larger role in the familyfl and fibecoming more of a provider 94 and less of a dependent for the familyfl. Kimberly said the typical White American idea of being an adult was fimore this idea of complete indepe ndencefl which she said she struggled with based on her upbringing, which was heavily influenced by her grandparents™ ideals and values. Kimberly said she felt different than most of he r White classmates at Midwestern University who could stay out late and travel to other friends™ houses without meeting their family members first. Kimberly™s answers were particularly intriguing to me because they reinforced so strongly that higher education expands White students™ co nsciousness of their own race and the privilege that coincides with being White. While hearing stories of discrimination her grandfather faced as an immigrant and attending a single sex high school may have laid the foundation, Kimberly™s courses and interactions at Mi dwestern University helped her fiseefl how oppression works and the many ways race, gender, socioeconomic status , and other identities in terweave to restrict access for persons who are marginalized. She spoke eloquently and honestly about what she knew and what she still had to learn. While it is difficult to say I learned more from one participant than another due to the unique and powerful experiences each shared with me, I was surprised at how informed, open, and passionate Kimberly was about social justice, despite the trappings of an all-White upbringing and comf ortable middle class background. Her scores on the ORAS-S were among the highest for the Integr ative and Reactive types, which are consistent with her responses during the interviews. Macy My interviews with Macy were filled with lots of emotion: enthusiasm, embarrassment, joy, frustration, and sadness. Macy identified as a non-traditional student who was attending Midwestern University part-time and working full time. She returned to school after working for over 25 years in customer service and was 43 years ol d at the time of our interview. Macy lived 95 in a working class suburb about 30 minutes from Detroit and grew up in a similar city nearby. Macy attended predominantly White private scho ols selected by her parents because she said, fiwe were better than the neighborsfl. Many times during the in terview, Macy talked about growing up in a fivery bigoted householdfl and feeli ng very out of place in that environment. She said, fiI can remember even before kindergarten sitting on my front porch because we lived four houses from the corner and stari ng at the corner waiting for my real parents to show up because I knew that I didn™t belong (laugh)fl. After living with what she described as a firacist dad,fl Macy married a man she described as, fiextremely–racist, bigoted.fl At the time of our interview, she was struggling between several worlds. At Midwestern University, Macy was studying criminal justice, sociology, and women and gender studies. She described how much she loved learning and how courses and co-curricular experiences opened her eyes to the oppression in the world. Macy talked about experiencing joy and success like she had never known through being involved with student organizations and attending conferences with her peers. She was eager to apply for a job on campus. She hoped to dedicate the re st of her life to healing the ills in society. And then, she had a very different world at home where she struggled financially, had a husband who often used racial slurs and was threatened by her pursuit of a college education, and teenage children who did not appreciate how difficult it was for her to balance her many responsibilities. Within the student population of this study, M acy scored at the high end of the racial acceptance scale with 27 points in the Dominativ e/Integrative type, suggesting she was firmly within the Integrative type. Her interview answ ers reflected the Integrative type for the most part. On the Reactive and Conflictive scales, Macy™s scores were in the middle of the pool of participants, and she selected Neither Agree nor Disagree for several responses. When 96 considering the two very different worlds Macy was straddling at Midwestern University and at home, these scores were not surp rising and were explained through her interviews. Marianne Marianne was a 27-year-old senior when I interviewed her for this study. She was pursuing a bachelor™s degree in political science with a minor in leadership and communications in organizations, and planned to start graduate school immediately afte r graduating. Marianne said she liked people and politics and was an avid volunteer. In addition to her college courses, Marianne was working at a non-profit she said focused on fiinequality, injustice, and dignityfl and fithe racial structure of society.fl She also work ed as a bartender. Marianne said she would like to start her own non-profit organization someday and work in politics. Issues she was interested in when we met included health care re form and prescription drug abuse. When asked about the demographics of the neighborhoods in which she lived and the schools she had attended before college, Marianne said, OK, well, um, I lived in a predominantly upper class White area. Um, there was, um, it™s like middle to upper class, I guess. However, we weren™t really like upper class at all. Um, but, it was predominantly White, there was maybe a few people of, uh, Color. Immediately after the response a bove, Marianne added her best friend was half Asian and half Thai, and although her neighborhoods and schools were mostly White, she had fiother influences like other culturesfl informing her life as well. This pattern of res ponse was typical throughout both of Marianne™s interviews. She seemed ve ry aware that her answ ers, on the surface, suggested she was part of the White, upper class sh e wanted to fifightfl so hard against, and she consistently made comments to attempt to distan ce herself from that group. Marianne talked about fiCorporate America, the 1%, trying to ho ld down the 99%fl and characterized her ideas as 97 fiextremely progressive and a litt le like, conspiracyishfl. The interviews with Marianne were among th e shortest in this study. Despite the open ended questions asked, Marianne™s responses were often one word or short phrases that caused me to ask follow-up questions in an attempt to understand better how she made meaning of her race. At times, I questioned the authenticity of her responses and I wondered if she was trying to give me the ficorrectfl or desired answerŠeve n though I explained at the outset of our time together all answers were valid and considered data. Marianne™s scores on the ORAS-R for the Dominative/Integrative type were in the middl e to high range of the study population, which suggested she was accepting and comfortable with pe rsons of all races and she was aware of and opposed to racism. Her Conflictive score was among the lowest, and her interview responses coincided with her score as she was supportive of working to remedy inequality and structural racism. While I saw evidence of this support at a conceptual level in her interview responses, Marianne struggled to provide concrete exampl es or details when asked follow-up questions. Marianne scored high on the questions related to the Reactive type within the ORAS-R, which could have implied an fiintellectual acceptance of racial/ethnic minoritiesfl but perhaps not personal experience or interactions (Rowe, Bennett, & Atkinson, 1994, p. 140). While Marianne talked about working to ameliorate inequality and racism in society, my sense was she saw the problem as a big-picture academic exerci se that did not touch her personally. That she felt I had not grasped the intricacies or impor tance of her current non-profit work, which I gathered from her facial expressi ons and sighs, is also possible. In the end, Marianne™s interview was brief and at times, I questioned the genui neness of her responses. Monroe Monroe was a part-time student when she part icipated in this study. At the outset of the 98 first interview when I asked Monroe about her standing at the university and gave the examples of first-year or sophomore student , she said, fiI am actually a non-traditional student.fl At 56 years of age, Monroe identified strongly as an adult learner and non-traditional student and talked about how she struggled at Midwestern University due to this identity. When we met, she was studying criminal justice and returning to co llege after being away for over three decades. Monroe said she earned a GED after leaving high school to have her first child. Then she tried to go to community college but said, fiI didn™t fini sh the nursing program because I had a baby.fl She said she raised her son as a single mother , working two jobs, and living in Detroit. She eventually raised three children by herself a nd recently retired from working in homeland security at the airport. Monroe said she also struggled with a medical disability, which forced her to retire. She was proud to be enrolled at Midwestern University and said she never thought being a student at such a prestigious school was possible for her. Monroe™s childhood background was quite different than the rest of the participants in this study because she was not raised in a predominantly White environment. When asked about the demographic characteristics of the neighborh oods and schools of her youth, Monroe said, fiI actually was from the, um – projects when I wa s younger.fl Monroe described the projects as predominantly Black, and said it was clear her family was not wanted in the neighborhood. She remembered coming home from school to find gr affiti on the front of her door saying, fiWhitey, go home!fl She and her brothers often ran thr ough the projects to get to and from school. Monroe noted her brothers had a much harder time than she did because they did not make friends and often were involved in physical fights. Of this time in her life, Monroe said, fiUm, it didn™t, it didn™t make me, dislike anyone t hough.fl Instead, Monroe talked about trying to befriend African American girls at the local ska ting rink and at school. Monroe described her 99 high school as extremely divided by race, which ca used her sometimes to feign illness so she would not have to go to school and fipickfl sides. Of her high school she said, fiThey had the race, the race problems. Whites were on one side , Blacks were on the other, and I was kind of in the middle. Cuz, I, I had friends of all, I like, I like everybody.fl Monroe™s descriptions of her life in gene ral revolved around struggles and conflicts. In addition to the descriptions of her childhood and adolescent years, Monroe talked about tension related to race in the day-to-day activities of her career, when working with service offices on campus at Midwestern University, in the classroom, and in her children™s lives and interactions at their colleges and universities. While Monr oe said several times she was not firacial,fl the stories she chose to share were in opposition to that statement. At one point in the first interview, she told me about advice she gave her son, fiDon™t judge anybody face value, cuz you don™t know what they™ve heard, you don™t know what they™ve seen, you don™t know how they™ve lived.fl However, she talked in detail about ma ny clashes she had with African American men and women at various times in her li fe, many of which were recent. Monroe™s scores on the ORAS-R for the Domi native/Integrative scale were in the middle of my sample, which provided another lens fr om which to view the types of White racial consciousness Rowe, Bennett, and Atkinson (1994) described. Had I just considered the Dominative/Integrative scale score on the survey and listened passively to Monroe™s statements during the interview, I might have assumed she shared many ideas with Rachel and Marianne since their scores were only one point apart. However, when considering Monroe™s Conflictive and Reactive scale scores and a closer reading of her interview responses, it was clear she may have been more similar in racial consciousne ss to Wayne and John. On the Conflictive scale, Monroe™s score was the second highest score in the student poolŠand she did not answer one of 100 the questions. White persons who score high in the Conflictive type are opposed to programs benefitting persons of Color, who they feel wrongly benefit from government intervention. Also, Monroe™s Reactive score was the lowest in the study population. This scale measures the opposite end of the racial just ice continuum from Conflictive types. Reactive persons are somewhat conscious of White privilege and iden tify that society unfairl y favors White persons. Monroe™s low Reactive score aligned with her interview comments that she felt White peopleŠ herself and children specificallyŠwere actually victims in racial polit ics. Monroe™s scores in the Conflictive and Reactive categories were in opposition to her D/I score, which caused me to listen carefully to her responses and ask many fo llow-up questions to probe for understanding. Rachel Rachel was the only student I interviewed in her home. I asked students where they would be most comfortable meeting, and Rachel suggested what she called her fimother™s housefl which was in the same city as Midwestern Univ ersity. The home was located in a historic, middle-class neighborhood full of dwellings with la rge well-kept yards, multiple car garages, and manicured parks. At the age of 30, Rachel was a sophomore with majors in public relations and culture studies. At the time we met, Rachel was contemplating a mi nor in women and gender studies and talked excitedly about some related classes she took recently. She described herself as a part-time student and full-time employee wo rking in insurance sale s. Rachel said she recently took a semester off to deal with what she described as fipersonal issuesfl and was excited about returning to Midwestern University in the fall semester. Due to being raised in a military famil y, Rachel traveled extensively during her childhood. Rachel was exposed to lots of experience living in what she described as diverse areas. She came to Michigan her junior year of high school, having lived in Maryland. Rachel 101 described the primary schools she attended as ma jority White, with fifew Black people, some Hispanics, and that™s really the extent of it. fl She said for middle school she attended a magnet school that was fimixed as far as race was conc erned, but there was a high population of Jewish people.fl Regarding the demographics of her hi gh school in Maryland, Rachel replied, fiI would say a third of the people were Black and the rest that I am aware of were probably Whitefl. When she came to attend high school in the same city as Midwestern University, she said, fi–it was a different culture, which I™ve never experienced before and that was the Arabic culture, which I am still learning about to this day.fl Several times during the interviews, Rachel described being curious and wanting to learn more about the Arab ic culture. Although she lived in Michigan for over a decade, Rachel spoke with a similar style as Faith who also had not lived in the area her entire life. Both of these par ticipants made note of characteristics and details about the racial and socioeconomic division of the Metropolitan Detroit area with a clarity and observer™s distance that was unique in the study pool. Rachel™s scores on the ORAS-R were consiste nt with her interview responses and with her interest and classes related to culture, women, and gender studies. She scored high on the Dominative/Integrative scale relative to the other students in this study and low on the Conflictive scale. Rachel™s answers throughout the interviews supported a growing awareness and sensitivity to racial inequality and justice. Wayne The interview with Wayne was the first I completed for this study. At the time we met, Wayne was living in a suburb near Detroit. He was born in South Dakota, moved to Michigan as a child, lived in Detroit when he was younger and then lived in the suburbs for the last few decades. He described the majority of the neighborhoods in which he lived as White and said his 102 high school was also predominantly White. Whil e he said his mother was a schoolteacher and had fia ridiculous amount of moneyfl he also ta lked about struggling financially in his current situation. After being in 11 different prisons fo r over a decade as a result of an undisclosed charge, Wayne had at one time lived in a homele ss shelter and was receiving social security disability at the time of our interviews. He said he lived in poverty and only found part-time work as a freelance writer. Wayne also talked about receiving a scholarship and grant money to attend school at Midwestern. He was grateful tuition was reduced due to his age (67 years old) and this resulted in him receiving a refund check. He noted he loved learning and said, fiAnd I get paid for doing it!fl Wayne began his studies at a community college befo re he transferred to Midwestern University, where he was pursuing a bachelor™s degree in general st udies. He said he had been a full-time student in recent year s but was attending part-time when we met. Wayne was using an oxygen line and tank during both interviews and struggled to walk to the table at which I was sitting, though only a few feet from the door . A medical condition precluded Wayne from working. He said he enjoyed being a part-time student, loved writing, and was very grateful for the program at Midweste rn University that helped him fi nd something he felt good about doing. Wayne™s scores from the ORAS-R and his re sponses during both interviews revealed a consistently discriminatory viewpoint regardi ng race. Of the 10 students within this study population, Wayne had the highest Conflictive score at 25 of a possible 30 points, which was 5 points higher than the next participant. While White persons who are Conflictive may not be overly racist in their actions and words (Vandiver & Leach, 2005), Wayne was aware of his biases and even said very soon after the first interview began, fiYes, I am prejudiced!fl The Dominative/Integrative score in th e ORAS-R indicates the level of racial acceptance in a White 103 individual. Wayne™s score was the lowest in the sample Œ by 4 points, suggesting Wayne held negative views about persons of Color, and I found examples of this across both interviews. In this chapter, I provided background information on the 10 students who participated in this research study. Information provided included age, major/minor areas of study, academic standing, course load, demographic informa tion about childhood neighborhoods and schools, current level of employment, a nd other relevant characteristics supplied by participants. I included the ORAS-R scores across three scales as additional data for consideration. Also included were my observations and evidence obta ined through interview questions. The purpose of supplying these summaries was to provide context for a deep and rich understanding of the persons who contributed to this study. 104 Table 1: Summary Table of Participants PseudonymAgeStanding Major/ Program ofStudy (All pursuing Bachelor's Degree) Residence Status (At Time ofInterview) Part Time orFull Time Student Locations Participant has Lived Employment Status Wayne67SeniorGeneral studiesOff campusPart time South Dakota, various suburbs ofDetroitNot employed Rachel30Sophomore Public communications/ Culture studies Off campus; with parentsPart time Maryland, suburb ofDetroitFull time Macy43Sophomore Criminal Justice/sociologyOff campusPart time Various suburbs ofDetroitFull time Marianne27SeniorPolitical ScienceOff campusPart time Various suburbs ofDetroitFull time John 21SeniorCommunications Off campus; with parentsFull time Suburb ofDetroitNot employed Monroe56SophomoreCriminal Justice Off campusPart time Detroit, various suburbs ofDetroitNot employed Faith37JuniorGeneral studiesOff campusPart time Illinois, various suburbs ofDetroitFull time Abigail18First YearBiology /Psychology Oncampus apartmentsFull time Suburb ofDetroitNot employed April23 Graduate Student Teaching Social Work Bachelor's Off campus with motherFull time Detroit, various suburbs ofDetroitNot employed Kimberly21Senior Industrial Engineering &ChemistryOff campusFull time Suburb ofDetroitInternship 105 CHAPTER FIVE: BEING WHITE AND SEEING WHITE In the previous chapter, I presented background information and a profile for each of the 10 participants in this study. My purpose for including these biographical sketches was to provide a context for the findings and themes included in this chap ter. Chapter Five contains participant responses to the research questions posed and related themes that emerged throughout the interviews. This chapter is divided into two pa rts. The first section of this chapter addresses the first research question and related sub-questions posed at the outset of this study: What is the nature of the experiences of White college student s related to race? And, what does it mean to White college students to be White? This first section includes three subsections: how participants described what it means to be White, the advantages and disadvantages they perceived as associated with being White, and the factors they identified as influencing their definition of Whiteness. The second section of this chapter addresses the second research question and related sub-questions of: For those w ho can fiseefl their race, what events led to this occurrence? What do these students believe has sh aped their ideas about race? What types of educational and other experiences affect how White college student s view their own race? Five factors or experiences were id entified by participants and are described in the following sub-sections of this second section: overall experience of being at a fidiversefl campus; specific experiences in class or on-campus; hearing persons of Color tell their stories; being in a group or situation that was primarily not White; and focusi ng on another element of their identity besides race. What Does it Mean to be White? In order to select a pool of candidates for this study, participants were asked to identify their race twice: once in a su rvey questionnaire completed prio r to being invited to the study 106 (see Appendix B), and then again at the outset of the first face-to-face interview. All 10 participants selected fiCaucasian/White (non-Hispanic)fl from the li st of six possible racial or ethnic groups on the emailed questionnaire. During the interviews, participants were asked at least 19 questions about their perceptions and experiences as a White person currently in college. These conversations provided detailed answers to my first research question and sub-question: What is the nature of the experiences of White college students related to race? And, what does it mean to White college students to be White? In this section, I explain how students described what being White is like, the advantages and disadvantages they said are part of being White, and the factors that have influenced their current definition of what it means to be White. Each of these elements helped student s explain their understanding of their race. How Participants Described Being White In this study, students were asked directly to describe what being a White person meant to them. Three themes emerged in students™ answ ers: fiI don™t think about itfl; being White is ordinary; and I™m not White, I™m _____. Exam ples of each theme and supporting responses from students are provided and e xplained in the next section. fiI don™t think about itfl. Being White was difficult for students in my study to describe. I noted each of the 10 participants in this study paused, stuttered, sighed, or struggled to answer questions about their race many times throughout th e interviews. My transcripts reflected exact renderings of the recordings, such that I used a comma to indicat e a pause of one to two seconds, an ellipsis to represent a pause of three to seven seconds, and the phrase fi(long pause)fl to show a pause of more than 8 seconds. All speech disflu encies (such as fiuhfl or fiumfl) and repeated words were also rendered as they occurred and are included in the quotations within this 107 document because these highlight the difficulties students had describing what it is like to be White. Five of the 10 participants in my study admitted their race was not something they considered on a daily basis. Three of these students were traditional students under the age of 21 and said something strikingly similar to John™s response when asked to describe what being a White person meant to him. He said, Hmmm. That™s difficult – Yeah – it™s, it™s not something I think about too much. It™s just I am who I am. It doesn™t come up. Me being WhŠlike, yeah, in everyday life, it doesn™t come up too often. It™s just – you know , it™s just a statistic of who I am, for me, sort of. I am – yeah – yeah it doesn™t really come up too often. Marianne sighed deeply before answering the same question: fiUm – well (sigh) – I think it™s very vague.fl She noted this was the first tim e she had been asked a question like this (e.g., fiDescribe what being White means to you.fl) Wh en asked if she identified as a White person, Abigail, a first-year student living in the resi dence halls on campus said, fiYeah, I, I do but I guess I just don™t usually take that into account when I™m thinking about myself, if that makes sense.fl Overall, the majority of students in my study either directly or indirectly said being White is not something they thought about on a da ily basis. This lack of mindfulness about being White is examined more clos ely in the second theme. Being White is ordinary. When asked to describe their race, students used a number of synonyms for the word fiordinary.fl Rachel, a non- traditional student who traveled extensively throughout her childhood, described her experience by saying, fiUm, being White means – I feel – umm – hmm – normal? More common?fl After having lived in multiple places throughout the United States before attendi ng college, Rachel described fee ling that White meant typical. 108 Another student, Kimberly, provided a metaphor to explain her race: fiWhite is a blank slate.fl In her interviews, she described feeling like sh e was not noticeable in society, which for her, largely involved middle-class spaces. She felt her race meant she fifit in automaticallyfl. Faith, a non-traditional student who grew up in rural Illinois, described her race as: Uh, to me, it™s always been – I don™t know , just, kind of boring. You know (laugh). Because, you know, we are a dime a dozen, I alwa ys felt let, uh, fair hair and fair skin, and it™s just so boring. I guess because I grew up around, that™s everyone I grew up around. So it was hard to, find yourself, uh, find uh, distinguishing features. Like especially just kind of physically looking at everybody that I grew up with. So, you know, I™ve always kind of felt like, fiOh, I™m just kind of vanillafl (laugh). Participants in my study viewed their experience as a White student as so common that at the outset of the interview, they responded they did not think about, focus on, or consider it as an important part of th eir identity. I™m not White, I™m ______. Instead of responding favorably about the experience of being White, several participants in this study tried to distance themselves from their race. Although they each selected fiWhitefl as their race in the previously emailed questionnaire, these students described themselves during the face-to -face interviews as the children of immigrants, as humans or persons, or as desiring to be of anot her race. Examples of each of these responses are included in this section. Three female students talked extensively a bout their nationality instead of describing themselves as White. Macy responded she did identify as White, but then quickly added, 109 But I™m also Polish and Hungarian and um – so what, what that means to me? Um – (long pause) – I guess I don™t focus as much on the White as the fact that it™s more the – my ancestors have been here longer, I guess? Later in the interview, Macy described having a difficult childhood being raised by a racist father. She talked about her efforts to heal from this experience by learning about persons of all races and cultures. Although half Macy™s age, Ki mberly also identified with immigrant roots and provided what she saw as two distinct categories or ways of being White. She said, fiI think of kind of the American WhiteŠlike the quintes sential American White personŠand then being sort of a child of an immigrant, as two different things.fl Kimberly considered herself very much a part of the latter, and explained her mother is a first genera tion American and her grandparents do not speak English or understand what it means to be American. Therefore, she did not see herself or family as the fiquintes sential American Whitefl persons. Of all 10 participants, April was the only person to respond finofl to my sixth interview question, fiWhen you think of yourself, do you identify as White?fl April said she thought of herself as Polish and had used Ancestry.com to trace her father™s ancestors, who lived in the United States since the 1600s. Later in our first interview, she explained her answer further, I don™t like, I don™t – that™s why, I don™t say I™m White. I, because – I don™t think it™s fair to – (long pause) call me White when I have just as diverse a background as – somebody who is African American or Black, or whatever they want to refer to themselves as. Like I see it more as they are Italian American, they are Polish American, they are Irish American. Throughout their interviews, both April and Macy talked about negative emotional experiences related to race, involving family members, spouses , or partners, which might explain their desire 110 to disassociate themselves with being White. Ki mberly provided a much different perspective, instead revealing intense love for and loyalty to her family and speaking of very positive involvements with her Hungarian and German heri tage while in the United States. Additionally, two students (John and Abigail) expressed a desire to know more about where they had come from, stating their families did not focus much on their family history and rarely discussed it, much to the students™ dismay. Another variation on the idea of fiI™m not White, I™m ____fl was the response that students thought of themselves as humans or persons instead of White. Marianne hesitated and struggled when asked if she identified as a White person. Then, she said, fiYeah. Well, I don™t really like think of it like, ‚Oh! I™m White !™ You know, I think of it like, ‚Oh! I™m a person!™ (laugh) You know.fl She went on to explain she felt all people are the same and she does not treat anyone differently based on race. Rachel™s response revealed her recent completion of several women™s and gender studies classes, in which she learned new information about race. She said, I™m really consumed with what I™m learning in school and being more aware, that I tend to or I try to think of myself as not fiWhit efl but just as another person and that we all come from different walks of life. Um – (long pause) I don™t really know that there™s ever been a time that I really thought that, fiOh – I™m White.fl The third manner in which participants tried to separate themselves from being identified as White was by admitting they desired at one time to be another race. Abigail stated directly a theme evident throughout both of her interviews, fiS ometimes I kind of wish I had a little bit of diversity in my, like, my backgr ound.fl For some students, this perceived lack within their own race caused them to even wish they were of a nother race. Monroe, a non-traditional student who 111 grew up in a predominantly Black neighborhood said, fiBeing a White person? When I was younger, you know, I wanted to be Black really bad. Really bad.fl Had I merely relied on these participants ch ecking the fiCaucasian/White (non-Hispanic)fl option on my emailed questionnaire to explain th eir race, I would have missed the opportunity to learn about the more nuanced way the participants in this study understood their White identity. When asked to describe the experience of being White, students said they did not think about it, being White meant being ordinary, or they made efforts to distance themselves from being associated with White people. To help furthe r explain how participants in this study defined their race, the next section contains responses about the privileges and drawbacks they linked to the White experience. The Advantages and Disadvantages of Being White To help answer the first research question of what it meant for my participants to be White, a second area I considered was how students responded wh en asked directly about the advantages and disadvantages of being White. As with the previ ous section, students™ responses were complex, at times conflicting, and required much probing to understand. In this section, I provide examples of advantages students told me about. Then I address the fact that several participants acknowledged White persons do experience privileges, but these students did not feel they experienced those advantages personally. Then, participants™ responses about the disadvantages of being White are explored. Advantages of being White. Students were asked to identify advantages and disadvantages they associated with their race. For the advantages, students™ answers can be categorized into two topics: not being judged for their race and viewing White as being powerful and effortless. In the first category of not being judged, three groups of responses are included: 112 being given the benefit of the doubt, privileges in hiring, and flying under the radar. Student responses for each grouping of answers are provided. Not being judged for their race. Half of the students in this study noted they experienced or observed that overall, White persons are not condemned by society based solely on their race. Through telling their stories and providing examples, these participants described feeling like their race meant others assumed positive outcomes would result from interactions with them as White persons. Under the head ing of not being judged, these advantages were described as Whites being given the benefit of the doubt, having privileges during hiring, and flying under the radar. April succinctly stated direct evidence of not being judged for her race by saying, fiI™m given the benefit of the doubtfl. She and other students listed many exam ples under this theme, including not being suspected or followed in stores, not being stopped in traffic, and/or not being viewed as a threat by law enforcement. Reflecting on a statement she made earlier in the interview that being White was bland, Kimberly also admitted, fiI definitely see that idea of kind of blankness – as almost a blessi ng in disguisefl. When she hear d a friend who she identified as Hispanic talk about his experiences with racial profiling, Kimberly said she realized just how much she benefited as a White person. Students recognized being White usually afforded them better opportunities when seeking a job. Kimberly said she was aware he r fistereotypical White namefl meant employers would not discriminate against her, whereas she said, fiif you have a particularly ethnic name, people are going to assume that you are not White.fl Kimberly noted she heard in her classes that persons with ethnic names have experienced di scrimination during hiring. April also talked about the hiring process and said she sometimes c hose not to reveal her race if she was applying 113 for a job with a non-profit, where being a fiminor ityfl might be preferred if that organization serves fiminoritiesfl (emphasis hers ). She said she exercised the option of disclosing her race and would do this when applying to predominantly White school districts because she felt this might help her get the job. In both cases, students were aware of the advantages of being White when looking for employment. The idea their race made life easier was noted by several female students who elaborated on the notion that being in the majority was favorable. Ma rianne explained by saying, –for instance, being that I™m White, I kind of fly under the radar. There™s really no stereotypes attached to me – as far as I know, there™s no negative ones that are going to be attached to me as soon as they see me, you know – it™s neutral. It™s neutral. Marianne expressed further she never experienced stereotypes associated with being White and felt she was not judged adversely and therefore not affected in any way by her race. Abigail™s response demonstrated more awareness of the privileges associated with her race and expressed some unhappiness with the fact she is fiadva ntaged.fl She said of White persons, I think – in some ways we™re really advantaged. I, I don™t think we™re judged and there aren™t as many stereotypes placed on us. I don™t think I have to – fight against stereotypes on a daily basis like many people d o. So, in those types of ways I think I definitely am advantaged. Sad to say. But, well, yeah. Kimberly also mentioned White persons are not st ereotyped as much as persons of other races, an advantage she said extended to the classroom. fiTeachers don™t usually have a preconceived notion of you, based on race, if you™re Whitefl she sa id. Kimberly noted this provided a sense of freedom from judgment, indicativ e of this first advantage of being White. All three students used the word fistereotypefl when asked how being White affected daily life and their answers 114 explained being White meant not being la beled or limited by race. Viewing White as being effortlessly powerful. The second way students described the advantage of being White was they knew it was powerful and came to Whites without effort. Interviewees identified White persons as being the fibiggest groupfl (John) and firole modelsfl (Kimberly) in American culture. When asked about any advantages she had noticed of being White, Marianne said fiWhites have more power ove r other people, they™re more apt to get what they want and be successful.fl Kimberly extende d this idea of the influence of famous Whites and noted popular culture is flush with examples. She said, So it™s almost something I don™t really have to think about because, you know, there™s so many celebrities that look like me. Ther e™s so many successful people who, who, I can look to as role models that look like me and ki nd of – have that similar racial experience to me. Even though earlier in her interview she identified more with her im migrant roots than the fiquintessential American White person,fl Kimber ly acknowledged ruefully the overabundance of White exemplars in daily life and that she, herself, benefitted as a result. Participants knew being White was easier, simpler, and a better place in the United States social order. Students said being White automa tically provided benefits. John explained, fi–if there are advantages, you know, to being White, I don™ t really consider them too much. It™s just something that happens.fl He later described thes e advantages as filatent benefitsfl. Kimberly agreed fiit™s not something I have to think about a lot and it was only really in college that I noticed because before everybody was White. So – it was – it wasn™t – a thingfl. In summary, half of the students in my study popula tion made statements indicating they viewed being White as providing the advantages of not being judged for their race and the idea that 115 Whites have a preferred status in society that comes without effort. While some students described the advantages they saw as part of being White, several participants made certain I unders tood they had not personally felt or received those benefits. John, who acknowledged there are pos itive effects of being in the la rgest racial group, said later in his interview he never received fidirectfl advantages of being White. He said, fiYeah, nothing direct, like I didn™t win the lottery because I™m White or so mething like that but, um, it probably makes life easierfl. John could not think of or provide any specific examples of where he consciously experienced the inherent advantages of his race during either of the interviews. Marianne also said being White did not affect her college experience directly. She said, fi–I™ve always been like, the White majority. And so I don™t see any different, nor do I feel like I™m treated any differently.fl Earlier in her interview, Marianne said she could not name any advantages being White provided her. Rachel™s answer was confusing as she seemed to go back and forth between White and Black, family memb ers and herself, and whether or not she is advantaged for her race. She said, I can™t say that I have an a dvantage because I™m White, but I do think that because I™m notŠI wasn™t born Black in an inner city school, I have the advantage of parents who might have actually had advantages or gra ndparents who had advantages because they were White – statistics show that White people have an advantage when it comes to how they pay, jobs, school, etc., that you know, I do somehow have this advantage, which, I just never recognized before. I don™t know that I necessarily experience it personally, but on a grander scale, I do tend to agree with it. In essence, Rachel admits to being born White and having the related advantages by default but seems to feel it was her parents and grandparent s who received the direct benefitsŠnot her. 116 Taken out of context, Rachel™s answer might be misconstrued as blatantly oblivious to the many ways she has profited from her race. However, that she was processing information she learned in her women and gender studies courses recently is possible. At various times during her interviews, Rachel provided conflicting verbal statements. Later in this chapter, I examine further how students™ said being at a diverse campus and being in multiracial classes caused them to reconsider their views of race and being White. Each of the students in this subsection had the benefits of being from middle-class neighborhoods, schools, and backgroundsŠwhich were predominantly White. One was attending college on a full scholarship, and all had described at some point in their interviews explicit benefits I could identify as being derived directly from being White. However, these participants could not name any absolute benefits they thought came to them as a result of their race. Disadvantages of being White. While participants may have struggled to name specific or day-to-day benefits they experienced as a result of being White, they talked in detail and at length about times when they experienced distin ct disadvantages. Some students told stories about being overlooked for resources (such as money and scholarships) because they were White. Others said they were not sure if they were discriminated against, but fiheardfl that Whites were typically ignored or at a disadvantage in certain situations and this caused participants significant concern before college. Students also identified a variety of stereotypes that cast being White in a negative light. Each of these collections of responses are explored next. Whites are overlooked for resources. Nine of the 10 participants in this study talked freely and without reserve about feeling that so metimes, White people are at a disadvantage due 117 to their race Œ especially when the situati on involves specific monetary resources. The participants easily thought about and provided examples of times when they felt they have been overlooked because they were White. In pa rticular, students talked about money and scholarships as areas where they directly experi enced the shortcomings of being White. The topic of college admissions was mentioned as we ll to be an area of disadvantage for White people. These topics are explored in the next section. Money. Three non-traditional students (Macy, Monroe, and Wayne) talked about having economic hardships in their lives and feeling like race precluded them from being given assistance or resulted in inequity for White peopl e. In each of their responses, students also talked about persons of Color when questions were asked about the White experience. Macy described several times when she felt being White worked against her. When asked if she could recall a time when she was very aware of being White, she first mentioned a class discussion briefly, and then told the story of being rejected for financial assistance at the department of human services because her family income was over the threshold for consideration by less than one dollar. She said, So we trudge out to our 20-year old car held together with duct tape and wire and all these people are coming out fanning Bridge Cards, dripping in gold, hair made up, getting in Cadillacs and Lexuses and you know, I™m just like, what? How? Her frustration was palpable during this portion of the interview. Then, she talked about her experiences working as a cashier at a nursery. As her agitation rose, she repeatedly used the word fiumfl and the phrase fiyou knowfl in her answers. Macy said, We™d get a lot of, um, a lot of, um, families that come in, um, especially, Hispanic families, you know that they don™t even sp eak the language and before we accept the 118 Bridge Card, you know, they, they don™t speak English you know, they would just stand there, you know, and we can™t take it. The six year old is translating until finally, you know, they understand that, you know, and whip out a wad of 50s and 100s, you know, you know. We™ve worked here and lived her 25 years and, and nothing. You know, it™s just, the system is just wrong. So in that case, yes, yeah I felt very White then. Macy was emotional while she relayed these experi ences. Her voice rose in pitch, she used her hands to gesture, and shook her head from side to side. Later, she returned to this story and clarified by saying, fi–it™s not, like I walk into someplace, you know, thinking I should be up front. It™s nothing like that. It™s just –fl She left the thought unfinished. Several times across both interviews, Monroe talked about feelings of resentment when she had to interact with persons of Color in situations involving money. She talked about going to the financial aid office at her institution to ask questions about her assistance package and being made to wait a long time because she was White. She used this story to provide an example of what she saw as a disadvan tage of being White. She said, So, you have three Black women, two White women. The three Black women will make you stand there, will make you stand there. Ev ery single time. In fact I even documented it ‚cuz I thought, fiThis is ridiculous!fl – Behind the counter when you are um, trying to go into Financial Aid. They are not on th e phone and they are not typing, they™re chewing gum, or – and what, I, that™s only, that only what I™ve seen. I haven™t ever had the White people that, she waited on me one time, and she was fast, boom, I was out of there. So, I don™t know if that™s a power, a power thing, maybe? Several times during her interviews, Monroe described feeling vulnerable due to her socioeconomic status, stating she grew up in the pr ojects, raised a child as a single mother at the 119 age of 17, and relied on charitable assistance from time to time. Monroe talked about being frustrated when she had to interact with persons of Color who she perceived as in a position of fipowerfl such as behind a counter administeri ng financial aid. Add itionally, she described similar encounters her children had at ot her colleges and universities. When asked what being White meant to him, Wayne, a non-traditional student, said it felt burdensome. He reflected on the recent news a bout taxpayers having to pay for the schooling of illegal immigrants in the United States and said, (Long pause). Hmmm – yeah – well – I realize – uh, minorities have a tough road to hoe sometimes. But – that doesn™t mean that I should uh – have to suffer because of it. You know – we – I think by now we™ve made enough concessions to people, that uh, like uh – But, uh – yeah, I just like – it means um – I™m supposed to bear the brunt of everybody™s uh, sob stories, well – too damn bad! Things weren™t that great for me either! (laugh) Although Wayne described having a comfortable upbringing in a suburb of Detroit, his adult years brought many hardships. After being in prison for 11 years, Wayne found himself without a place to live and forced to rely on assistance. At the time of our interview, Wayne talked about continued struggles with having enough money to live on and h ealth challenges. For these students who endured what they described as significant financial challenges during their lives, socioeconomic status seemed to play a role in the way they explained their experiences of raceŠ and each brought up persons of other races when asked about the disadvantages of being White. Macy, Monroe, and Wayne expressed feeling they suffered enough and seemed to think being White contributed to their not receiving financial compensation at the same level persons of Color had. This response will be considered furt her in Chapter Seven particularly related to 120 adult learners. Scholarships. When asked about the disadvantages of being White, several participants chose to talk about scholarships. John told me he received a scholarship to Midwestern University that was fipretty much a full ridefl. Th en, he talked about his dismay that he did not get offered as much of a scholarship at a more prestigious campus to which he had also been accepted. He said, I feel like possibly if I was a different race, I may, I may have gotten more because, you know, diversity – I think with affirmative ac tion, like, with someone , if I had been, you know, a diff-if I hadn™t been a White male with my grades and my test scores, I think I would have gotten more financial co mpensation, just straight up. John explained that in the end, he decided to go to Midwestern because he was not certain of his major and wanted to save money. He told me w ith pride he earned a high grade point average and ACT score in high school, which resulted in him being given a full scholarship and not having to work during any of the four years he had already spent pursuing his degree. These advantages were not visible to John during our interviews and his responses indicated he felt like a victim of an unfair system in wh ich White meant less deserving. Two students talked about feeling the majority of college scholarships available were specifically earmarked for African American studen ts. When asked about experiences in college that made her think about her race, April said without hesitation, fiScholarships. Um, I didn™t qualify – I would say 90% of those scholarships said, ‚Priority given to African Americans™ or ‚Priority given to non-Whites™.fl Another non-traditional student, Faith, talked about her scholarship search when returning to school later in life. Faith said, I was noticing, that clicking through a lot of them, I™m like, fiOh, that doesn™t apply to 121 me. That™s for um, African American journalis mfl (laugh) or, you know this and that. So I remember thinking, fiMan! I™m just an ol d, single, White femalefl you know (laugh). Both students talked about having financial needs due to either being from a single parent home (April) or due to the economy (Faith). I asked each student why they thought so many scholarships were allocated to African American students. Their responses were quite similar and acknowledged feelings of sympathy, while still feeling they themselves were worthy of some kind of financial reward. April™s quote speaks to this tension, fiI don™t think they [African Americans receiving scholarships] are undeserving, um – but I think I™m deserving as wellfl. Scholarships were a big topic of conversation in my pilot study at Madonna University. All of the six traditional age students I interviewed talked about scholarships and specifically that they felt they had been unjustly overlooked and unrewarded for their hard work in high school. All also said they had seen many scholarships design ated for and given to African American students and had conflicting feelings about the rightness of this. Admissions processes. An air of mystery was present in students™ responses related to how colleges and universities make decisions about who to include in their student bodies. There was also a sense White students were disregarded unfairly in this process. Rachel wanted to know how affirmative action fiworksfl. She to ld a story about a Black colleague at her job who proudly talked about his daughter™s college a cceptance and receipt of a full scholarship. – and my first thought was, fiI wonder if she had played sports. I wonder if she had any extracurricular activities. I wonder if she had all these other things to back up her probably 4 point plus GPAfl because, if she didn™t have all those things, I think she probably got in because she™s Black. I hate (l augh) to say that but that™s what I thought (laugh). I, because I remember listening to people saying that you can have a 4.0 all you 122 want but if you don™t have all these other things to back it, then you™re probably not gonna get in. In her answer, Rachel mentioned reverse discri mination and affirmative action and described her observations that people use fiethnicity or colorfl to gain advantages in society. Both Rachel and Abigail referred to fihearingfl negative things about affirmative action while in high school. Abigail™s response was of particular interest because it highlights several key fears White students in my pilot and research study discussed. I included a large portion of her response below because it captures the overall fee lings expressed by most of the 16 students across my pilot and dissertation research studie s. When asked about disadvantages of being White, Abigail talked about the application process for college. During this part of the interview, her tone and demeanor became very serious, as she talked about her anxiety while applying for college. She said, I was not, discouraged completely. But I felt like I didn™t have as good of a chance because I, I wasn™t from this really interesting background. And I didn™t have any social injustices placed upon me. So, I felt like maybe I was at a disadvantage for being advantaged, almost? And, um, it didn™t affect my college application process, I don™t believe. I still applied to um, [a large, prestigious state university], you know, and everywhere I wanted to and to schools that I was considering. So, it didn™t affect that, but – I, I just remember in high school, like, people would talk about, um, affirmative action. We discussed that a lot. Just differe nt things like that, and that made me think that I wasn™t – um – I didn™t have as much of a chance of getting into schools that I was, you know, considering –That colleges were trying to diversify their campuses, basically. Which I completely understand and that, from what I understood that, like, 123 White males had the least chance because – not that they were the least desirable, but for the most part, they, they weren™t, um, they didn™t have like, the same backgrounds that most, the colleges were looking for. They want people from all these different backgrounds. I think they had a lot of, like, White applicants. And so you had to stand out more to be one of the ones that they wanted. When I asked Abigail to clarify her answer, she articulated her feelings of anxiety had not come from the college application itself or from th e actual admissions process. Instead, she was worried based on the conversations she had been part of and overheard while in high school about affirmative action wrongly penalizing Whites. She acknowle dged that in her case, being White did not have an effect because she was adm itted to all institutions to which she applied. Abigail™s answer is important because it points to gaps in understanding for participants in both my pilot and dissertation studies Œ students do not have data and information about how resources are distributed in United States society. Instead, students were consumed with fears based on what they fiheardfl which was being White is a disadvantage in issues related to scholarships and college admissions. So far in this section, I provided information about how White students defined their race in terms of feeling overlooked for a number of resources related to higher education. In the next section, participants™ ideas about undesirable labels associated with Whites are examined to better understand how White coll ege students interpreted their race during my study. Negative White stereotypes. In their attempt to explain what it meant to be a White college student, some participants in my study talked about negative stereotypes that exist for White people. They provided statements about the prejudice and intolerance associated with Whites and labels related to gender and socioeconomic status. Examples of these are provided in 124 this section. Prejudice and intolerance. When asked about White stereo types, several participants referenced historical events. April talked about being associated with a race that meant she was judged for fihorrible things that have happened in historyfl such as slavery and internment camps. April said this meant finon-Whites automatically assume that I (long pause) would not be accepting of themfl. She talked about how the me dia has amplified this effect, and the filoudest voicesfl in American media are White, so fi–ever ybody that is not White thinks that those are the opinions of – the entire racefl. Similarly, Ab igail said that White people have finotoriously been prejudicedfl in history. Abigail stated White persons are known to be fimore closed- mindedfl which supported April™s as sertions. Students in this study talked about racist White persons, the tendency for the media to focus on and support White interests, and the fact that the majority of Corporate America consists of the fiwealthy Whitesfl (Marianne). These examples were provided by students as unflattering but real stereotypes associated with being White. Some participants talked about seeing these stereotypes on a daily basis. Gender and socioeconomic status. Negative White stereotypes related to gender and socioeconomic status were noted by several st udents in this study. Regarding gender, both females and males were mentioned. Two particip ants talked about what April called the firich White girl suburb stigma labelfl and said include d expectations that she would be fisnobbyfl as a White woman. April also talked about negative expectations for what White girls fiwould dofl as mentioned in sexually explicit song lyrics. Ki mberly said fipeople kind of perceived you as vapid, kind of lazy, you know, show up 15 minutes later to everything with your Starbucks kind of thingfl. Related to White men, Rachel talked about a political cartoon she had seen online that depicted a White man who filooked like Bill Gatesfl and had the word firichfl written below him 125 to signify his worth. Kimberly told stories about her father and White men at her workplace who were fiyour quintessential balding engineer with glassesfl. She referred to men of this type collectively as fiG regfl and said, –a bunch of people I work with come from this generation that says, you know, as – a White man, you – are, are very encouraged to share your ideas, you™re very encouraged to be confident in your ideas and, sometimes, I mean, there, there™s almost like there™s not that double-checking mechanism becau se, well, you know, why wouldn™t you be right almost? – so for example, like Greg came from a world where – America was the leaders and the best – (long pause) um – (laugh) – and, you know – we were right! And – we were, on top of the dog pile at the time – In both examples, students talked about the idea that White men we re viewed as powerful, that they exercised their power, and they were expected to have advantages in American society. Additionally, students mentioned a very diffe rent view of White people when they described the fiWhite trashfl stereotype, using descriptors such as fia bunch of kids on welfarefl (Rachel) and a firusted pickup truckfl and the fitrailer parkfl (Kimberly). Far from complimentary, these White stereotypes were re layed by students with eye rolls, sighs, and nervous laughter and an undertone of embarrassment. So far in Chapter Five, I examined students™ definitions of being White. Through words and phrases and observations and stories about the advantages and disadvantages of life as a White person, participants described their understanding of their own race. Next, family, neighborhoods, and schools are discussed as factors that affected students™ definitions of being White. 126 Factors that Influenced Participants™ Definition of Whiteness In this subsection, I explore the factors that students said shaped their lives as White persons before they attended college. For tr aditional age students who lived at home with parents and family members at the time of th ese interviews, some of these factors were mentioned as continued influences. Factors that students said form ed their ideas about race were family and neighborhoods and schools, whic h are described in the next section. Family. Students in my study named their familie s as an influential factor in developing ideas about their race. All 10 participants menti oned at least one of their family members during the interviews for this study. Students™ responses about family influence on perceptions of race can be categorized into two main ideas: bei ng raised in an environment of non-judgmental interest in race and equality, and being taught about important racial differences. Within the second grouping, racist family members and fifirst timefl stories of meeting persons who were not White are examined. Each of these id eas is discussed in this section. Non-judgmental interest in race and equality. Four female students in my study described being raised by White family member s who taught them to be open and curious about persons of other races and cultures. Overall, these participants expressed positive memories and strong feelings of equality and non-discrimination. Rachel™s childhood consisted of moving frequently with her family due to having a parent in the military. Although she did not remember being taught outright by her parents about race, she said, fi–it didn™t matter if you were a different color or different race or different anything – everyone was the same: equal.fl Abigail also said her mother had lived fiall over the worldfl and this contributed to her family™s sense of openness. When asked about any fam ily discussions she remembered having about being White, Abigail said, 127 I guess, we never discussed exactly what our own race was, but my parents were always like trying to make sure I wasn™t judgme ntal like I said. And they™re very non-discrimina, discriminatory people. And they defi nitely tried to instill that in all of us –. They, like we talked about before, they w ouldn™t think about a person™s race, you know. If they, if someone needed help on the side of the road, my dad would, you know, it wouldn™t matter what race they were: Black, White, whatever – He would help them. He would help ‚em out. Both Rachel and Abigail noted that although they did not recall explicit conversations about race in their families, the overall lesson learned was one of acceptance. Faith noted that despite not being exposed to much diversity in her sma ll, rural hometown, fiequal ity has always been important to me, whether gender or racial or relig ious.fl She talked about having older siblings who exposed her directly to new things, such as Buddhism. April also mentioned learning about other cultures and religions from a fam ily member. She said of her father, –when I was a child he used to bring me to festivals downtown, or – I always tell everybody we had a Buddha in our backyard. I didn™t know what it was, but, and we used to have Hindu books in our bathroom and stuff like that. My dad is a very curious individual um, and he – introduced me to things um, to museums and people and festivals and music that I wouldn™t have – that are so outside of my – demographic– During these portions of the interviews, each participant displayed enthusiasm and positive emotions when talking, smiling often during their answers. Comparing these reactions to those of the next section in which participants described being taught there were important differences between Whites and other races was interesting due to the contrast in responses. Facial expressions, body language, and overall demeanor were much more closed, pained, and negative 128 in situations where students talked about having been taught about differences in race. Family members teaching about differences. Childhood experiences were discussed by each of the participants in my study, typically in response to my inquiry about their previous family discussions about being White . Some students described memories of overhearing or being taught directly there was a difference between being White and not being White. These teachings came in the form of instructions, dir ectives, use of racial slurs, jokes, complaints, selective silence, and/or stories. Examples of each are included in this section. Faith and April both recounted stories about growing up with bi-racial cousins. April said as a child, she remembered hearing of he r cousin, fihis childhood was difficult because he was raised in a White family and he™s bi-racial fl. Both Macy and April talked about receiving instructions from family members about inte racting with persons of other races. fiIn Kindergarten, there was one African American girl and I was told [by my father], ‚Do not bring her home!™fl Macy recounted. She talked about knowing this was wrong even as a small child and said she often waited for her fireal parents to show up because I knew I didn™t belongfl. As a result of her decision to be involved in an interracial relationship in high school, April remembered her mother talking to her about the difficulties she would encounter. April said she felt her mother was trying to equip her to live in a racially biased society by giving her careful instructions. Half of the participants in my study recounted racial sl urs and jokes about African Americans they had heard as children from grandm others, uncles, fathers, and brothers. I noted participants laughed tensely, looked down or away from me, and sighed during these portions of the interviews. Additionally, John said that as a child, he remembered hearing his father complain about persons of Color after coming home from his shift at an automobile factory. He 129 said, fi–he™s had some experiences that have soured him on some, other, people based on their race. He likes to complain sometimes.fl Since John lived at home during college, he was still being exposed to this complaining by his father at the time of our interview. Four participants in this st udy told stories of their fifirst timefl hearing about, seeing, or meeting African Americans. Observing that each student, with ages ranging from 21 to 67, adopted childlike mannerisms when telling these stories from their youth, either by using a high- pitched voice or making themselves physically sm aller in their chairs, was surprising. These students were reliving the memory as they told it to me. Three of the four stories involved close adult family members joking or using racial slurs to refer to African Amer icans. Macy talked about her first experience meeting an African Amer ican man who was one of her father™s friends. She said, He worked for him and they, they, they were work buddies, I guess you could say. But they both had an interest in cars and so he would come over every once in a while. So, that, um, he, I don™t want to say he scared me, but he would joke with me and so, ‚cuz he would ask me what color I thought his blood was. And he would say, fiIt™s blue!fl But he said, fiBut everybody™s was blue!fl So, you cut yourself and – I did not have a lot of exposure besides the names that, you know – were associated because of my racist dad (laugh). In the fifirst timefl stories of Wayne, Faith, and Macy, each talked about feeling confused about how Whites and Blacks were similar and different as the result of these exchanges and the messages from adults involved. Macy seemed pu zzled decades later about why her father made an exception to befriend one African American person and then talked so negatively about all others. John also told a story about an incident that stuck out in his mind from childhood as very 130 instructive on the issue of what it meant to be Wh ite. He talked about his father taking him to a golf tournament where something memorable occurred between himself and an African American man. He said, But uh, this uh, security guard, he like, he wa s getting a little, uh, like making sure people didn™t – (cleared throat) you know get too close. Yeah, but uh – he stood like in my way kind of uh, and he was Black. And the kid next to me was Black so he moved out of that kid™s way and into my way. And it didn™t really, I don™t remember if it bothered me. I was like seven or eight, but my dad, it bothe red him. Yeah, and that was, that was the first time I really remember something like that. John talked about how his father did not say anything during the incident, but complained at length about it afterward and continually brought it up over the last 13 years. I observed a mixture of awkwardness and emba rrassment as these four adults told their fifirst timefl stories. Eye-rolling, puzzled f acial expressions, sighing, nervous laughter, and pausing were some of the outward expressions I noted during these parts of the interview. An underlying sense of fear was also part of the exchanges as described by the now adult participants. As children, they saw family members using new and unfamiliar words, ideas, or behaviors when referring to or interacting with persons who were Black and learned there was an important difference between White persons and persons who were not White. Neighborhoods and schools before college. When not with their family members, children typically spend most of their time in their neighborhood or at school. Both of these places were factors that influenced how my study pa rticipants defined what it meant to be White. In this section, I examine how bot h where they lived and where they learned had an influence on students™ ideas about race. 131 Responses about neighborhoods and schools in this study were similar in that the phrase fipredominantly Whitefl and variants thereof were us ed repeatedly. I aske d students to tell me about the demographic composition of student s in their grade school, high school, and neighborhood before coming to college. Nine of the 10 participants attended schools that were fiall Whitefl (Wayne) or fivery Whitefl (Faith). A related comment made by participants was that their schools had either one or a few Black students or a few persons of Color. This fibroadeningfl (Kimberly) of the student populat ion to include persons who were not White occurred during the high school years. Several students recalled hearing racist comments made during middle and high school (Mar ianne and Abigail) by White students about students of Color. Additionally, four interviewees said they attended private or charter schools. Of this, Macy noted, fiI grew up in a very um, a very bigoted household. That™s why I was sent to private schools because we were better than the neighborsfl. Since the majority of my study participants experienced predominantly White families and neighborhoods prior to attending college, schools were mentioned as the only opportunity to meet and interact with persons of other races. Only four of the 10 participants described having fia friendfl who was of another race prior to atte nding college. Three students explained these friendships were close and one participant™s response lacked depth and details, suggesting more of an acquaintance relationship. April was the only participant in my study who described having a diverse group of friends in middle a nd high school, including persons who were bi-racial, Mexican, Puerto Rican, African America n, and Jordanian. She discussed how several Catholic schools closed resulting in a diverse group of students attending her private schools in a suburb near Detroit. Later in the interview, April noted she left a predominantly White university after her first-y ear of college because, 132 –coming from this area, um, I feel a huge pull to different cultures. And when I went to [a large, public, predominantly White liberal ar ts institution] I didn™t feel like – there was anything to – discover because everybody looks like me. Um and I felt – the school itself did a good job with you know, um, showcasing other cultures. But the student body, it just wasn™t there. In this first section of Chapter Five, I pres ented three main themes that affected how students in my study described what it means to be White. First, when asked directly to describe what being White meant to them, students responded in one of three ways. They said they did not think about being White often, or that being White is ordinary, or they tried to disconnect themselves from what they perceived as negative connotations of Whiteness. Then, participants spoke about the advantages and disadvantages they associated with being White, mentioning stereotypes as well. Last, family member s, neighborhoods, and schools were presented as factors that influenced students™ perceptions of th eir race before they came to college. In the section two of this chapter, I will move to th e discussion of my second research question about the experiences and events students said shap ed their perception of race while in college. Experiences That Helped White Co llege Students fiSeefl Their Own Race In the previous chapter, I wrote about how my study participan ts described their understanding of what it mean s to be White. Components st udents said influenced their definition of their race included life events or observations, advantages or disadvantages they heard about or experienced, stereotypes, family members, neighborhoods, and schools. In this section, I consider what occurred since these students began college that enabled them to fiseefl their own race (Chesler, Peet, & Sevig, 2003) and how those related events shaped the way they made meaning of their race. The following five factors were identified by participants as 133 opportunities that further refined their ideas about what it meant to be White in college. Each is described in sub-sections of this chapter: the overall experience at a fidiversefl campus, in-class and on-campus experiences, hearing the stories of pe rsons of Color, being in a group or situation that was primarily not White, and encounters with an other element of their identity besides race. Overall Experience at a fiDiversefl Campus This subsection includes two themes: my st udy participants perceived attending college with persons of Color as meani ngful and these interactions tri ggered White students to reflect on their own race. Being at a fidiversefl campus wa s noted as an important daily part of these students™ experiences at Midwestern University. Considering that all of the students in my study came from homogenous neighborhoods and schooling environments (with nine students from predominantly White areas and one student from a predominantly Black area), the overall college experience at what students described as a fidiversefl campus was significant. I placed quotes around the word fidiversefl because students described Midwestern University in this way. The term is relative to their experience as Midwes tern University™s website indicated that three- fourths of students on campus at the time of our interviews were White. Students talked about seeing, overhearing, interacting with, and thinking about persons of other races while at Midwestern University, and th at these were new encounters. John, a fourth- year senior living off campus who talked about growing up and living with racist family members said the following, – it can work, intermingling of sorts. Yeah, you don™t have to be segregated for something like school because, you know, there™ s a huge diversity here and things work out, things work out as far as I know. And, like there™s no excess crime or something 134 here and yeah, I think everyone gets along. And, you get a lot to meet people cuz that™s what college is about, like widening your horizons and this is a good example of that. The quote above suggests John is still working through the conflict between what he learned about race as a child being raised in an intolerant home and his new experiences attending a diverse university. Throughout both interviews, John provided responses showing he was glad to be at Midwestern University because it was more varied racially and culturally than his neighborhood and he found this environment intere sting. And at the same time, he was still working through expectations and fears he had heard in his home (such as seen in the quote above where he mentioned fisegregatedfl schoolin g and expected there to be fiexcess crimefl at Midwestern because it wa s not all-White). Abigail, an 18 year-old first-year studen t living on campus, demonstrated a keener awareness of how her ideas about being White were in transition while at Midwestern University. She made note of how the univers ity and the surrounding city provided fia lot of different cultural experiencesfl for her that were very new experiences. She said, It, it definitely took some adjusting. I just wasn™t, I wasn™t used to so many different cultures. It was actually really awesome at th e same time, to see so many different kinds of people! But it, it was different. I was, I think we had maybe, a handful, maybe five people in my graduating class that weren™t Wh ite. So it was, it was much different. And, I like it because it™s defin itely not so bland! John and Abigail™s lives before and during college were quite different. While John grew up and still lived with at least one family member he de scribed as racist, Abigail talked of being raised in a house focused on being non-judgmental. Abig ail also moved from her predominantly White neighborhood and home to live on a cam pus and in a city that provided her the opportunity to see 135 and interact with fimany different kinds of peopl efl. Both students™ quotes show that being on a diverse campus caused them to consider aspects of their own race. Several students in my study made particular note of Arab American and Middle Eastern students at Midwestern Universi ty, expressing curiosity and genuine interest in learning more about these student populations. Abigail said, fiI had a lot of questions about certain kinds of people because I just, I hadn™t experienced everything. Especially like the Arabic community. That™s something we really didn™t have near my house at allfl. Kimberly noted fithere™s definitely a bigger Middle Eastern population which isn™t something that existe d really at all in my grade school or high schoolfl. Macy recounted with excitement several conversations with an Arab American student in her anthropo logy class and how she learned about the broad diversity within that community in Southeastern Michigan. Ea ch of these experiences was new and exciting for students who described largely homogenous existences before attending Midwestern University. It was clear from participants™ responses they considered persons they perceived as of Arab American or Middle Eastern descent as not White. After having spent the bulk of their lives living and learning surrounded by persons they viewed as racially similar to th emselves, the students in my study said being in the presence of and interacting with people of different races while at Midwestern University caused them to reflect on their own race. When asked if her idea of being White changed at all during college, Kimberly said it had. She explained it was not until college, when she was outside of totally White environments, that she considered what her own race meant. She said, ..it really made me think more about it because I know in grade school and high school, I didn™t really think about it because everybody else is White. And it was, it was just something like, well everybody else is people, everybody else has two legs, you know. It 136 is what it is, it wasn™t something, that ever – gave me pause, I guess. But, I, I think since, meeting more, people from diffe rent backgrounds, people with different, experiences because of culture, because of race, it™s really made me think of – how has my experience been different because I was White? Kimberly went on to say that in college, sh e realized her own emphasis on the importance of family was shared by many persons of other races as well. Through interactions and conversations Kimberly gained knowledge of similarities across race. Exposure to new populations was the first step described by my study participants, and some students took that element to the next level by engaging in convers ation with persons they perceived as racially different from themselves. This increased sense of awareness and interest to talk with persons outside of her own race was echoed by Faith, w ho talked with enthusiasm about being on a diverse campus. She said, And, and so, just being in a classroom where you have all these different perspectives and you have good discussions, um, I, I would sa y that, like my views of being White on campus are, um, it, you know I talked about be ing kinda boring and vanilla earlier, well I realized, I™m not that way to someone that ™s from Yemen, or, you know, then they might want to know about my background or experi ences. So you, I think being on campus you get more of a, a collaboration or, or a feel of that you want to understand another person™s background or upbringing or religion or how it™s been eh, being raised as the race that they are. Faith perceived a classmate from Yemen to be r acially different than herself. While persons from Yemen may be from multiple racial or ethnic categories, participants in my study consistently made a distinction between White pe rsons and persons of Arab American or Middle 137 Eastern descent. Both Kimberly and Faith™s quo tations are difficult to read because they were spoken in one long, animated breath with very fe w pauses. During the interviews, both students showed they enjoyed the exchanges that were relayed to me in these two quotes. Kimberly and Faith™s replies were interesting when compar ed with other students™ interview responses. Particularly when talking about persons of Color, some students™ answers were barely understandable and contained many long pauses a nd speech disfluencies. This observation is examined further in Chapter Seven. When asked how aware she was of her own race, Abigail said she thought about it a lot more since moving to Midwestern University. She estimated she thought about her race fionce a day at leastfl since moving on campus in September 2014. Further, she said, Because I think [Midwestern University] is very diverse and I see so many different kinds of people so I, I guess I™m a people watcher. I kind of enjoy that. And, and watching other people, I definitely apply that to myself and so, I think about myself as well. John also noted going to Midwestern University gave him a new and unique opportunity. fiI think the diversity here has been a plus. Yeah, personally, because I get to learn about a lot of different backgrounds that I would not have learned about otherwise.fl Each of these student™s responses was relayed with seeming sincerity an d enthusiasm. The overall experience of being on a diverse campus provided studen ts with what they depicted as positive opportunities to think about and reflect on their race. The next thr ee subsections contain concrete examples of interactions and experiences study participants said caused them to perceive and better understand their own race while in college. 138 In-class and on-campus experiences In the previous subsection, Wh ite students described that in general, just being on a campus with persons of Color was a unique experience that caused them to more deeply consider the meaning of their own race. In this subsectio n, I talk about more specific and time intensive in-class and on-campus experiences study participants said helped them to fiseefl their own race in more detail. This section includes examples of particular courses and assignments named by students as important and extracurricular activities such as st udent organizations, jobs, and internships that gave White student s insight to their racial identity. Classroom experiences. Each student in my study talked at length about how time spent in their classes and on campus at Midwestern University affected their ideas about being White and understanding other races. Students talked about listening to the lectures of their professors, hearing the stories of and interacting with their classmates, reading statistics in their coursework, and completing assignments. These activities provi ded new perspectives and caused students to consider their race in a more concrete way. Courses in the social sc iences were noted as particularly powerful in causing study participants to have fiahafl moments and discover new ideas about race. Both Faith and Kimberly me ntioned their introductory psychology courses as influencing their perspectives on being White. Ki mberly said in high school, she was not at all aware of or interested in her race. She said it was her introduction to psychology course at Midwestern University that sparke d her current level of consciousness and activism. She said, But, it was kind of, I became more interest ed – part way because of college, and um, and as clichéd as it sounds, partly because of that intro to psych class where I was like, fiWow! This is cool! I want to learn more!fl And part wa y because I became a lot more interested in, in social justice as a whole. I figured the best way to, to really become – at 139 least in my own mind, a better me mber of society was to educate myself and to fully try to understand – the privileges and the disadvantages I have because of – where I come from, because of, who I am. And – you know things I can change and things I can™t change. I™m definitely very interested in – the dirty fiffl word; feminism (laugh). I™m very interested in feminism. I™m very interested in, you know – the, the, you know, racism, and prejudice. I want t o, it doesn™t make sense that th ose things could still exist. In such, on such a broad scale to me. And, I just – I think activism is something that I™m very interested in doing more of and I figured that the best way was to educate myself and to really, look beyond – what I see every day as – you know, a 21 year old White girl. And look at other people™s pers pectives, because, even when I compare kind of what I think now to what I thought in high school, it™s like, fiHow didn™t I notice all of this going on around me?!?fl I included this lengthy quote from Kimberly for several reasons. First, Kimberly joked about the clichéd experience of fidiscovering yourselffl (emphasis mine) in your first college psychology class. Having that class early in her college career seemed to pl ant a seed of interest. Second, she spoke eloquently and emphatically about how the college experience changed her perspectives and caused her to develop and evolve. The initial experience in psychology prompted her to think about what it meant to be White, which caused her to seek out more knowledge. New information was the impetus for getting interested in issues of oppression, which led Kimberly to consider how activism and so cial justice could be parts of her life. Her answer ended with reflecting on her own progress with disbelief and a bit of embarrassment. Other students mentioned having a kind of awakening in an introductory sociology course. Abigail talked about working with her White classmat e on a project for her sociology 140 class. The assignment required stude nts to create an item that repr esented their culture. Abigail explained how she and her White roommate struggled to complete this assignment. Referring to the conversation, Abigail said her roommate coul d not even start the assignment because she could not name anything that represented the Wh ite culture. Then Abig ail said. fiAnd I couldn™t really think of much either. Th ere wasn™t one unified thing that I could really think of.fl Both students in Abigail™s story as she represented it seemed to feel that being White meant lacking common, visible signs and symbols of culture. Although Abigail did not define what culture meant to her, neither of the White students coul d easily complete the requested assignment. That experience seemed to cause Abigail to questi on the meaning of her race at a more than superficial level. During our interview, she was still trying to determine why it was so difficult to complete what seemed like a simple assignment. Several students said they had experiences in their sociology classes that made them realize biases and assumptions they held. Monroe talked about an assignment that required her to find photographs representing power. In her sociology class, she and other students were asked to display their findings on a screen in front of the class. Monroe said, I was surprised, a lot of the Arabic people – put pictures of [whispered] a Black, Black man. I didn™t even realize that my PowerPoi nt was a Black man with chains on. All I was looking for was a uniform, I never looke d at faces, which I thought was kind of interesting – I just saw the uniform and how less, less power they had. So it was about power it wasn™t about – anything else for me. Monroe said she recalled noticing immediately that several Ar ab American students in her class selected photographs featuring Black men exclus ively. Then, she sheepishly admitted it did not even cross her mind that in addition to the pict ure she mentioned in the quote above, another of 141 her slides depicted a group of 12 Black men on a chain gang with their hands chained behind their back. She seemed embarrassed by this r ealization as she recounted it, and said the assignment caused her to question why she so qu ickly could see her Arabic classmates did something while she was blind to the fact she also made the same choice. Half of my study partic ipants talked in particular about how courses within their majors and/or fields of study influenced their understanding of being White and how they perceived other races. In this section, I provide a brief overview of the responses of Rachel, Marianne, Macy, Kimberly, and April and share their storie s. When asked to identify an experience she had in college that caused her to think about he r race, Rachel giggled and said, fiWell, in my classes now (laugh) all the time.fl A communications and culture studies majo r, Rachel said that in a women and gender studies clas s she started to understand her previous conceptions of being White were flawed. She said, –these things I thought were just normal, ev eryday societal, you know, clichés per se. I, I really wasn™t made aware of it until school and I™m really gr ateful for it too. Cuz I have a new perspective and a lot of people think that I™m– probably just on my soap box talking about stuff but and think that– what I™m talking about is – I™m taking things too seriously – and I think people take for granted the stereotypical norms that they probably wouldn™t if they were a different race or a different ethnicity or the minority in the situation. And a lot of my friends and family, well my family, we™re all considered White so we don™t look at it from the other side. Rachel talked about how reading and analyzing statistics in her classes helped to reveal that what she thought was finormalfl was actually an almost exclusively White perspective. She admitted, fiI will tell you that I didn™t re ally think about race in general until these last couple of semesters 142 when it was put to me that race is a – societal normfl. The combined experience of reading course materials, discussing id eas in class, and reflecting on her own experiences propelled Rachel to consider changing her major to align he r choice of major with these new found ideas. She said, I feel like I try to look at the bigger picture, that not everyone has the same advantages – You know, all these other things come in to play whereas before I™d just associate it with inner city Black kids. And now there™s just mo re to a person than that Œ and I think that really, I really became more aware of it about a year ago when I started taking – probably a year and a half ago when I changedŠwhen I finally decided that this was going to be my major and I star ted taking these classes. Rachel™s comments show how her understanding of her own race is more nuanced since she began college. She admitted prior to taki ng some of the classes she mentioned, she was unaware of the elements of structural racism at wo rk in the United States that prevent persons of Color from achieving the same level of education, wages, and quality of life as White persons. Marianne, a political science major, spoke about how a Michigan history class that included study of the Civil Rights Movement affected her thinki ng about what it meant to be White and caused her to take action. She referenced several discussions in which her classmates talked about civil rights efforts in the past tense and as completed years ago. Marianne said she worked with a non-profit and knew many inequali ties still persisted in society. She said, – I see that what I was told growing up, like, ‚Oh, the Civil Rights Movement was in the 60s and there™s no racism anymore.™ Like that ™s what I was told as a child and as I get older, no. I realize it™s still there. Marianne™s experience made her question what she had previously been taught and as a result, 143 her current responsibilities in society based on having inaccurate information. She talked about attending a student conference recommended in he r history class, and there she recognized she had to take action in her life based on what she had recently lear ned about equality. She said, fi–the reiteration of what happened [in the Civ il Rights Movement] kind of made me realize, I need to like, take a stand more so and uh, prev ent this from happening again–fl Marianne felt she was taking action by working for a non-profit focused on fiinequality, justice, and dignityfl and eventually hoped to start her own organiza tion to do more of this work. Macy, a criminal justice/sociology major, ta lked about how her college courses provided clarity and helped explain confusing racial events from her childhood th at she could not grasp the meaning of at the time they occurred. Sh e talked about how experiences in classes at Midwestern University provided her with information that cha nged her perspective about being White and resulted in the confidence to choose a different way of living as a White person than the one she was shown by family members. Macy told a particularly emotional story about taking an anthropology course focused on the history of the Detroit area, including the riots that occurred in 1967. She recalled childhood memories of seeing her father and other male family members yelling racial slurs at African Americans in the streets and sitting around the kitchen table talking about beating Black men. In class, Macy saw a documentary that included the Big Four, a special police squad consisting of White officers who were particularly abusive to Black men in the City of Detroit during the late 1960s. Macy described the moment of watching this film in class when she realized her family me mbers were part of the Big Four. She said, And I never thought it was real. And then we™re sitting there [in class], and I mean, and I lost it. I was blubbering, and they [her classmates] were like, fiWhat is wrong?fl And I was like, fiThat was my uncle!fl I never though t, I mean I grew up listening to the stories 144 and I never thought, they were real. I thought they were exaggerated and they [her family members] were making it up and – Macy described the horror she felt when she beca me conscious in that class of her family™s involvement in the oppression and pain of her Af rican American and Arab American classmates™ families. She said her classmates had family members who lived in or near Detroit during the late 1960s. She said, So my dad would tell me stories about when the riots were going on, that they were too close because you could see, you know, you could see Detroit from there and they would glow, how the sky would glow. So it was very hard to hear, because you know, they [her classmates™ families] were there, their families were there and mine were here observing, um. She talked about how this event had driven her to choose her majo r (criminal justice) in hopes of restoring some of what had been lost. Later, Macy explained how her college courses gave her the language and courage to challenge racism, both w ithin her family and in society at large. She admitted she still struggled to address discrimination on a consistent basis, but she knew her ideas of what it meant to be White had changed since she began college and particularly, as a result of the anthropology course she mentioned. Experiences in courses outside of the social sciences also had an influence on how the participants in my study viewed being White. Kimberly, an indus trial and chemical engineering major who had previously mentioned the eye- opening effect of an introductory psychology course, talked about how a class discussion combined with a series of events at her internship caused her to identify several interesting White traits. First, she relayed that the majority of the engineers with whom she worked were White male s over the age of 50 years old. She referred to 145 them collectively by the name fiG regfl earlier to signify that they seemed to have common characteristics, including talki ng first, believing their opinions to be firightfl and assuming their experience was the common human experience. Ki mberly told me about two conversations at work involving clients who were outside of the United States. In the first story, she and the senior White male engineer were on the phone w ith a plant in Mexico that was experiencing a mechanical failure. Kimberly™s approach was to ask the engineers in Mexico to describe the problem from their perspective on th e floor at the plant. Greg™s response was to become irritated with her and instead tell the engineers in Mexico how to solve the problem from his perspective, which Kimberly said seemed incorrect since she and Greg were not in Mexico and could not see the equipment they were discussing. She said to Greg, fiYou™re not even going to consider somebody else™s perspective when they probably have a better look at thebig picture than you?fl Kimberly then said she noticed it was very comm on for White, male engineers in her office to speak very loudly when talking on the phone with another country where English is the second language. She acknowledged that often times, ther e were noises from m achines that caused intermittent difficulties with hearing some words in a conversati on with these locations. Overall, the fiGregsfl seemed noticeably impatient when speaking with persons for whom English was a second language. She said, So, I didn™t, I thought everybody, if you don™t understand someone, say, fiCould you repeat that?fl I thought everybody did that. But, that™s not common, which I thought was very weird! And, a lot of engineers I work with, and I said this was even brought up in an engineering class, they™ll just talk louder. And it™s like, fiWhy are you talking louder if you don™t understand them?!?fl (laugh) Kimberly was shocked the engineers she worked with did not ask for clarification, but instead 146 assumed their position was correct and amplified their voices to si gnify this fact. Based on her experiences with male co-workers and discussion s in an engineering course, Kimberly observed that inflexibility was a White male trait. Kimber ly also noted that engineering is a notoriously White male dominated field and wondered how these Wh ite traits affected the field overall. When asked about experiences she had in coll ege that caused her to think about her race, April, an education major and graduate student, talked about her multiculturalism in education course. Several times during both interviews, Apr il talked about feeling very uncomfortable in this course. She said, fiI feel like – I have to defend myself for things I didn™t do – like historical things.fl She said she felt this way because she is White and other students in the class, particularly those who are not White, did not acce pt her responses and opinions as valid. April shared an interaction that occurr ed recently in the class between herself and an African American classmate on the subject of interracial dating. At the time of the interviews, April said she had a bi-racial boyfriend who is White and African American. She said, fi–I was told, this was said by an, um, older African American woman, that th e only reason that a Black man would want to date a White girl is because they are ‚freaks in the bedroom™fl. April talked about feeling insecure and second guessing herself during discussions in this and other classes where African Americans are present. She felt being White me ant she would be singled out and ridiculed. Later in this section, I discuss this theme relate d to Whites™ feelings and reactions when in a group that is not majority White. Despite the variation across majors and program, the five White students profiled in this subsection provided examples of classroom interactions, readings, and discussions that triggered the students to think about being White in new and different ways while in college. 147 Cocurricular experiences. In this study, several students mentioned experiences they had outside of college classes that shaped their ideas about their own race and that of others. Students talked about Midwestern University be ing home to a multitude of registered student organizations that sponsored events on campus . Macy talked about how fidiversefl and fiinclusivefl the student organizations are at Midwestern. Sh e said, fieverything™s open to everybody on campusfl. John expressed a similar feeling and indicated the student organization to which he belonged had a fipretty wide range of peoplefl. April, who attended two other higher education institutions prior to being at Midwestern, noted she saw fiAlbanian American, Armenian American and Yemen Americanfl organi zations on this campus and thought that was exciting. She said, – At [Midwestern University] it™s more specific, instead of generalizing the ethnicities or the races. Here it™s um – not just, th e Arabic, Arabic community, it™s the different countries that make up that community. So, it kind of makes – it it shows that they™re unique? But that they™re real ly, like we™re really all one and the same, we™re all –you, know, I don™t know if that makes any sense? When I asked her to explain further what she me ant, April compared her current experience at Midwestern University to being at previous institutions that only had Black or Hispanic student unions and fraternities. She said, –I have quite a few Albanian classmates. And that club in particular is extremely involved in the campus and in the community. Um – so – I think because – the students that are in these organizations are so passionate about promoting positive images of their – um, nationality or their ethnicity or heritage that, um – (long pause) I haven™t felt – racial tension being here. I just – I don™t know if I haven™t, I don™t know, I can™t 148 speak for everybody. But, I™ve been here for, about – a year and a half and I haven™t, I haven™t felt anything negative in regards to that. April seemed to express surprise and relief that the various cultural and ethnic affiliated student organizations on campus at Midwestern University co-existed peacefully. Her comments are interesting because they illustra ted reflection on past experience and how she was thinking about race at the time we met. April used the wo rds fipositive imagesfl to describe the Albanian community and yet seemed to expect there wo uld be firacial tensionfl on campus based on her previous experiences at another institution that had a number of Black and Hispanic student organizations. Working on and off campus also was mentione d as a college experience that helped shape ideas about racial identity for my study pa rticipants. Faith, a non-traditional student who worked on campus full-time while taking classe s part-time, said she felt her job on campus provided her with many opportunities to have convers ations with other persons about race. She said, Um, because I feel like I™ve had more inte ractions with people through my work than I have through my classes. Classes, you™re very, you™re very sheltered. You™re usually discussing whatever uh, the class topic is, which kind of, um, I don™t want to say protects conversations, but it definitely guides conversations. And, and then normally, you™re busy walking to and from class and so, unfortunately, I haven™t had a lot of, I™m not part of um, like, uh, Greek life or anything like th at. Um – (long pause) so I guess, I™ve been lucky in the fact that my interactions profe ssionally have also guided my feelings of what campus is like. Faith™s response raises important questions about how adult learners, particularly those who are 149 only on campus for classes, experience their race while in higher education. This subsection contains examples of students describing conversations and events inside and outside of college classes that caused them to noti ce being White, which in many cases led students to reflect on the meaning of their own race. In the next subsec tion, I examined how partic ipants™ dialogues with persons of Color also resulted in heightened racial awareness. Hearing the Stories of Persons of Color In this study, some students described th rough interacting with persons of Color on campus they more clearly recognize d the privileges they had as a result of being White. These participants said having close, personal conversations with and hearing the day-to-day struggles persons of Color experienced as a result of th eir race made an impression they will long remember. A few participants also described feeling somewhat intimated and having anxiety from contacts with persons of Color. In this subsection, the following is explored: one-on-one interactions that led Whites to consider their own race, hearing st ories of racism from persons of Color, and interactions between White women and African American men. Talking with persons who were not White was mentioned as something that prompted students in my study to think about their race. When asked on a daily basis how aware she was of her race, Faith said, fi–I don™ t usually think about it until I™m in a situation with other people.fl Later, when asked how being White impacted her daily life, Faith responded, flUm – (long pause) – well, and I think about it in levels, so, my daily life, I don ™t think about it that much until I™m in a situation where I see somebody else.fl Faith described a process in which she saw a person she perceived as different than herself, talked with the person and heard their experiences and struggles, thought about her lack of struggle in that area, and then realized she had privilege. April, a student who spoke about being in a dating relationship with a bi-racial 150 male student, described a similar process of becoming aware of the privileges being White bestowed on her. She said, You know, you don™t realize –. how much it means until yo u™re, you see something first-hand, like you see somebody who is not given the benefit of the doubt and how much it affects them. Throughout her interviews, April gave examples of being with her boyfriend and seeing challenging experiences he had due to his race, which prompted her to think about how being White meant having certain benefits. She relaye d conversations she and her boyfriend had about their perceptions of these challenging experiences. April and Faith both saw, heard, reflected, and realized what it meant to be White through their communications with someone of another race. Hearing persons of Color sh are their own stories about racism was another powerful way students in my study learned about privilege. Marianne talked about a leadership training focused on structural racism she attended. During this workshop, speakers talked about their histories with discrimination and in tolerance. Marianne said hearing these stories caused her to be conscious of the privileges of being White. She said, And, as they™re discussing their horrible experiences and really unfortunate experiences about, you know, being uh, abused and whatnot b ecause just their skin color or different cultural background, um, I, I realized, um, I don™t have to deal with that, you know. And that™s when I was, it™s really strongly, fiOh!fl You know – you know, fiI™m White.fl And because of that, I don™t, people don™t pick on me because of my color, you know. Marianne™s voice was strong and certain when she spoke about this memory. She sounded angry at the end of this quote, when she recognized the disparity between her own comfortable 151 experience and those of the people she heard talk about how prejudice and intolerance had affected their individual lives. Similarly, Apri l sounded frustrated when she told me about a discussion in which her classmate said he felt very unsafe when he was away from campus. She said, He™s um – Arabic and he™s Muslim. He l ooks like just a regular White guy, has green eyes, you know. But um, he said if he is [on campus] people don™t notice him for his race. But if he were to go somewhere else, they automatically notice him and that™s not a good thing. April said her classmate looked like fijust a re gular White guyfl which is interesting because according to the racial categories used for the U.S. Census questionnaire, persons who identify as Arabic would select the White category. April and perhaps the Arabic student himself would not have placed themselves in the same racial cate gory. In both of the conversations Marianne and April relayed to me, hearing fi rst-hand accounts of people talking about lived experiences with racism caused the students to hear, believe, and empathize with th e speakers and better understand White privilege. Kimberly™s response showed a deeper reflec tion upon her race that transpired due to a friendship with a classmate of Color. She ta lked about a Hispanic friend she met while in college with whom she is close and had shared many conversations. Kimberly said that on the subject of the importance of family, she and her fr iend™s views were in almost perfect alignment. However, she also saw first-hand how his life expe riences related to race resulted in him having different perspectives. Kimberly told a story ab out being in the car with her friend when he was pulled over by the police. She said, 152 And it was so odd because, you know, you know I™ve been pulled over before for, you know, traffic stuff. And the cop is always very nice to me, they™re polite, you know. But when he [her friend] got pulled over, you know, they got him out of the car immediately, they patted him down. They were just, like, very aggressive. And I was just like, does this always happen? – He said it had ha ppened to him before and, it™s funny, because he™s like one of the sweetest, nicest people I know. Kimberly named racism as the reason her friend was treated aggressively. She explained that over the years, she noticed his viewpoints about school, work, or other aspects of life had been quite unlike hers. After being with him in the car when he was profiled by police officers, she explained she had evidence of just how dissim ilar their lives had been, and wondered if his outlooks and opinions were affected by events like this. She said, Sometimes it kind of, it kind of makes me pause because it™s different from other perspectives I have seen so it kind of makes me wonder, OK, well how much of this is related to just us being different people and how much is related to, you know, different genders? But how much is al so related to your experience as a non-White person in society? Additionally, April and Faith ta lked about hearing male frie nds and family membersŠall persons of ColorŠtell their stories about being pulled over repeatedly by law enforcement for small infractions. During each of the incidents, the men described feeling like the police were fifishing for somethingfl (April) and the men we re worried they would not answer the police officers™ questions sufficiently. Profiling was also the subject of another story Kimberly relayed. She mentioned a discussion from her sociology cl ass in which Muslim students talked about being profiled at the airport. One female cl assmate™s story disturbed Kimberly, who described 153 trying to imagine what the experience was like fo r her colleague, whose father was told his name was very close to another person on a terrorist watch list. Kimberly said, –even though it™s not the same name, even t hough it™s just somewhat similar, probably because of, you know, culture, where they™re from, is just my guess. He™s pulled over, he™s questioned every single time . And it™s just kind of interesting, because, I don™t think they™re going to pull over – a Mohammed almost every time but they™re not going to pull over a Joe Smith. – And it kind of made me think, because you know, my dad is the most harmless looking man ever (laugh) . Um, you know, your quintessential balding engineer with glasses (laugh). But it just kind of struck me th at, it is very possible that she has the same view of her dad, as, you know, I mean that is her dad! So she obviously, most likely thinks that he™s like this harmless, cuddly, man but the fact that – because he™s not White, he probably has so ma ny different experiences because of that, just kind of made me think for a second. April, Faith, and Kimberly each said they ha d moments of awareness and frustration while hearing or observing these real-life accounts and learned being White meant they were treated much better than their friends of Color in these type s of situations. Being in a Group or Situation that is Not White Earlier in this section, I reported the responses White students made as a result of being at Midwestern UniversityŠwhich th ey perceived as a very diverse campus. This environment provided opportunities for White students to have in teractions with and friendships with persons of other racesŠsomething most of my participants did not experience prior to college. These contacts and communications caused a number of st udents in this study to learn more about their own race. Another scenario participants said caused them to notice their own race was being in 154 groups that were not primarily White. When put in a situation where they were the only one or one of few White persons in a room, students quic kly noticed their own race. Another scenario discussed was the interaction between White women and Black men. Examples of these experiences are included in this section. When asked to think of a time when she wa s aware of being White, Abigail talked about attending the meeting of a student organization on campus at Midwestern University. She noted the attendees were primarily Indian, Arabic, and As ian. She used the word fiunusualfl to describe how she felt. She said, I think that was one of the times I was like, fiWow! I™m the only White person here!fl – I – I don™t think I was surprised by it? I just thought it was kind of interesting because it was just kind of unusual. I™m not us ed to those types of situations. Abigail talked enthusiastically about her experi ence at the student organization meeting and said she was definitely planning on continuing to be a part of that group. Earlier in the interview, she talked about being disappointed when she came to Midwestern University because she expected to be paired with roommates of other races a nd was not. Abigail seemed to welcome being in the racial minority and came to college exp ecting to have this experience. The words fioddfl and fiweirdfl were used by Kimberly when she told me about an off- campus party where she was one of only two Whit e persons in attendance. She explained her boyfriend grew up in Detroit, and was one of very few White persons living in his childhood neighborhood. His good friend invited them to a birt hday party. Of this event, Kimberly said, It was just like, fiWe are the only White people in the room.fl It was just kind of weird because it™s not something you really th ink about, you know, you don™t really put yourself into a minority™s shoe s. And then, it wasn™t a bad experience or anything, in 155 which I am lucky because I know a lot of minorities do have bad experiences being minorities. But, it was more weird than a nything else, just kind of a newness. Consistently throughout both interviews, Kimberly demonstrated an awareness and sensitivity to the fact that even though she experienced situations similar to those of persons of Color, she realized being White afforded he r distinct privileges and better treatment. She used the word filuckyfl in the quote above to describe her privilege, and her tone conveyed regret that Whites had an unfair advantage racially. Both Marianne and April used the phrase fiwhen I™m in the mi norityfl to answer the question, fiOn a daily basis, how aware are you that you are White?fl Although she first quickly stated she was not usually aware of being White , Marianne added, fiUm, with an exception of, this is bad, but when I go to Detroit, I am awar e of it – Like when I™m in, like, the minority.fl Later in her interview, Marianne said she often does work in the city of Detroit and works with primarily Black groups there. She did not seem to realize the conflict in her statements: if she was frequently in Detroit and usually thought of her race while she was there, that would constitute fion a daily basisfl. April also answered this question by men tioning African American persons. When asked about her daily awareness of race, she said she perceived her own race more quickly when she was not among mostly White persons. She said, I think I notice them more than I notice myse lf. So if I™m in a room and there are 50 people and the majority are White but there are a few, um, a few African Americans or something like that, I will notice them in re lation to me as opposed to me in relation to them. But, um, if I am outnumbered, if I™m the minority, then I will immediately notice my own race. When comparing these responses to the earlier ex periences of Abigail and Kimberly, there were 156 clear differences. While Abigail and Kimberly noted they were one of few or the only White persons in the room, they talked about initial but brief discomfort and then interest. For Marianne and April, the events they described of being in the racial minority evoked fear and a loss of safety. Use of words such as fioutnumbere dfl and phrases like fithis is badfl suggest being in the racial minority was an uncomfortable experience and one that was not typical for Marianne and April. The diversity in responses of these participants and others included in this subsection is interesting considering that all four students came from primarily White neighborhoods and schools prior to attending college. Interactions between White women and Black men were highlighted by three female participants in this study. There was an undertone of sexuality present in each account as well as an underlying fear of how the interactions were perceived publically. R achel talked about being at a meeting with her boss. She said, – like I wonder if people are thinking, fiWho™s this Black man and who™s this White girl?fl I will say like, I often wonder if people think anything about the two of us when we are out together because he™s going on 67 now, he looks younger for his age, he, but he™s a tall, thin Black man and I™m a, I think, a fairly good-looking younger White woman, and I often wonder if people think anyt hing about that. I think about that daily when we are out, actually. I don™t know that it affects how I act or present myself – well then, I take that backŠit does affect how I present myself because I try to act very professional, and which I should anyway in that environment, but more so that I don™t want people to get the wrong idea about anything and, where, if, I, if he was my boss and he was White I probably wouldn™t think so mu ch about it, and that affects me daily. 157 Rachel™s comments are interesting because she star ted to say that how she is perceived in public did not affect her actions and then had a moment of realization and admitted she did alter her behavior due to fears people would assume her relationship with her boss was sexual due to his race and gender. Later in the interview, she referenced a popular American stereotype that fiBlack guys date White women and it™s not us ually the other way aroundfl. This idea was echoed by April who talked about her perceptions of the difference between being a White woman on a predominantly White campus and being a White woman on a campus where there were a number of Black me n. April said, So, I don™t remember ever hearing – um, minor ity women being, yelled at or whistled at or anything like that [on a predominantly Wh ite campus]. I don™t remember any of that and I feel like I would have, especially since two of my friends were , they were athletes, and they were African American. Later, April offered she was very intimidated and embarrassed when Black men made what she called ficat callsfl at her when she was at a university that had a significant Black population. She wondered if this was a ficultural difference or what?fl In both of Rachel and April™s answers, there was an undercurrent of sexuality and anxiety suggested in the stories of White women interacting with Black men. Both of these st udents were aware of stereotypes present in American society that stigmatize interracial dating and place a particular label on those who engage in it. Listening to these students™ voices and considering their perceptions is important to understand how White students interpret the intersect ions of race and gender and as a result may or may not engage in conversations across thes e identitiesŠa theme discussed later in this section. At the same time, educators must challe nge stereotypes when students raise them in and out of the classroom. This study suggests ther e are benefits in engaging White students in 158 conversation and reflection about their own race, and taking an intersectional approach to these discussions may be useful in reaching White students. Experience with Another Element of Identity When I asked questions about race in my st udy, some participants talked instead about another way they identified themselves. Over ha lf of the students I interviewed talked about either gender or age when asked questions about their racial experiences. Female participants brought up both gender and age, with some saying that an event related to either led them to also think about being White. In this section, res ponses tying both gender and age to race are examined. Several students talked about how being female and experiencing oppression as a woman led them to an increased awareness of racism. Kimberly said, fi–once one thing that™s kind of messed up about society is pointed out to you, you see more and more.fl An internship in the field of engineering, which Kimberly noted is ve ry much a White male dominated field, caused her to consider various other oppressive elements in society. She talked about her experiences being the only woman on a male team at her internship, – it™s one thing to read about it but then it™s another thing to go to work and and to interact with, you know, other people and especially other engineers and, and it™s kind of, it™s almost, eye-opening but also kind of sad sometimes where I™ll go to work and somebody will make a comment to me that™s meant with good intentions but I™m like, fiThat™s kind of like an insult! Why would you say that to me?fl So – I mean that kind of spawned off into definitely being more interested in you know privilege, you know, monetary versus race versus, you know, cultural differences. It kind of sparked my interest. 159 In both interviews, Kimberly described a proces s of experiencing inequality as a woman and then noticing ways in which other persons were oppr essed, such as due to race and social class. She said, fiI™m not really sure if I can separate being White and being female, seeing as I am both.fl This idea of thinking about race thr ough accessing experiences of gender was also described by Faith, who talked about knowing the fistrugglefl of being a woman and then said, But, when I™m around someone who™s maybe talking about their background and, and struggles they™ve had, that™s when I really notice, fiOh, well, OK, I know what it™s like to be female and struggle against these things, but being White, there™s these little privileges that I didn™t even rea lize all along the way until I™m talking with someone else and realize they didn™t have those same, same experiences. Faith described being with persons of Color and hearing them talk about racial struggles caused her to first identify with the person due what sh e perceived as the shared experience of fighting against injustice. Then, she soon realized being White provided her with additional benefits, which caused her to acknowledge racism. At the e nd of her first interview, Marianne suggested I add the dimension of gender to my research because she thought studying how White college students understand race was not enough. She talked about her thinking related to gender and race, –when I look at race, I often, like fiOh! I can relate because I™m a female!fl Like, that™s a minority and people treat me differently becau se I™m a female. So, I think that there, you can do like, White, then males and females, and then of color, and then males and females. Because I think that, for instan ce, the White male, they are more, like, predominant and they might see things differently than a White female. And maybe perhaps a White female might be more empathetic for what™s happening in like 160 minorities because we are often grouped with minorities. Marianne™s suggestion showed she thought gender and race were linked in important ways. Earlier in her interview, Marianne told a stor y that provided some additional insight to her thinking about how race, gender, and age operate as intersecting pieces of her overall identity. She talked about often working in predominantly Black areas and going to meetings where she is the only White person in the room. Marianne said she felt persons of Color have not taken her seriously in the past because she is a fiyoung, White femalefl and she wondered if it was the combination of these identities that caused conflict or one particular element. She described one recent meeting where this occurred. She said, Like as a few of the representatives came in they shook on, everyone else™s hand except mine – like – is it because I™m female? Is it because I™m young? Or is it because I™m White? Well, there™s another female there my age but she™s of color. And then there™s other people my age but they ™re guys and they™re of color, like, so why? Why? Marianne said the persons in the room did not make eye contact with her and it was not until she spoke and made fia good pointfl that the meeting attendees acknowle dged her presence. The two quotes above are conflicting in that Marianne seemed to sa y first that as a woman, she understood the difficulties persons of Color endured because fiwe are often grouped with minoritiesfl. However, in the second quote, sh e failed to understand how her race might have shaped interactions in a group that was not all White. Marianne™s quotes are indicative of the contradictions I noted often thr oughout this study: White student s seemed very aware of their race at times and then completely unaware at othe r times within the span of just a few hours. While Marianne wondered if she was take n less seriously due to being younger, non-traditional students described being very aware of the stigma of being older while at Midwestern 161 University. Each of the six students over the age of 23 in my study talked about age when asked about the experience of being a Wh ite college student. Macy used the phrase fiit was more the age thingfl three times in her first interview when asked to describe her racial identity. She began her college career at Midwestern in her early 40s and talked about feeling unprepared in the classroom. Macy said most of her first year taking classes meant she was fidouble doingfl the work because she was not familiar with many of the books, assignments, and expectations of professors. She said she first had to figure out what it meant to do things like fitake notesfl before moving on to course content. She said, For me, it was more the age thing – I™m talking Speech 105 and I™m the oldest person in there and we have the BK Handbook, which is, you know, like your little English cheat sheet book and we™re in class and the professor says, you know, fiNow what are the, oh I don™t know, possessive pronouns?fl And I™m like –and they just all, in alphabetical order, and there™s like 46 of them and I™m like, fiShit! fl (laugh). I™m like looking through the book, fiWhere is that?!?fl Macy, Monroe, and Wayne told me they were of ten the oldest students in their classes at Midwestern University, and this meant they wo rked harder and struggled more than other students. Early in the first interview, I asked Monr oe to tell me about hers elf as a student. She said, fiUm, struggling every single day at learning every single day because I™m older.fl When asked if they thought most other White students shared their ideas about race, both Monroe and Wayne provided similar answers. fiNo – I™m, uh, a dinosaur (laugh). You know, I was raised in a whole different erafl said Wayne, a 67 year -old student. Monroe, age 56, responded to the same question, fiI don™t know if they do because th ere™s such an age gap with me and the other studentsfl. Repeatedly throughout both interv iews, the non-traditional students in this study 162 talked about their age when asked about race. Th eir responses were markedly different from the quotes about gender mentioned earlier in this section in that students who mentioned gender talked about feeling like they could understand persons of Color more due to a shared experience of oppression. However, for students who talked about being older in college, their comments indicated they felt more isolated and apart from a ll other students due to their age. Monroe noted professors repeatedly called on younger students in the class before calling on her. She also talked about feeling left out of social dynamics within the cl assroom, first mentioning age and then race. She said, fiI™m not really in anyone™s clique because I™m not of their age, I™m not of their color. Although I try to be, I always try to be, but they won™t let you in.fl In this subsection, I showed that some pa rticipants in my study considered age and gender as important or more impor tant than their race. When as ked to talk about their racial identity, female students said gender often was a gateway to understanding racism. When asked about race, non-traditional interviewees in my study talked about feeling very visible or invisible to others due to being the oldest students in the class. Chapter Summary In this chapter, I presente d study participants™ responses to my research questions of: What is the nature of the experiences of White college students related to race? For those who can fiseefl their race, what events led to this occurrence? I provided students™ direct descriptions of what it meant to be White while in college and discussed factors that influenced their definitions. Chapter Five included a number of educational and other experiences my participants said affected how th ey viewed their own race. Much of their discussion centered on being able to identify their race as a result of being on a campus they perceived as diverse and having interactions with persons of Color. In Chapter Six, I move from explicit answers given in 163 response to my study questions to instead examin e two themes that emerged related to talking about race and racism. 164 CHAPTER SIX: DESIRE TO DISCUSS RACE AND RACISM In Chapter Five, I showed how a group of White college students at Midwestern University described their experience of race. I examined the factors these students said helped them perceive their own race and define it in a society that is predominantly White. The information provided in Chapter Five directly answered the research questions posed at the outset of this study. In this chapter, I explore two important themes that emerged during my research: participants™ desire a nd ability to talk about race and their awareness of racism. Since the Metropolitan Detroit area is identified as one of the most segregated racial and ethnic areas in the United States, I was particularly interested in what White students attending Midwestern University saw, heard, or discussed related to their own race. The following sections detail my observations about students™ willingness to engage in conversations about their race, the reasons they have disengaged from racial discussions in the past, and their ideas about racism. Examining these themes provided additional context and depth in response to this study™s areas of inquiry about the nature of the experiences of White college students and the events that contributed to White students™ percep tion and understanding of their own race. Desire and Ability to Discuss Race Students in my study said Midwestern University promoted an inclusive feeling and climate, which encouraged them to talk openly a bout race. Evidence of this is shared first. Then, my conversations with seve ral students who demonstrated a particularly open approach to discussing their own race are summarized. Thes e sketches provide ideas about the experiences, conditions and environments that enabled studen ts to engage with me in free and seemingly unguarded dialogues about their experiences of race. Then, an examination of the factors that students said prevented them from easily discussing race follows. Reasons students provided for 165 not wanting to talk about race included friends and family members, and perceived power differentials with other persons due to age, gender, position/role, and race. Midwestern University: fiA Special Kind of Bubblefl My interviewees said Midwestern Univers ity was a fiuniquefl place where open dialogue was expected and encouraged. Students told me Midwestern had a reputation for being a very inclusive school and there was evidence of this in many places on campus. These qualities contributed to students feeling safe to engage with me in conversations about being White. Abigail talked about how much she looked forward to moving on campus and starting her college experience at Midwestern, which she purpos ely chose for its diversity. She said she was eager to leave her primarily Wh ite hometown and ficlosed-mindedfl high school. fiI think college just makes people a little bit mo re liberal in their thinking. And a little more – openfl said Abigail. When she found out her roommates at Mi dwestern University were also White, she said she was quite disappointed as she hoped to meet a nd live with persons of other races as part of the college experience. However, Abigail said she found other ways to connect with persons who were not White, particularly in her classes. She noted her classes at Midwestern were much more racially diverse than those of her high school, which enabled her to have more opportunities to meet students of Color. Faith also expected to connect with a diverse group of people through her college career at Midwestern University. She, too, left a primarily White upbringing in a rural area. She came as an adult learner to Midwestern, which she de scribed as fia special kind of bubblefl that enabled persons to expand their education by providing a safe and nurturing environment to talk across difference. She said, –when people are on a college campus, they are working for a goal to better themselves, 166 so most of the time they are going to be more open to having these kinds of intelligent conversations with people that are different than themselves. Faith described her time in college as interesti ng and pleasurable and exhibited a desire to talk openly about issues of race, religion, traditions, a nd more. She described Midwestern University as a fireally cool campus in the f act that I think people are open to discussing differences.fl A day before our second interview, Faith had a conversation at her job on campus with a graduate student who was Romanian and Polish and anothe r student from Yemen. She added that as a White, non-traditional student, her conversation was a thrilling exchange and something she appreciated. fiI like being on this campus because I think there is a lot of opennessfl she said. Faith also said that with practice, she had become aware of her own ideas and biases during these conversations and tried to suspend judgment and truly listen and learn during such discussions. Both Faith and Abigail said the campus climate at Midwestern University met their expectations related to being an amenable environment for learning about and meeting persons of diverse backgrounds. The quotes of Abigail and Faith are two examples illustrating an idea shared by all students in my participant pool at some level: Midwestern University provided a distinctive space where diversity was expected, respected, and could be discussed. In the next section, I examine the responses of three participants to demonstrate the range of understandings White college students had about their race and their related abili ty and desire to discuss race. Sketches of Students Eager to Discuss Race Participants in my study were at a variety of places in their racial consciousness development, with no two students™ journeys bei ng identical. In this section, I feature three students whose responses showed me just how multifaceted and paradoxical the development of racial identity is for White college students. I selected the stories of Rachel, Abigail, and April 167 to highlight their unique positions related to White racial identity, demonstrate the variability of racial consciousness, and consider the ease with which they discussed a topic avoided by many of their White peers. Each of these students were engaged during the interviews and seemed candid when telling me their stories and about th e events that shaped their current understanding of their race. Additionally, I included a discussion with Wayne about an interaction he had with a classmate that was thought-provok ing and challenging. Throughout her interviews, Rachel displayed a pensiveness and yearning to know more information about race and oppression. She seemed keenly interested in the topic of my study, took her time considering the questions, and often stopped midstream while responding to change previous answers due to what seemed like sudden realizations. During our first interview, she said, fiI was just telling someone if I could take a class or two every semester, just for fun, just so I could just become more educ ated and aware about things–fl Rachel, who was 30 years old at the time of our interview, s howed what seemed to be a new and intense awareness of how much she did not know about other cultures, and a willingness to learn more. For her first interview, I met Rachel at her pa rents™ home in Dearborn, which is noted to have one of the largest concentrations of Arab American residents in the United States. When asked what her experience was like being a student in th e most segregated racial/ethnic area in the country, Rachel said, I feel that I don™t know a lot about a culture [Arabic] that I™ve lived in for the last 14-16 years and that um – I™m almo st – as like part of a – I mean, a White student in the middle of that, I go to school w ith a mixture of people in my classes, yet I don™t really know anybody – or anything about them. And th at goes for, I mean, White people too, I suppose, but, I mean – there™s this culture in my backyard that I really don™t know a 168 whole lot about. In this response, Rachel descri bed feeling isolated, realizing she had not intentionally engaged on a personal level with either White persons or persons of Color in her neighborhood or at school. During our conversations, Rachel displayed exampl es of having sudden realizations I mentioned earlier in this section. She seemed to be pr ocessing her ideas and making meaning while we spoke during the interviews. She talked more about the Arabic and Muslim populations she now encountered frequently and said she and her moth er saw a movie that depicted these cultures as very misogynistic. She said, I still don™t knowŠI™ve never really talked to anybody about that from that culture to know if that™s really what they™ve experienced. Everything I know about the cultures, you know, that I encounter on a daily basis whether it be in the neighborhood or school is based on stereotypes because I don™t know anything for myself. Kinda sad actually (nervous laugh). Yeah – (long pause) wow. OK. As I reviewed the transcripts of my interview with Rachel, I realized I would have like to ask her why she had not engaged more fully with Arabic students since she had such a curiosity about the culture. When I interviewed Rachel the first time, I observed from her facial expressions and pauses that she was considering seriously the issues we were discussing. At the beginning of our second interview, I asked Rachel if there was anything she thought of since we last talked that might relate to my study. She excitedly mentione d three incidents that occurred in between our meetings when she thought about issues involving race, stereotypes, and privilege. She talked about how her classes caused her to notice inequalities in society, and said, fiI probably would never have thought that before these last couple years.fl Due to time restrictions on my part, I 169 brought both interviews to what felt like prematur e closes, observing that Rachel would have liked to continue these conversations. Another student who was interested and e ngaged during both interviews was 18-year-old Abigail. While only in her second semester of studies at Midwestern University at the time of our meetings, Abigail talked about how much she liked her classes, living on campus, and the college life. She responded very quickly to the invitation to join my study, and talked about her reaction to seeing the email. She said –I was really interested when I saw the title [White College Students Who Can fiSeefl Their Own Race: A Qualitative Study of Midw estern University]. I said, ‚Wow!™ We study how, usually, how White people act to other races. And we don™t focus on what™s actually happening to them [White students], how they™re changing. When I asked Abigail why she wanted to talk about the subject of my study, she said she always felt strongly about fithis stufffl but did not have opportunities to talk about race in high school. During our discussion, she characterized her high school as racist and closed-minded, suggesting there were few occasions to engage in discussions of race in a positive and healthy way. At the end of our first interview when I asked if she had any suggestions for my study, she said, I would give advice to, like the younger high school students though – I would definitely tell them to go to college and to go somewhere that, you don™t feel comfortable completely. Like, just don™t go somewhere th at is really maybe ri ght by home, that™s – all people that are similar to you. Go some where different – I guess I would tell people to just make yourself a little uncom fortable and that would help. Abigail talked with pride about how she made such a choice to attend a college that was out of her comfort zone. Reflecting on this decision midw ay through her second semester, she said she 170 was pleased with the results. At the end of our first interview, Abigail added, fiI™ve, I™ve [sic] really glad that I got to talk to you about this stuff.fl Similarly, several times during our intervie ws, April expressed she was appreciative to have a space to talk about being a White college student and what race meant to her. When I asked if she had conversations about race with other White stude nts, April said that she had never done this. Instead, she spoke about how she and her boyfriend (who is bi-racial) talked at length about stereotypes, stigmas, and the future . They hoped to work together in careers in education to break down racial barriers with youth. Within moments of beginning our first interview, April told me she was ve ry interested in my study because, It™s the, it™s such an unusual topic – and in my classes we talk a lot about what it™s like to be every other race but White. So it™s kind of nice to finally have somebody that listens to me, as a White student, instead of I get to listen to everybody else about their experiences, so. Throughout both interviews, April talked about struggling between showing her inquisitive nature about other races and feeling unaccepte d by persons of ColorŠparticularly African American persons. She shared with me severa l negative and violent experiences she had with individuals, and said she was grappling with what these events meant in relation to her ideas about equality and her goals as an educator. She said, One of the reasons why I wanted to do this [participate in the study] was because, nobody asks – White people what we think. The y, um, generalize – our beliefs based on who, who speaks the loudest. Um, but – nobody act ually asks us what we think about anything. In regards to, the country, our, our heritage, or – college, our friends. I don™t think that anybody – I don™t know. I think they feel that – I think that minorities feel 171 that – our– voice has already been heard. During the semester we met, April was strugg ling with being a White student talking about culture and race in a classroom that was not primarily White. April provided me with much to think about related to why White college stude nts do or may not engage in conversations involving race based on their prior experiences and their current state of racial consciousness. April wanted to talk about race with me and he r boyfriend, but did not feel she could be as free in other spaces. This idea is explored more fully in the next section where I examine why talking about being White was difficult for my participants in some circumstances. Nine of the 10 students I interviewed wanted to keep talking and lingered long after I stopped the audio recorders and formally ended our interviews. Some walked me to my car in an effort to continue the conversation. Others asked me to email them if I happened to have any articles or information about fithis stuff.fl They asked me to contact them when my dissertation was complete and published because they wanted to know what other students said and how they answered my questions. I was surprised at how genuinely curious and eager students were to talk about the questions and issues raised in my study, even after th ey received their $25 gift card for participation and could end our conversation easily. One exchange in particular ha d a powerful impact on me. Wayne was the first student I interviewed as part of this study. Within onl y moments of beginning my interview protocol, Wayne said, fiSo, um yes – I™m prejudiced (l augh)fl after telling me he thought illegal immigrants who were children should be sent to prison despite their young ages. By the end of our second interview, I heard some responses fr om Wayne that did not align with my views on race. I remember thinking about the importance of maintaining an unbiased view as a researcher and truly listening to my participants™ without judgment but wondering if all my interviews 172 would be this difficult for me. Then, after I turned o ff the recorder at our second interview, Wayne told me a story about an experience he ha d with an Arab American student in one of his classes. He said he disliked her from the start and judged her because of her ethnicity and background. Then, he worked with her on a group project and after many weeks, was completely amazed at how his ideas about her and feelings about her changed. He began to get tears in his eyes during this portion of our meeting when he told me he wrote a paper about his changed perspective and read it in one of his clas ses. He said, fiI couldn™t get emotional there, but I cried like a baby afterwards at home.fl Wayne e xplained that due to his hard life and time spent in poverty and prison, he learned not to be vulnerable in any way in front of other people. He told me the experience of getting to know th is one Arab American student very personally completely changed him. When I asked him w hy he chose to tell me this story after the interview, he said he just remembered and thought it was important for my research. During this study, I was fortunate to have 20 meaningful c onversations with 10 diverse and complex White college students about th eir evolving and sometimes contradictory definitions of what it meant to be White and how they came to that understanding. Despite my efforts to not bring bias and assumptions to the interviews, I realized these were present when my participants said things that took me by surprise. Although at times I disagreed with their viewpoints or wanted to challenge their perspect ives, I appreciated their honesty and willingness to engage with me in the difficult and necessary act of discussing and trying to understand what it means to be White. Factors that Prevent/Inhibit Whit e Students from Discussing Race I heard participants provide a variety of reas ons why they did not feel comfortable talking about race as a White college student. Although my interviewees were willing to talk about 173 being White, several students believed most other Whites must be forced into the conversation. Social circles and family members were cited as barriers to open discussion about being White and race. Various power differentials were identi fied as making participants feel less likely to dialogue about race, including those presented by older persons, faculty, and family members. White students also talked about feeling anxious to discuss race in the presence of persons of Color. Each of these themes is addressed in this section. Whites need to be fiforced tofl talk about race. Several interviewees told me most other White students would not willingly talk about race unless they were fiforced to.fl Rachel said the majority of White people are oblivious to race, gender, and age issues unless fiforced with it, you know, like I am in thes e classesfl referring to her wome n and gender studies courses. She explained that specific issues like fishootings, the killing of people, or the not being able to get married because you™re gayfl are what is ne cessary to get people talking and engaged in making change. Rachel described being figratefulfl for the experiences she had in her classes that compelled her to challenge societal norms and consider her own Whiteness. I found Rachel™s answers to be refreshingly honest because while she seemed very interested in talking to me at length about my study questions, she admitted ha ving a conversation about race did not come naturally to her. Rachel said her college courses helped her understand and talk a bout issues of inequalityŠparticularly race and gender. Faith, another non-traditional student in my study, echoed the idea that Whites need to be pressed to discuss race. Faith, like Rachel, wa s one of the students in this study who had a clearer view of White privileg e and racial inequality. Nevertheless, she admitted she, too, needed prompting at times to consider her race. She said, fiI don™t even think about being White until you focus a conversation like this where you are talking about privilege or what your 174 background is–fl Despite the many examples of cu riosity and genuine interest in exploring race I saw across both of Faith™s interviews, she also ad mitted she needed an external trigger to think about being White, like Rachel. Although earlier April said she never talked with other White students about their race, she then relayed an exchange she had with another White student before her multiculturalism class. Her classmate said, fiI hope this isn™t a, like, ‚Blame-Everythi ng-on-the-White-people™ kind of class.fl April said she and her White clas smate were frustrated in this particular course because although they wanted to work to elimin ate racism, they felt unfairly associated with White persons who were actively being racist. She said, I think we are all, White people are all awar e of, we are aware of these things, but we don™t – discuss them – or, we don™t discuss them until we are forced to discuss them, I guess. Or put in the situation that would enable us to discuss them. Like Rachel, April used the phrase fiforced tofl. At several points during her interviews, April talked about not feeling personally responsible for the racist actions of White persons in the United States due to her own ancestors being immigrants. She thought most other White college students felt the same way and might avoid ta lking about race because they would have judgments placed on them that did not reflect fithe views or behaviorsfl of their own families. Although each of these three women willingly o ffered to meet with me to discuss their experience as White college students, they ackno wledged sometimes even they needed to be fiforcedfl to talk about race and felt most other White students are reluctant to converse about race as well. Friends and family members. Social circles and family members were mentioned as barriers that prevent White students from openly and comfortably discussing race. Rachel told 175 me about an instance where persons in her social network called her racist after she questioned the images and messages contained in a political cartoon. Of the drawing, Rachel said, fiI noticed that the man on the left was a bald ma n who looked brown in color, who had saggy pants on, a gold chain, and a gold belt. And the guy on the right looked like Bill Gates.fl The cartoonist criticized the amount of money the man on the left spent on his clothing, suggesting the White man spent much less on his attire but wa s firichfl in worldly terms. Rachel™s friends accused her of being racist because she pointed ou t the troublesome racial stereotypes depicted in the image and said the cartoon was negatively por traying persons of Color. She said, And I was like, fiNo, I think that I™m looking at it from different perspectives as opposed to just how much money someone spends. I™m looking at it from diff erent angles.fl And I was, I was almost – you know defensive a bout it because, I really don™t think I™m racist in the, the negative term that people asso ciate it with. I™m just being more aware. And, I think – you know, I didn™t really get into it online, but, anyway, that happened, like, two days ago, and – I probably would never have thought that before these last couple years. Rachel™s story is worthy of note because it suggests White college students who do question dominant stereotypes encounter scrutiny and ridicule from frie nds who may not be taking the same courses or experiencing the same insights. This fear of negative peer reaction may prevent White students from speaking up in the future ab out racism. Pressure and criticism may also come from close family members, as shown in the next section. Two students in my study described difficultie s they had in discussing race with close family members. Their stories highlighted the challenges White college students faced as their own racial consciousness developed through campus experiences, but they lived with or were in 176 relationships with persons who were not as advanced in their developmen t. John, a 21-year-old student at the time of this study, lived at home with his parents. He said his relationship with and knowledge of race was fimore complicatedfl during co llege and as he became more aware of the racial tension in the world. Of this, he said, –it bugs me, stuff like that, both ways, all wa ys, and I think I™ve gotten partially from like family influence but I™ve gotten more uncomfortable talking about serious race issues, race issues cuz any affect that my family has on me I try not to let it, sometimes it may, my thoughts but like, I try not to act on it at all. In a fashion similar to his quote above, John de scribed several childhood memories of his father making racist remarks. When he talked about th ese recollections, he stuttered and was hard to understand. John™s responses also showed he contemplated how to respond in a more healthy and authentic way to issues of racism than how he was taught to as a child. When I asked him how he dealt with these feelings of conflict, he described the process of how he handled racist comments made by his father and othe r relatives currently. He said, And when it does come up, I try, just, you know, be quiet and let them have their piece. It™s not worth fighting over anything with that, yeah, I just uh, yeah, like I said it doesn™t come up too much. And when it does, I just hang back, let them speak, and then, it™ll move on in a minute. And, I just, just, it feel s a bit awkward sometimes, yeah, but I just try not to get involved in that discussion. And sometimes I™ll voice like, like, fiReally? Come onfl and stuff like that. At this point in his life, John did not feel able to confront remarks ma de by his father, and he described not wanting to provoke the hard feelings he thought this interruption would cause. John™s struggle during our interactions showed he was not satisfied with his current way of 177 responding to racism. Macy also described feeling powerless to oppose the remarks of her husband, who she depicted as, fiextremely – racist, bigoted – redn eck.fl She reflected on statements she made earlier in our interview about how college classes provided her with a growing awareness of oppression. However, she also admitted she is not always able to act accordingly due to constraints within her relationship with her husband. She said, fiI do, I have the confidence to say something to him but I know it ™s not going to change, so I save my breath (laugh). Does that make sense?fl Macy looked slightly embarrasse d as she talked about her decision not to challenge her husband™s behavior but explained she was in a situation that seemed formidable. She said, fiI™m not going to change the way he thinks, the way he feels, um – so I just look at it as that™s his opinion (laugh) –fl When I pointed out that ear lier in our meeting, Macy was passionate and emotional in her response to being raised by a racist father, she explained her current college life and her home life were very divi ded. She said, fi–it is like a split life. You know, and I shut one off when I got to the other one sometimes. Um, but my girls, I think are, I think are, I™m getting at least some of it through to my kids, so –fl Macy explained she talked with her daughters about issues of race, often when their father was not nearby. She did note one of her daughters was dating a boy who is fihalf Black and half Mexicanfl and her husband made an exception to his narrow thinking because he di d not want to jeopardize his relationship with his daughter. My conversations with Macy, John, and Rachel caused me to wonder how colleges and universities can better equip Wh ite students with tools to help them challenge oppression and interrupt racism when living with or surrounded by intolerant family members and/or friends. Power Differentials. When I asked students why it was so hard for Whites to talk about race, several participants alluded to a power differential between themselves and persons who 178 were male, older, faculty members, or persons of Color. My interviewees reported this perceived lack of authority on their own part made them withhold thei r opinions, become silent, and disengage from conversations. This subsection will examine these barriers th at interviewees said prevented them from feeling able to talk about race. Kimberly described trying to address her White, male, engineering counterparts when they wrongly assumed they could best solve prob lems for a plant in Mexico without hearing from the technicians on site. Sh e said, fiit seemed like I was gett ing a lot of pushbackfl which she felt this was due to her age, gender, and lack of experience. Even though she knew her approach would have solved the problem faster, Kimberly said she relented to the older, White, male perspective of her coworkers due to her status as an intern and the fact that she was a younger woman. She was not in a position of power in her estimation and th is caused her to step back. Several students said age was a barrier in addressing racism, particularly when persons were older than them. John, who felt he could no t oppose his father™s racist remarks, said age might have prevented him from speaking up. Wh en I asked John if he might have responded differently to racist remarks made by someone hi s own age, he said, fiIf they™re older, like, I think I mentioned before, they™re probably set in their ways. So, you™re probably not going to sway them.fl Age and life experience presented an obstacle to John in being able to talk about race. April also talked specifically about age being a barrier to handling a conflict she had in one of her classes. When an older, African American female student made a negative remark in front of a class about April and her bi-racial boyfriend, April said she was in ficomplete shockfl that the comment was not addressed by the professor or her classmates. No one came to April™s aid in the class. When I asked if she talked to the woman who made the remark, April said, I don™t want to talk about something that I don™t think it™s going to be worth talking 179 about. Like I don™t think, she™s 60 someth ing years old. Her opinions are not gonna change. So, I™m not gonna bother discu ssing something with somebody who – I don™t have respect for and I don™t think has respect for me. But it™s difficult. April said instead, she called her boyfriend, who was her own age, after the class to talk about the incident. She talked later about not wanting to participate in the class any longer due to feeling she was powerless to influence the opini ons of her classmate and because her professor failed to address or remedy the situation. Students also discussed how they felt facu lty members exerted power, which restricted students™ ability to have conversations about race. Monroe provided examples of feeling powerless to challenge a faculty member on an assumption about so cioeconomic status. Monroe chose to be silent in her sociol ogy class because she did not want to be exposed in front of her more affluent classmates. She said, The instructor said, they were talking about the Salvation Army and how we could go and help, help people that can™t fill out applications and don™t have the intelligence we have, and I™m thinking to myself, fiI go to the Salvation Army because, I™m a single mom and I need that turkey!fl And, you know, and I thought, I don™t know if she got it really, do you know what I mean? Monroe said she did not say anything to challe nge this comment during class because she did not want the White students in class or her professo r to know this information about her. Later, Monroe told me the same prof essor wrote, fiDisappointed. Di d you even read?!?fl on one of Monroe™s first assignments on which she expended an incredible amount of effort. Monroe talked about feeling vulnerable as a non-traditional student and how this made her less likely to participate in class. She said, 180 So, as an adult learner coming into it, it™s very very hard! It™s almost like a newborn starting over. To me, I think. So she assu med, I was just the lazy, thinking I was gonna get cuz I could tell just by the way she talked to me. When I™d raise my hand, she™d never call me. Monroe was close in age to the professor but talked about being intimidated by the power a faculty member held over her as a student. Monroe said she felt powerless due to her socioeconomic status, which she perc eived to be far below that of her classmates. Both of these factors caused Monroe to refrain from participating in her sociology class discussions, many of which were about racial issues. April talked about being silent in her mu lticulturalism class and a previous class at another institution because she felt intimidated by her professors who were persons of Color. April said in her class at Midw estern University, the female pr ofessor whom she identified as Caribbean, often disagreed with White students in class. April said she often sat with another White student in this class who she described as fivery quiet in class, she doesn™t participate, she doesn™t talk. Um, but she did in the other clas ses we had. So, I can only assume it™s because she™s uncomfortable.fl After the incident Apri l described about an older African American woman making a negative comment to her, Apri l said she felt fidisrespected– like it doesn™t matter what I say, my opinion will be diminished in that class.fl In her first interview, April provided enthusiastic descriptions about learning of different cultures from her father. Then, in her second interview, April™s tone was markedly different, which she attributed to her negative experiences in the multiculturalism class. She said, fiAnd I just feel li ke there™s no, level of respect between the teacher, er, the professor and the students, and the students of different races.fl 181 April also told me about her perceptions of a professor at another institution. She described him as, fiolder, 70s, African American, fought in the Civil Rights Movement.fl April described feeling powerless in that class because being White marked her as filiving in a bubblefl and unaware of the racism in society. She said of her male professor, He was just – very, he just diminished you. And you walked out of there feeling like – it doesn™t matter how I feel because I™m White . And it™s – it™s frustrating – because that™s one of the reasons I feel like – people who are not African American don™t talk. Because it doesn™t matter what we say, we are wrong. And – it™s frustrating. April compared these negative experiences of di scussing race in the college classroom with a positive one she had in high school as part of an accelerated English class. Students were allowed to bring in topics of their choosing with almost no topic barred, and the teacher led stimulating discussion about controversial issu es. The teacher made deliberate efforts to facilitate a respectful dialogue, April noted, by having students sit in a circle, controlling the flow of conversation to one person at a time, creatin g a safe space, using facts as the basis for discussion, and keeping conversations confidential and restricted to those in the classroom. April made sure I understood she wanted to discu ss race in her college classes but explained her frustration stemmed from the educational spaces in two institutions she attended not being set up by professors to promote respectful dialogues for White people. Several students told me that at times, they engaged less in class conversations about race when persons of Color were present in the classroom. During my first interview with Abigail, I asked her to tell me about any e xperiences she had in college that caused her to think about being White. She talked of a recent composition cla ss discussion, where the conversation focused on the shooting death of Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager, by a White police officer. 182 Abigail felt some of her Black classmates we re saying things she knew were untrue based on news articles she read. Abigail noted she withheld her opinions about the case during the discussion because she feared she would be seen as racist by her Black classmates. During the second interview, I asked her why she did not share the information she had about the case while in class. She said, Cuz I knew that, in the real case, um [whispered] Mike Brown, I believe – I™m not sure of the exact situation. But, that the c op, was defending himself for the most part, because, um, he was positioned where he was about to grab his gun. Just from, um, different reports that I heard. And I don™t think people actually knew that? I think they were just listening to what they heard in the media. And I didn™ t want to bring it up though, because I didn™t want to cause an issue in the class. I noted in the quotation above that Abigail whispered before mentioning the name of the teenager involved in this controversial case, a nd this was interesting because our interview was in a place in the library away from any other pers ons. I also observed it was clear Abigail felt her news sources were more reliable than those her African American classmates consulted. During our second interview, I shared this quote with Abigail and asked her why she felt she could not speak up in class, after she describe d Midwestern University as a place where people were really on a filevel playing field.fl She replied, fiIt was more that I ju st, I didn™t feel like stirring up um, drama or, or any controversy.fl In summary, this first section of Chapter Si x provided evidence that the participants in this study demonstrated an interest in discussing their own race and were willing to do so. They felt Midwestern University was a place that promoted inclusiveness and diversity. The responses of Rachel, Abigail, April, and Wayne were ex amined closely to better understand why some 183 students were interested in talking about race. Several factors were provided that interviewees said prevented or inhibited them from talking about race in the past including needing an impetus to do so, friends and family members, and perceived imbalances in power dynamics. The next section examines students™ interest in talking ab out racism, its causes, their experiences with it, and what they felt would happen in the future. Participants™ Awareness of Racism Although none of the questions I asked as part of my interview protocol mentioned the term firacismfl participants in my study talked a bout it. In this section, I share how students defined racism and what they thought were cau ses of discrimination in the United States. Participants™ reactions to my que stion about living in the most segregated urban area in America are provided. Lastly, I examined students™ ideas about the future of racism. In many cases, participants said things that also showed me how unaware they were of White privilege and the ways racism shaped their lives. These instances of fidouble standardsfl are addressed in Chapter Seven of this document. Definitions of Racism Without prompting, several students in this study talked about racism when asked about the nature of their experiences as White colle ge students. In these cases, I asked follow-up questions to understand their perceptions of racism and how they came to learn about it. Some students provided specific definitions and examples. Rachel said she felt ra ce should not be used to classify people in any wa y. She said, Because I feel that it was originally constr ucted to – for the people in power to put in place the people that they thought were inferior to them. So, White man, um you know, used these classifications, you know, whether it be Black or African American or 184 whatnot, basically to, put people into that category so that they knew their place in society. Rachel said she learned about racism in college at the age of 30. She said her current definition was the result of what she learned in her women and gender studies c ourses. Abigail, a traditional age student, responded similarly to Rachel, as she described race as a fisocial constructfl that is fiused against peoplefl. Marianne, a political science major, talked about her work with a non-profit dedicated to eliminating inequality. She said she learned about racial discrimination at the non-profit and in college. She talked about racism several times across her interviews and provided this definition, Structural racism is racism that is in organizations and government and it is uh, been around for, it has been around for a long time a nd it is worked into these organizations, into the government, into the education system and, it™s, it has created a, like a dominant cultural narrative– Although she learned about racism in her courses in college, Marianne said she did not see examples of racism on campus at Midwestern Univ ersity. The majority of students in this study agreed with Marianne and identified Midweste rn as an inclusive place where diversity was respected. Four students mentioned that they le arned about racism in school prior to coming to college. When I asked what students remember ed hearing or learning about racism while in middle and high school, the most frequent responses were distant historical events related to the Civil War, slavery in the United States, intern ment camps, and the Civil Rights Movement. A few students acknowledged the existence of racism, but said it was not as pressing in the modern day as it was years ago. Wayne said , fiYeah – I™m sure there™s still racism but uh – not like there was and uh – I think more kids today probably believe the way I believed in the 185 60s.fl Wayne, a non-traditional student, describe d being one of few Whites in the 1960s who fought for racial equality during the Civil Rights era, and explained that since many White people seemed to be aware of racism today, it was not as big of a societal issue as it was over 50 years ago. Rachel said gender and sexual orientation were fimore pronounced issuesfl than race currently. Although she acknowledged race is still a part of the fihierarchyfl by which society is judged, Rachel felt that nationally, gender identity and sexual orientation were being discussed more among contemporary college students and the media. John, a traditional age student, felt similar to Rachel. He said, I think uh, people my age nowadays they™r e movingŠI don™t want to say moving, it™s almost trendier to move onto different social issues. Like race is so last decade, last century even – It™s like, there™s a lot of di fferent other issues nowadays and racism, that™s been an issue for a while – there™s a lot more new ones, you know with like, uh gender identity and stuff like that that™s mo re, I don™t want to say hotter, but something like that. John explained he felt racism was a problem for older genera tions who experienced specific historical incidents and were not willing to move on to more topical matters. This idea is discussed more fully in the next section related to the reasons participan ts gave to explain why racism still exists. Causes of Racism Participants named several causes of racism, including people, the media, and corporations. Racist people were identified as an important factor contributing to the ongoing existence of racism today. Marianne told seve ral stories of White people she worked with or family members who acted and spoke in closed-m inded ways. She said, fi–like modern racism, 186 uh, people, say like silly things and they don™t realize what it sounds like and they think these things and it doesn™t, they don™t, realize, that, it™s, racist.fl She explained racism stemmed from how people were raised with past generations of grandparents passing racist ideas down to the current generation of parents. Her answer seemed to suggest current traditional age college students were more enlightened on the topic of race and did not display such profoundly racist views as previous age groups. John also talked about how older family members affected the staying power of racism for him personally a nd for society at large. He said, Yeah, like if you could remove that influen ce, just for like a race issue, I think any problems that exist, I think a lot of them would go down – I do think that the past generational influence on people today, younger people today, is a big part of whatever issues are still around with that, I™d say. Several students tied the idea of racist people to the media, wh ich they believed to be a major contributor to ongoing racial inequality. April said fithe people with the loudest voices who are White in the mediafl often were racially intolerant. She particularly noted the fistigmas that White media has put on the Arabic populationfl in recent years. Faith observed a distinct difference between the sense of collaboration she saw daily at Midwestern University across race and the negative messages portrayed by the media on television, radio, and internet. She said, fi–the news, I think, still targets stories or sensationalizes stories that are all about dividing.fl Marianne spoke about how businesses and the 1% controlled much of the marketing and commercials in the media and reinforced firacis m, gender roles, [and] povertyfl. She said, fi–Corporate America and advertisers, and just various organizations kind of uh, uh, create or keep that, you know, inequality and racism going.fl The overall sense I gleaned from participants was they saw both individual, ignorant people and large societal forces as responsible for racism 187 today. Students also seemed to think the roots of racism and the current racial divide in the Detroit area originated deep in the past and although felt today, were not something they could particularly affect or change through their individual actions. Reactions to Living in Metropolitan Detroit Near the end of the first interview, I asked students if they were aware that Midwestern University as located in an area of note as the most segregated in the United States. I explained that the City of Detroit was named as the urban area with the most African American residents, the City of Dearborn had the one of the highest concentrations in the nation of Arab American residents, and the surrounding suburbs were populated overwhelmingly with White residents. Participants™ responses to my que stion about their experience in this unique area were varied but fell into several general categories: aware, not aware/not surprised, and not aware and surprised. In this section, interviewees responses are examined. Only three students said they knew or heard about the statistics and unflattering national distinction related to the areas near and around Midwestern University as being the most racially/ethnically separated community. Macy ca lled it fian apartheid situa tionfl and said fiyet on campus, it™s like a bubble (laugh). A happy bubblefl. She mentioned multiple times during both interviews that students from different cult ures seemed to get along well and described the institution as fiuniquefl and fiinclusivefl. Wayne provided a different perspective when he talked about being aware of the divide. He said property values one half mile into the predominantly White suburban City of Livonia fidoublefl compared to values in the bordering Detroit, which is predominantly Black. He chose to live in Li vonia, which he noted was known as the Whitest city in the nation. Rachel also talked about housing, mentioning that her traditionally White historic neighborhood near Detroit was recently in an uproar due to a thrift store moving in 188 nearby. She said, A lot of the residents – did not want to see that go in for fear of what it would bring, meaning the low income people or – up- to-no-good people because that™s what™s associated with the low income people. A nd to me, I think they [neighbors] also [say] that means Black people... She provided examples of recent news stories about the suburbs not wanting to share in Detroit™s water system because fithey don™t want to take on what they think will come with that land, meaning the people and that cultu refl. Rachel moved to Metropo litan Detroit in 1998 and said fear of racial and ethnic conflict was a common point of conversation among her neighbors. An interesting pattern was seen in the respons es of four students to my question about the division of Detroit, Dearborn, and the suburbs. Although each participant responded in a slightly different way, the general answer was they kne w Detroit had a majority African American population, the suburbs were predominantly Wh ite, and Dearborn had one of the highest concentrations of Arab Americans in the United States. However, they did not consider the bigger picture that the area was fisegregatedfl or notable because it was so separated. Kimberly™s reaction summed up well the pattern I observed. She said, fi–it™s kind of funny because, when you think about it, it™s not that surprising but I just never put two and two together.fl After first saying she was not aware, Faith quickly changed her mind and said something similar to Kimberly, fiWell, you know, I guess I did know that. But, I guess I never really stopped and heard somebody tell me that, that, ‚Yes, that™s fa ctual™fl. Abigail™s answer was conflicting as well. She said, fiYep. I definitely knew that about Detroit, and I knew that about Dearborn – but I didn™t realize how dense it was – I didn™t realize that it was that segregated though, like all three of those.fl Abigail named the cities noted as having large populations of persons of Color 189 but did not think about the suburbs where she lived. After clarifying that I used the word fisegregatedfl when asking my question, John™s an swer also fit this pattern of knowing the housing configurations in the Detroit area but not seeing the whole area as disconnected. He said, Most – yeah, I think individually, I might ha ve knew [sic] all those facts. But I don™t know if I ever put it together, if I ever knew we were number one – Yeah, once you put it together, it doesn™t really surprise me but, uh – yeah I guess, you know, cuz it™s not forced segregation, not like in the past. It™s just people of a like, background and such typically group together and this is just, I don™t know, on a larger scale. Uh, I don™t, yeah, no negative or positive reactions really – just it™s an interesting fact. John™s answer uncovered part of what may have made this question troubling for other students to answer. He struggled with the word fiseg regatedfl and suggested it was a word used to describe a time long ago in United States history. He seemed to feel th e reason for the current residential patterns in and around Detroit today were merely the preference of people to live in similar groups. This same idea was echoed by Abigail when I asked how she thought the Metropolitan Detroit area became so racially di vided and why it stayed that way. She said, fi–people are more comfortable with their ow n race so they, they tend to, you know, stick together for the most part.fl When talking about groups on campus at Midwestern, I also noticed both Macy and Rachel said something similar, wi th Macy believing it was a fisafety kind of thingfl for Chinese engineering students to sit together. Rachel said in the cafeteria, she noticed people tended to be fialike in their groups.fl For the most pa rt, students in my study reported that, again, larger forces outside of their control were at work that caused persons of Color to willingly group together. 190 Faith™s response to this question was wo rth examining more closely due to her background and the observations she made as a re sult. As someone who did not grown up in Michigan, Faith moved to a suburb near Detro it in 1999. Across her interviews, she described the process of how she came to understand the fra gmentation of the Detroit area. She said, I guess I started noticing then, too, when, I m ean, on the surface that you see it™s race. Then, a step lower, you notice that it™s by location and especially relating to how socioeconomically people are kind of divi ded here. So, you know, I™ve no-you take a ride on Woodward, and you go from, the ghetto to mansions (laugh). And I thought that that was very interesting because I thought, fiWow! Here are we in the, you know, the twenty-first century and this is still very, very divided. Faith noted when she completed the emailed ques tionnaire I sent prior to our interview, she realized fihow separate I view race issues as opposed to socioeconomic issues.fl However, she said that as she thought further, she felt the issues fihave roots ultimately in racefl. Lack of public transit and the fimanufacturing bubb lefl of the automotive industry were also factors Faith said perpetuated the divide in Metropolitan Detroit. Faith™s moving to the Detroit area from a largely rural area when she was in her early 20s may have provided her with an outsider perspective. This unique viewpoint enabled her to tie the racial divide around Detroit to issues of socioeconomics and consider the issue at a deeper level than did other students in my study. The Future On the subject of the future of racism in the United States, students were split. Half of the participants envisioned a future with less racial division and half were convinced that the future is bleak. Abigail focused on the progress made over the most recent five decades as her reasoning for a positive outlook. She said, fiI think everything is getting better –slowly but 191 surely – If you even think about the last 50 years, it, the steps that have been taken. It™s pretty remarkable actually.fl She talked about events on campus to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr™s birthday as proof that advancements ha d been made. Kimberly agreed reducing racism has been a fislow processfl. She noted if a person from her grandparent™s generation were asked the same question years ago, they would ha ve responded, fiWell, it will be a non-issue [in 2015]fl. Kimberly reacted, fiAnd we™re not there yet, and we – we don™t seem to be as close as we need to be. Which is a little scary, actuall y.fl Faith spoke of seeing more people involved in interracial relationships both on campus and on television. She noted with optimism that as parents raise children from these partnerships, they may find themselves attending a ficousin™s bar mitzvahfl one day and then having fisushi wi th grandmafl the next day, which will result in people feeling more comfortable across differe nce. She predicted having more diverse experiences would mean, fiThat you don™t have to let one thing define who you are or define your interactions, um, I™m, I™m hoping that pe ople will –will continue to be more collaborativefl. Although each admitted the task was daunting, students in this first group felt overall, racial relations would continue to improve beyond 2015. Not all students in my study agreed that raci al equality would be achieved in the United States. April referenced the re cent demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri and related events in other cities across the country as evidence of what she saw as a future that involved ficivil war, civil unrestfl. She said, fiI don™t think – in history things have ever come – without a fightfl. She added that she and her boyfriend had talked recently about moving out of the United States because of their dismal outlook on race relati ons. Regarding racism, she said, fiUm – it™s essentially been here since before we were here. Since before the country, I guess, was here. And I don™t think it™s like this everywhere else. I don™t think the race relationships are as – 192 negative in other countries.fl She mentioned feari ng for the safety of her bi-racial boyfriend as well. Rachel agreed racism was going to continue indefinitely into the future. She said, fiI think it™s, it™s always gonna be an issue as long as there are people in power.fl She talked about being angry about Whites using their power and position in society to the detriment of others. Referencing recent police brutality cases against African American ma les, she said, fi–I feel like on a smaller scale it is – going backwards. We are repeating events of the past when segregation, we were trying to eliminate it.fl Monroe™s perspective differed from Rach el but was similar to answers provided previously in the interviews of April and Wayne. Monroe said, fiNothing can ever be equal until – (long pause) until people of Color – and creed and race realize that not everything was the White people™s fault.fl She talked about learning in a history class about the origins of slavery. fiThey didn™t become from us [White people]. Th ey came from Black people. White people just realized that you could make mone y and things like that. Which is terrible, really terrible.fl However, Monroe explained when one race felt another had to fiowefl them something, then racial equality would not be possible. Listen without challenging participants™ responses in my study was difficult, but carefully documenting what I did hear students say enab led me to understand their views about racism, race, and privilege. Often, I disagreed with stude nts™ answers and wanted to educate them but gave no outward sign as I felt an obligation to appear unbiased as a researcher. Giving White students an opportunity to talk about their perceptions of race in my study in a non-judgmental environment led to direct observation that partic ipants wanted to talk about race but had limited capabilities, perceived opportunities, and experience doing so. 193 Chapter Summary In Chapter Six I shared that overall, student s in my study displayed a desire to discuss race. I highlighted characteristics that some students felt made Midwestern University a safe place to discuss race, provided in-depth responses from several students who talked openly about the experience of being White. Reasons students disengaged or avoided talking about race on campus and at home were also provided. An anal ysis of participants™ awareness of racism, how they defined it, and what they believed caused racism to continue in the United States was presented. Students™ responses to living in the most segregated urban area in the nation were offered, and contradictions in their answers were identified. Students™ views on the future of racism were shared, with half feeling optimistic and half pessimistic. Chapter Seven moves to discussing the significance of the study results, the implications of the study, and recommendations for practice, pol icy, and research. 194 CHAPTER SEVEN: DISCUSSION, IMPLICATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS The purpose of this study was to learn how contemporary White college students interpreted their own race. In Chapters Five and Six, the findings of this study were presented in response to the research questions posed: 1. What is the nature of the experiences of White college students related to race? 2. For White college students w ho can fiseefl their own race, what events led to this occurrence? (Chesler et al., 2003). The following sub-questions were used in conjunction with the questions above: What does it mean to White college st udents to be White? (e.g., How do White college students describe their experiences of race?) What do these students believe has shaped their ideas about race? (e.g., What types of educational and other experiences affect how White college students view their own race?) The research that informed this study occurred at Midwestern University, specifically chosen for its location in the most segregated urban area in the United States. Themes explored in Chapter Five showed how college students at Midwestern University descri bed what it meant to be White and the events and experiences that led them to perceive their race. In Chapter Six, evidence was provided showing participants were eager to talk about race for this study but felt limited in their abilities to do so in their r eal lives. The reasons and environments that both encouraged and restricted conversations about race for White students were high lighted. Students also talked about the past, present status, and future of racism and evidence of their narrow understanding of the prevalence and impact of discrimination was provided. The first half of Chapter Seven contains an analysis of participants™ responses and 195 connections to literature and research in the fi elds of college student development theory and whiteness studies. This first part is organized into the following sections mirroring the evidence provided in Chapters Five and Six: Being White, Seeing White, Talking About Race, and Seeing Racism. Then, the limitations of this study are presented. Implications for practice and policy are considered. Lastly, areas for future research are suggested. Being White The first research question focused on discove ring how participants in my study defined their experience as White college students. I as ked students directly to describe what being a White person meant to them. Previous resear chers found White college students had difficulty explaining their racial experience (Bonilla-S ilva, 2006; Frankenberg, 1993; Helms, 2008; McKinney, 2005) and my participants struggled as well. These struggles are presented first in this section as disfluencies in speech and fisemantic move sfl (Bonilla-Silva & Forman, 2000); White as invisible and ordinary; and efforts to distance themselves from being White. Then, the advantages and disadvantages of being White ar e examined further within the subsection of Being White. Disfluencies in Speech and Semantic Moves Frequently throughout the interviews, student s paused, stuttered, sighed, whispered, and at times grappled with their inability to expr ess themselves when discussing race. Baldwin (1965) observed and commented about the fistamme ringfl of White Americans when talking to African Americans. Bonilla-Silva (2006) and Bonilla-Silva and Forman (2000) made note of a White interviewee who was easy to understand throughout an interview, but fistuttered remarkablyfl when asked if he was attracted to a woman of another race. Participants in this study exhibited frequent speech disfluencies when asked to talk about any race, including their 196 own. I intentionally created exact transcripts so speech patterns of participants might be examined. The quotes included in Chapters Five and Six showed frequent pauses, stops, and starts while talking and evidence of participants having difficulty in responding to questions. While the scope of this study did not allow for a complete or thorough st ructural or discourse analysis, I did examine the frequency, timing, orde r, and phrasing of many significant quotes to make meaning of findings and themes. This analysis is presented next. The work of Bonilla-Silva and Forman (2000) and Bonilla-Silva (2006) was particularly important to my study because these researchers compared survey data and interview data and examined the attitudes of Wh ite college students related to fifundamental racial issuesŠ affirmative action, interracial marriage, and the significance of discrimi nationfl (2000, p. 75). Their research identified that White persons co mmonly used unique speech patterns as a way to escape appearing prejudiced in today™s age of colorblindness. Through fidiscursive maneuvers or semantic moves,fl White college students used ph rases such as fiI am not a racist, but –fl as qualifiers right before saying something of a ra cist nature (Bonilla-Silva & Forman, 2000, p. 51). I observed participants using similar phrases during interviews for th is study. Marianne acknowledged, fi..this is bad–fl before saying that when she traveled to the City of Detroit, she typically thought about being White. On three occas ions in Rachel™s first interview, she used the phrases, fiI hate to say this, but –fl or fiI feel so sorry for saying this–fl before talking about African Americans. Monroe™s response also cont ained a variation of discursive maneuvers using the word firacialfl when she talked about African American persons. Twice she said something similar to, fi–it sounds really racial, but I™m act ually notfl and once she said fihe™s not racialfl when talking about her son feeling he was discriminated against by an Af rican American coach. She also used the phrase, fiI know it sounds terrible, but I don™t mean it like that at allfl as well. 197 Use of these types of disclaimers showed stude nts were aware on some level that they were about to say something that may have been perc eived negatively by the listener, and they wanted to make sure they did not appear racist. When I examined how each of these students scored on the Oklahoma Racial Attitude s Scale Œ Revised (ORAS-R) assessment (Vandiver & Leach, 2005), both Rachel and Marianne scored high on the bi-polar scale of Dominative/Integrative, showing evidence of racial acceptance, while Monr oe™s score was more in the middle part of the sample. Monroe scored much higher than Rach el and Marianne in the Conflictive type, which suggested Monroe felt persons of Color benefitted more in modern society. I was surprised to find the scores were so different when each of the three students used similar semantic maneuvers. Participants might have used semantic maneuvers regardless of their racial attitudes or levels of consciousness. Some interviewees in my study responded in ways that revealed uncertainty and a lack of confidence in their answers. In the first interview with April, she used the phrase fiI don™t knowfl over 25 times, displaying a sense of doubt in he r responses. While Bonilla-Silva and Forman (2000) stated the use of the phrase, fiI don™t knowfl was in line with a maneuver they called fitopic avoidance by claiming ignorance and ambivale nce,fl April™s response did not seem to be deliberately evasive. Rather, she was unsure and may have been demonstrating what was described as Dissonant by LaFleur, Rowe, and L each (2002) in the reconc eptualized version of the White racial consciousness model of Rowe, Behrens, and Atkinson (1994). Various times in Macy™s answers, she asked me some variation of the question fiDoes that make sense?fl Macy™s responses also were consistent with the Dissonant marker, sugge sting she was not firm in her answers. When considering the totality of wh at I learned about April and Macy during their interviews, both women said they experienced significant and violent events related to race over 198 the course of th3eir lives and were trying to ma ke meaning of those hurtful experiences in light of what they were learning in college. Both women selected majors and careers related to promoting racial equality and were committed to that idea but were struggling with current experiences and their family history in light of what they recently learned. I noted that overall, the responses of Monroe, John, and Wayne acr oss both interviews were different than those of April and Macy. Monroe, John, and Wayne seemed to seek approval or consensus from me for statements they each made by asking fiyou knowfl over and over. Monroe and John used this phrase over 20 times each across their interviews, and Wayne said fiyou knowfl over 50 times in the first interv iew. For Monroe and Wayne, this phrase was used consistently when they talked about experiences with African Americans, and John used it whenever talking about race. Examining the bulk of the interviews and scores on the ORAS-R indicated that the responses of Monroe, John, and Wayne were more in line with what Bonilla- Silva and Forman (2000) deemed as attempts to avoid sounding racist. These three students scored highest in my sample on the Conflictive att itude scale, suggesting that they felt society unfairly benefits persons of Color. Additionally, the five students cited in th is section (April, Ma cy, Monroe, Wayne, and John) all identified themselves as either working class or lower middle class. Bonilla-Silva and Forman (2000) called for more research to be do ne to study if social class relates to Whites™ usage of semantic moves when talking about race. My findings, although limited and not generalizable to a larger population, coincide with the call for more study of the idea that persons of varying socioeconomic status might use semantic moves differently and with various intents. Multiple times throughout the study, I noted th at participants whispered or dropped their voice while talking. Picca and Feagin (2007) conducted research in which White students wrote 199 about their daily lives in racial event journals. They observed White students noted whispering in their journals when talking about Black students in all White groups. Quotes from Monroe and Abigail in Chapter Five and Six of this doc ument provided examples of whispers. In both cases, the interviewees dropped their voices when referring to African American men. There were other notable times when students in this study whispered, such as when April lowered her voice twice, on one occasion immediately before mentioning fiWhite girlsfl and once before saying that her boyfriend was fiAfrican American.fl While the interviews with Monroe, Abigail, and April took place in a library on campus, there were no persons seated within 12 feet of our table. Even though no one could hear our conversation, these students were conditioned to whisper when talking about race. Even more surp rising was that when I spoke to Rachel in her own home, she whispered when telling me about an experience she had. She said, fiI was in a group training session a week or two ago and a man stood up, he was (whisper) Black–fl Despite the fact that Rachel and I were the on ly persons in her own home, she still whispered before stating the race of a person. In each case, participants seemed unaware of the fact that they lowered their voices when talking about race and specifically, when talking about Black men. Findings in my research supported the existing literature (Bonilla-Silva, 2006; Frankenberg, 1993; Helms, 2008; McKinney, 2005) th at White students have deep awkwardness and discomfort when talking about race. Stude nts whispered, sought affirmation for responses, used discursive maneuvers, and exhibited many di sfluencies in responses. The significance of these struggles is that each contributes to the overall problem of White students being uncomfortable and avoiding talking about race. While I experienced participants being interested and even enthusiastic to meet with me and discuss issues of race, the difficulties I 200 observed were substantial and may have prev ented students from engaging in conversations related to race when in larger groups and when persons of Color are present. Since White students represent the majority of students on campus, this could suggest that discussions of race are restricted or avoided at a time when campuses are more diverse than they have ever been. If White students are hesitant and show reluctance to talk openly and freely about race in private and semi-private spaces with ot her White persons, they may behave similarly in classroom and campus spaces at colleges and universities. And more importantly, White students may not be able to engage in the integral and often difficult conversations about race beyond campus in their homes, workplaces, and communities. While participants struggled to express themse lves when talking about race, I also noted participants in my study were willing to fu mble through. They wanted to discuss their experiences and observations and wanted to ask questions and my opinion as well. Although they may not have been able to articulate them selves fluently or confidently, the participants were interested in having conversations with me and were willing to remain in the conversation during the challenging parts. This study suggests it may be possible to identify and engage White college students in similar dialogues about their race. Postsecondary institutions must do more to encourage White students to particip ate actively in discussions about race and privilege. White as Invisible and Ordinary Although the previous section contained many examples of participants altering their speech when talking about race, some of these may have been unconscious reactions to being raised in a predominantly White society in which it is taboo to discuss race. The intricacies and patterns of speech alteration visible to me as the researcher were due to reading the literature, knowing what to look for, and spending a significant amount of time reviewing participant 201 transcripts. Conversely, my participants did not appear to be aware of their actions or behaviors while the interviews took place. However, when asked directly to describe the White experience, participants were conscious and forthright when they talked about their race as being intangible, boring, and blank. Half of the students in this study said they did not actively or fre quently reflect on or notice their race. Many scholars and researcher s have written about Whites™ in ability to see their own race due to its prominence in society (Andersen, 2003; Chesler, Peet, & Sevig, 2003; Helms, 2008; McKinney, 2005). The responses of participants in my study were consistent with what Ortiz and Rhoads (2000) highlighted when they men tioned a White college student who said White culture did not exist. In Chapter Five of this document, I included a quote from Faith who said Whites are fia dime a dozenfl and fiboringfl. Fait h™s description of being White was reminiscent of Cathy Thomas™s now well-known phrase fiHeinz 57 American,fl a quote from the research of Frankenberg (1993) that came to symbolize the sense that Whites felt ordinary and generic in American society. Both Frankenberg and Doan e (2003) cautioned when White people do not see their race, they assume their experience is the American experienceŠwhich prevents them from perceiving and dismantling privilege, racism, a nd oppression. Harper and Hurtado (2007) noted the inability of White students to perceive the se vere inequities experienced by students of Color on campuses. The majority of college and univers ities have mission statements and educational outcomes related to instilling in students an aw areness and appreciation of diversity. Student affairs programs are dedicated to being supportive of and promoting growth for all students in a time where there is more diversity on college campuses and in American society than ever before. And yet, the existing literature and my findings indicate White students continue to be unaware of their race and the privileges a ssociated with being White. 202 Efforts to Distance Themselves from Being White None of the 10 White students I interviewed spoke in an outright positive manner or with pride about their race. Several participants provided answers that seemed like attempts to disassociate themselves with the term White and instead align with their relatives who immigrated to the United States or with the huma n race in general. Both of these responses can be found in the literature. Helms (2008) noted some White persons in her research identified with a specific ethnicity or nationality instead of their race. Hardiman (2001) posed the question, fiDoes a strong sense of ethnicity better equip Whites to participate constructively in a nonracist, equitable, multicultural society?fl (p. 124). Gallagher (2003) suggested that claiming ethnic identity was used by White persons as a ta ctic to avoid racism by showing how White immigrants assimilated and that persons of Colo r lacked the work ethi c and desire to do the same. The responses of April, Kimberly, and Ma cy in this study, while not completely aligned with these ideas, did contain some similar undertone s. Marianne and Rachel referred to the idea that instead of identifying as White, they thought of themselves as fia personfl or as fijust another personfl. What is troubling about these responses is that Marianne and Rachel indicated this association with personhood instead of race cam e from what they learned in courses at Midwestern University. Their responses were reminiscent of th e writing of Dyer (2012) about the dangers to society when White people fail to acknowledge their privileged place in society and instead believe they speak for th e good of the entire human race. Identification with immigrant family memb ers and the human race both seemed like efforts participants made to distance themselves from their race and raci sm, but I cannot say that these were malicious actions by participants. Instead, I observed April, Kimberly, Macy, Marianne, and Rachel each seemed to believe thei r responses were in line with what they had 203 either learned in college classes or from family members. None of these students saw themselves as reinforcing racism in society due to these views. Quite the opposite, students felt they were actively working on learning how to be change agents in their liv es and future careers or carrying on family heritage. This finding was significant becau se it pointed to the need to help White students interrogate and interpret th eir evolving White identity while in college. Each of these students told me at some point dur ing their interviews they were either currently working toward securing equal rights for those who are marginalized in society or hoped to do this work in their future careers . What can educators and practiti oners do to show students like these participants that separating themselves from their racial privilege is actually contrary to their goals of working toward social justice? Advantages and Disadvantages of Being White In the previous section, I showed how students could not easily express their feelings about being White and tried to separate themselves from what they perceived as the stereotypical White experience of wealth and privilege. These themes were also evident when students identified the advantages and disadvantages related to being a Wh ite person in American society. Although participants in this study identified a few areas of racial privilege White persons had overall, the more significant and disturbing theme was participants felt strongly they did not personally benefit from these privileges or they in fact were at a disadvantage because of their race. While these ideas might seem to align eas ily with the previously cited literature that showed Whites had low levels of awareness and a ssumed all persons in society receive the same benefits, this answer is distressing for contemporary higher education educators and practitioners dedicated to teaching students about access, e quality, and social justice. Considering the majority of students in my study said they planne d to pursue careers in service to the public, the 204 magnitude of their lack of awaren ess is of concern. In this section, I examine students™ responses in light of literature related to how White persons develop a sense of identity and their attitudes about race. Then, an analysis of participants™ responses that White persons are overlooked for resources is provided. Not personally experiencing the advantages of Whiteness. Although students named a number of ways White people are advantaged in modern society, some also said they did not experience those benefits personally. The response of Rachel in Chapter Five was particularly interesting to examine due to the conflicting messa ges within it. First, she stated being born White was not advantageous to her, and then she acknowledged being born Black would have been a disadvantage. In the same quote, she said she read statistics and knew White people had specific advantages in society, but she did not e xperience those benefits fipersonallyfl and yet still agreed that inequality existed even though she did not see evidence of it in her life. This confusing comment may be similar to what Bon illa-Silva (2006) called the fiyes and no strategyfl (p. 60). Bonilla-Silva observed White college stud ents™ efforts to avoid appearing racist by first agreeing with a statement, then disagreeing befo re finally saying something discriminatory. Rachel™s answer was also similar to what McKinn ey observed in her study and called fifictions of whitenessfl with White respondents who inaccurate ly fiperceived themselves as victimizedfl (2005, p. 220-221). Another way to examine Rachel™s conflicting answer is to look through the lenses of identity development models and theories. In her stage model to explain White racial identity development, Helms (1993) described the pseudo -independence stage as the first in defining a nonracist White identity. Several of Rachel™s answers seemed consistent with what Helms (2008) described as fi™thinking™ about racial issues rather than ‚feeling™ about themfl (p. 62). 205 Rachel may have been experienci ng conflict in understanding her racial identity as a result of thinking about her coursework. Within the popula tion examined in this study, Rachel™s score on the ORAS-R was one of the highest in the Integrative type, which suggested she was accepting and comfortable with racial difference and felt a moral duty to end racism (LaFleur, Rowe, & Leach, 2002; Vandiver & Leach, 2005). At various times during her interviews, Rachel provided statements that supported these ideas and her score and at other times, she seemed squarely within the domain described as Dissonant, or uncer tain about her level of commitment to racial acceptance or justice (LaFleur, Rowe, & Leach, 2002). This fluctuation could be related to the new experiences and information that caused Ra chel to fiseefl (Chesler, Peet, & Sevig, 2003) her own race and question her previous beliefs. Based on the limited amount of time spent with each participant and the fact that identity is fluid and constantly changing, the data collected for this study is at best, an incomplete rendering of students™ beliefs and understanding of themselves. The ever-shifting nature of racial identity presents a vexing dilemma for those in colleges and universities tasked with planning courses and educational experien ces for White students. More research is needed to help faculty and practit ioners learn how to work with White students experiencing the dissonance necessary for iden tity development and students expressing views consistent with privilege, colorblindness, and racism. Checkpoints could be created within the college experience to cause White students to evaluate their own raci al consciousness and development. Whites think they are overlooked for resources. The majority of students in both this study and my pilot study talked about the idea that college admissions and/or scholarship awards were unfair processes for White stude nts. There is much in the li terature about affirmative action related to college admissions that should have prepared me to hear this from participants 206 (Bonilla-Silva & Forman 2000; Chesler et al., 2003; Doane, 2003; Lipsitz, 2012; Tatum, 2007). In Chapter Five, an extended quote from Abigail, a traditional aged student, suggests that at least some contemporary White students are still conv inced affirmative action worked against them and they discussed it at length while in high school. John™s quote about thinking he would have figotten more financial compensationfl if he fihad n™t been a White malefl also demonstrated the persistent myth and continued ignorance ar ound who receives scholarship funding in higher education. Kantrowitz (2011) stated fimerit-based grants tend to disproportionately select for Caucasian students.fl McKinney (2005) also wrote about the many misconceptions White college students held related to college admi ssions and scholarships, their unawareness of the prevalence of legacy preferences, and that White students named Black students when discussing feeling affirmative action was unfair (p. 159). Two participants in this study specifically mentioned finding many scholarships for African Americans and feeling there were none for them. Both of these participants were female, de scribed themselves as financially in need from lower middle class backgrounds, and also expressed they felt fideservingfl of scholarships. Three of the non-traditional students in this study did not mention college admissions or scholarships but did talk about feeling they were overlooked for monetary resources. Macy™s responses were particularly thought-provoking because of her inability to apply what she learned in her college classes to her life outside of Midwestern UniversityŠa theme that is examined again later in the document when discussing participants™ ability to address racism with friends and family members. Despite talking about ho w much she enjoyed studying on a campus that was fiso diversefl and fivery inclusivefl Macy then used stereotypical language consistent with welfare racism (Neubeck & Cazenave, 2001) in her descriptions of being rejected for financial assistance and seeing Hispanic families using food assistance benefits at her job. She seemed 207 unaware that these reactions to her real-life experiences were in direct conflict with the messages of equality she told me were the core of what she learned in her courses in criminal justice, sociology, and women a nd gender studies. Data regarding college admissions and scholarships are something colleges and universities track. Sharing general statistics and profiles about admissions and scholarships may help dispel the persistent myths that cause intell igent White college students to fall prey to fear- based pre-college gossip reported from participants who attended majority White high schools. However, once in college, sharing this informa tion with students Œ particularly when White students remark how much they enjoy being at a diverse campusŠis necessary. Without these types of ongoing conversations throughout their higher education experience, students like John achieve senior status and still talk about what might have been related to their financial aid packages. Also, without constantly reminding White students to connect what they are learning in their courses to their lives off-campus, students like Macy may compartmentalize lessons learned in college and not think of transferring newly gained knowledge to their home and work environments. McKinney (2005) observed fi–middle- and working-class whites™ anger is often directed toward people of color when they f eel economically disadvant agedfl (p. 189). Although she spoke about this related to employment, the responses of several participants in this study were consistent with the essence of McKinney™s statement. De liberate, intentional, and ongoing efforts are needed at the postsecondary level to teach White st udents about the many layers of privilege they possess in higher education as well as in their daily liv es outside of campus. Experiences with Family and Neighborhoods Before College The students™ responses in this study are noteworthy because they validated the continuation of a concerning trend: White students are coming to campus from predominantly 208 White neighborhoods and schoolsŠdespite the fact that American society is more diverse than ever before in history. My findings reinforced the literature that White students experienced K- 12 school systems completely ab sent of students of Color (Reason & Evans, 2007; Tatum, 2007) and that White parents selected homogenous sc hools and neighborhoods primarily based on race (Johnson & Shapiro, 2003; Pryor, et al., 2011; Tatum 2007). Despite higher education™s focus on promoting diversity and in light of having the highest number of students of Color enrolled in postsecondary education, White st udents arrive on campus largel y unable to fiseefl or identify their own race or the privilege associated with it. All of the participants in my study talked about their childhood experiences, with some sharing painful fifirst timefl stories with me. These accounts were communicated with childlike manne risms and shame, denoting discomfort and unease. These first-time stories were reminiscen t of Helms™ (2008) story of Sally Jane, a parable that showed how White parent s taught their children fiambiguous messagesfl about persons of Color (p. 15). In actuality, the evidence in this study showed most students interviewed learned deliberate messages about race from their fa milies and all-White experiences prior to Midwestern University. With few positive excep tions, the students in this study were taught being White meant living and interacting with ot her White people almost exclusively and that talking about race was difficult and not valued. While higher education institutions cannot cont rol the way students are raised or the attitudes they bring to campus, colleges and universities can teach students to interrogate their beliefs, stereotypes, and perceptions while enrolled. Critical thinki ng must be an integral part of the curriculum in order to ensure all members of the university community are safe and valued. Efforts to promote dialogues and education about race must be intentional Œnot only in response to high-profile incidents like the recent video depicting members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon 209 fraternity at the University of Oklahoma singing r acial slurs and statements that the organization would never admit Black members (Berrett, 201 5). Examining the participant profiles and responses of several students in this study sugge st that family members can have a significant influence on the formation of White students™ r acial identitiesŠboth in negative ways (as in the cases of John and Macy) and positive ways (as in the case of April and Kimberly). These experiences with family can be utilized by faculty and student affairs professions to help White students better understand their racial identity development. The fathers of both John and Macy presented significantly racist views that seemed to exert continued damaging influences and effects on these students years later. For Apr il and Kimberly, having family members who were involved in social justices issues (Kimberly™s grandfather was a memb er of Doctors without Borders) and exposure to racial difference as ex citing and normal (April™s father introduced her to multicultural museums and festivals) resu lted openness and acceptance. Postsecondary educational environments can encourage the deve lopment and growth of healthy White racial identities by providing spaces for reflection upon negative and positive racial experiences with family members. Without deliberate and meani ngful discussions about race and privilege, higher education institutions reinforce the lessons found in Helm™s (2008) parable of Sally Jane in which a White child is taught that race is unspeakable, a limitation, and unimportant. Seeing White In the last section, participan ts™ responses to the question of what it meant to be White were reviewed in light of the existing literature. Subsections included evidence of students exhibiting conscious and unconscious disfluencies of speech and semantic moves to avoid appearing racist or disassociate themselves fr om being White; the finding that several students did not feel they personally experienced advantages as a result of being White; negative and 210 incorrect perceptions about scholarships and co llege admissions; validation of earlier findings that White students continue arriving on campus from predominantly White neighborhoods and schools; and students retelling of fifirst timefl stories with disc omfort and shame. In this next section, participants™ answers about the educational and other experiences that shaped their ideas about race are presented. Subsections include: Is Midwestern University really a fiDiversefl Campus, curricular and co-curricular experiences that caused White students to fiseefltheir own race, hearing stories of persons of Color, being in a group or situation that is not White, and experiences with another element of identity: Gender and Age. Is Midwestern University Really a fiDiversefl Campus? Participants in this study consistently described Midwestern Univ ersity as a fidiversefl campus, even going so far as to say it was fivery diversefl (Macy and Abigail), and fione of the most diverse in the countryfl (John). While Midwestern University was significantly more diverse than the high schools and middle schools the stud ents attended, it was not considered the most diverse campus in the United States or ev en in the top 10 (Stockwell, 2014) or top 50 (Bestcollege.com) per rankings th at utilized statistics from the Integrated Post-Secondary Education System (IPEDS). Rather, these statem ents were indicative of just how racially isolated the participants™ lives had been prior to college. The students interviewed for this study re ported they enjoyed being at Midwestern University because they perceived it as diverse. I inferred from their answers and stories that being in courses and involved in activities at Midwestern University were the first times the majority of students in the study population had su bstantive conversations and interactions with persons of Color. While these interactions showed progress toward increasing the racial awareness of White students, there are also problems with White students overestimating the 211 level of diversity in their environment. Chap ter Two contained citations showing that students on college campuses benefit academically and so cially from multicultural curricular and co- curricular experiences. However, there is also literature indicating spaces of higher learning are not as universally beneficial and harmonious for all as White stude nts often believe. Harper and Hurtado (2007) noted fiWhite student overestimation of minority student satisfactionfl as one of nine persistent themes related to campus racial climates (p. 212). When White students assume everyone feels like they do, students of Color who experience discrimination, intolerance, and racism daily are minimized further through th e ignorance of their White classmates. Several of the students in this study commen ted how excited they were to come to Midwestern and learn about fiso many different culturesfl (Abigail). John™s statement captured this seemingly good-natured White philosophy about going to school at a diverse campus. He said, fi–it™s a good place to, you know, meet new people and experience new things, so it™s a good way to uh, broaden your horizons, just, learn mo re about different people.fl In addition to being a diverse campus, several participants noted Midwestern was also an inclusive campus where everyone got along. However, when I attended two diversity programs on Midwestern™s campus during the semesters in which this study occurred, I heard students of Color tell a different story. One female st udent spoke in a group forum and asked where the White students were as she gestured around a room of over 50 at tendees of which there were only a handful of White students in attendance. In another forum of about 125 attend ees, I overhead another female student of Color remark the only reason so many White students were in attendance was because their professors require d attendance for sociology class credit. During both of these programs, students voiced that when events on cam pus were advertised as diversity or racial discussion events, White students rarely attended. 212 Based on their responses during interviews for this study, I did surmise two of the participants were not interested in truly experiencing a diverse campus but rather felt it would either benefit them for future employment or was just fiwhat you dofl in college. However, I also found six of my participants seemed to have an authentic desire to interact with persons they perceived as racially different from themselv es in meaningful ways while at Midwestern University. Although they did not have all the answers or feel completely comfortable navigating discussions of race, these six stude nts were open to learning and demonstrated potential to develop healthy, non-racist White identities. The part icipants in this studyŠacross all age groupsŠdescribed that being on a diverse campus influenced th eir perceptions about race. However, it is likely that using the Okla homa Racial Attitude Sc ale-Revised (ORAS-R) to select participants resulted in a pool of students who were drawn to discuss race and racial issues. Using the ORAS-R may have influenced the findings in my study as students who did not want to talk about their perceptions of race did not reply to my study invitation and thus, are not represented in my data. Other factors, such as the age of my participants and their place of residency, may have affected what they reported. For example, the responses of Abigail and Monroe reflect their unique situations. Abigail was 18 years of age during the interview and had lived her whole life in a rural town located almo st an hour from Midwestern University. Monroe was 56 years old at the time of our interview and had grown up in th e City of Detroit and lived in several suburbs since. The experiences of each student were exclusive and the results of my study are not generalizable to a larger population. Factors such as age and the locations in which students lived could have limited or contributed to their answers to my questions and thus, are noted as a limitation of this study. White students need a more realistic understand ing of the racial diversity and inequality 213 on most college campuses. The challenge for high er education is to find effective methods for educating White students without causing them to retreat from conversations on race due to defensiveness and guilt. Colleges and universities must determin e how to show White students that attending a fidiversefl campus as a spectator is not enough. Administrators and educators need ways to help White students understand thei r participation and engagement are integral at diversity events and discussions about race. Curricular and Cocurricular Experiences that Caused White St udents to fiSeefl Their Race The college classroom was cited as the central place where most of the participants in this study learned how to fiseefl their own race and identify White privilege while at Midwestern University. While courses in the social scienc es were mentioned most often, students talked about courses within their major fields of study that also sparked insights to issues of oppression and discrimination. Students mentioned specifi c assignments as particularly insightful to understanding White privilege, in cluding defining White cultur e, selecting photographs that represent power, reading and analyzing achieveme nt statistics by race, discussing readings and ideas in class, and reflection activities. McKinney (2005) cited the need for fimany more college courses dealing with systemic racism in the Unit ed Statesfl (p. 224) and said the optimal place for the antiracist fire-educationfl of White persons is fithe college classroomfl (p. 225). Tatum (2007) discussed the importance of engaging college stud ents with fimulticultural perspectivesfl early in the college process and suggested the first-year seminar as a promising mechanism to do so (p. 122). While the first-year seminar is the entry poi nt for traditional age students, transfer and adult learners often bypass new student programs and miss such opportunities. Faith™s quote in Chapter Five about working on campus reminds us the majority of adult learnersŠparticularly 214 those who are commutersŠspend their time on campus almost exclusively in classes. Faith spoke about how working on campus provided her with opportunities to connect with diverse persons. She said most adult learners are unabl e to participate in many extracurricular activities due to other obligations off-campus . Administrators must work with faculty and student affairs professionals to intentionally structure the higher education experience so students of all types learn about structural racism a nd privilegeŠparticularly White st udents. Providing a variety of intentional activities within the curriculum, through co-curricular experiences, and at extracurricular events will provide multiple cont act and education points to help White students interrogate their privilege and understand the necessity to dismantle it, as well as develop the integral knowledge of cultural competency. Hearing the Stories of Persons of Color Six of the 10 participants in this study said they were affected by hearing persons of Color talk about their personal experiences with prejudice and discrimination. Through interactions with classm ates, hearing speakers in class or at events, and spending time with friends, interviewees talked about how seeing real-life examples of racism in action and meeting those hurt by it affected their thinking about what it means to be White. When students told me about listening to speakers or friends share their story, I observed a heightened emotional state in interviewees. Their voices raise d, they used their hands more wh ile talking, and got physically involved in the retelling of the experience. In a study involving over 600 White college students writing in racial event journa ls, Picca and Feagin (2007) found few accounts in which White students showed sensitivity to the discrimination experienced by persons of Color. One exception was for students who had friends who experienced racial profiling encounters with police. These experiences helped White student s fiseefl the preferential treatment White persons 215 receive as well as to start fito develop some understandings from the viewpoint of discrimination™s victimsfl (p. 236). I found similar re actions in some of my study participants. From interviewees, I heard that their racial consciousness was raised when a particular pattern was followed. First, the White student wa s with a person who they perceived as racially different from themselves. The White student e ither saw this person struggling with or heard them telling of a prior experien ce with discrimination. Several White students said they asked the person of Color affected, fiDoes this happen to you all the time?fl and received confirmatory answers. The discrimination was then seen as va lid and true by the participants, causing them to reflect on the fact that they had not struggled against the same discriminatory factor they observed for the person of Color. From the acco unts in this study, students said this reflection time often occurred after the event and apart from the victim. Participants told me they were able to understand White privilege on a deeper level after going through this multi-step process. The pattern described above is problematic for a host of reasons. Having persons of Color tell their story seems promising and eff ective due to the few methods available for teaching White college students about their privilege and related responsibilit ies to dismantle it. However, this approach takes responsibility away from White people and places the burden of education on those deeply affected by racial in equality. The use of Critical Race Theory (CRT) may be helpful in educating Whites about racism and privilege. Ledesma and Calderon (2015) highlighted the benefits of applying CRT to higher education and using methods such as capturing the counter stories of persons of Color, which results in the fiamplification of usually silenced voicesfl (p. 217). A series of deliberate, varied, and ongoing strategies are necessary to educate White students about pr ivilege throughout their higher education experience and CRT looks to be a promising tool. 216 Being in a Group or Situation that is Not White Interactions between White women and Black men were mentioned by several female participants in this study. This finding is worth noting because of the persistent and destructive stereotype that White women should, and do, fear Black men (Collins, 2005). Picca and Feagin (2007) noted White female college students wrote about this topic in their racial event journals, and indicated fisome fear of black men, no matter wh ere they were or how they lookedfl (p. 252). In my study, both Rachel and April recalled feelin g aware, paranoid, or embarrassed that persons around them perceived or suggested a sexual re lationship between themselves and African American men with whom they were interacting. Additionally, Marianne talked about feeling vulnerable when going to Detroit because she is a fiyoung femalefl. Across these descriptions, White female students showed feelings of anxi ety when interacting with Black men. While I included this finding as part of the experiences that caused White students to see their race (Chapter Five), I could easily have considered th e responses of Rachel and April as a factor that could prevent or inhibit White female students from discussing race (Chapter Six). The confines and limitations of the interview space did not allo w me to probe these participants™ statements further to gain more understanding of these e xperiences or to challenge the stereotypes. However, it was clear negative stereotypes did affect how these participants interacted with Black men on and off-campus and their ideas ab out what it meant to be a White woman. Considering these findings is important when trying to develop educational programming and interventions to increase understanding and interactions among co llege students. In the next section, the topic of gender identity is examined further with particular emphasis on intersectionality. 217 Experiences with Another Element of Identity: Gender When I asked White students to tell me a bout their experiences of race, some female participants instead talked about gender. Kimber ly talked about feeling marginalized in an all- White, male work environment. Faith said wh ile she knew about the fistrugglesfl of being a woman, she realized women who were not White experienced compounded challenges in society due to the additional burdens of racism. Mari anne suggested I add the study of gender to my research because studying race was not enough to understand White college students™ experiences. Additionally, Marianne said White women would be more fiempatheticfl to the oppression of fiminoritiesfl because fiwe are often grouped with minorities.fl Kimberly wondered if she could even fiseparate being White and bei ng female.fl These participants viewed their gender as more salient and easie r to discuss than race. While analyzing my findings, I originally clas sified these responses as a barrier to White students being able to see their race. However, after consideri ng the significance of my data in light of the literature, I suggest gender could be used as a doorway to encourage White female college students to further explore and question their privilege. A study by Wolff and Munley (2012) used several assessment measures, includi ng the ORAS-R and examined the relationships between White racial consciousness, feminist id entity development, and family environment in undergraduate women. One of their findings showed fimore advanced stages of feminist identity development were related to more anti-racist White racial consciousness attitudes.fl Indeed, in this study, the three female students cited above demonstrated high scores on the Dominative/Integrative scale of the ORAS, affirming their high le vels of racial acceptance. Because these participants identif ied with what they viewed as a marginalized identity, it is possible they were more conscious of other fo rms of oppression. In a study of White college 218 students, Picca and Feagin (2007) found fiwomen were more likely than white men to be dissentersfl when an interaction involving stereotypical or racist language occurred (p. 15). Using gender as a doorway to enter conversations of race may be a useful strategy to help White women understand racism. In my participants™ responses, I also saw attempts to make meaning across several identities, including gender, race, age, and socioeconomic status. From the field of student development literature, Abes, Jones, and McEwen (2007) provided a reconceptualized model of multiple dimensions of identity based on the original model suggested by Jones and McEwen (2000) that may be helpful when creating experiences to help White students see, interpret, and question their privilege. Varying educational strategies and approaches are necessary to educate White students across their many identities. Teaching White students about the matrix of domination created by Collins™s (2000) and study ing intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991) are additional approaches to the unwieldy task of supporting college students as they navigate their identity development. Ferber (2014) offered a promising tool worthy of more attention as it incorporated both the work of Collins and Cren shaw into a framework for teaching college students about race. Experiences with Another Element of Identity: Age The majority of students in my study were adult learners and non-traditional students who were over the age of 23, and each of these students talked about their age when I asked them to talk about their race. From describing their embarrassment of being the oldest person in their classes to struggling through learning new skills in addition to class content, these participants™ responses were consistent with the literature describing the age-related fears of adult students (Kasworm 2010). Despite my dogged efforts to retu rn to questions about race, the majority of 219 students in my study redirected their answers to the subject of age. During the interviews, I noted the frequent discussion of age, but tried repeatedly to steer the conversation to my own interests. Upon further reflection after reviewing the interview transcripts, I realized that acknowledging age as the most salient identity for so me of my participants and encouraging their discussion may have been a better response for me as a researcher . Researchers can learn from this study and remember the im portance of determining and ac knowledging the identity with which their participants are most strongly tied. MacK innon and Floyd (2011) suggest, fiProfessionals must listen and asse ss carefully the stories or narratives adult students tell about their experiences. Instead of expecting adult learners to adapt, stakeholders in education must adapt to the needs of the studentsfl (p. 328). Intervention strategies to engage White college students in discussions of race must be segmented to first address the various other identities that may be more pressing for students. In this section, participants™ responses related to being able to see their own race were examined against the current liter ature. Interpretations of students™ understanding of race were offered with problematic issues highlighted a nd promising related intervention strategies for higher education included. The next section contains an analysis of responses related to how easily interviewees talked about their own race. Desire and Ability to Discuss Race Chapter Six presented evidence th at participants wanted to talk about their experience of being White and about race and racism. Conditi ons and characteristics that encouraged the discussion of racial consciousness within this study were provided. Also underscored were the factors that students said prevented them from openly discussing race. In the next section, I examine participants™ responses in light of the available literature and consider the implications 220 of the findings, mirroring the data presented in Chapter Six. The subsections included in this section are: Midwestern Universi ty was a safe environment, stude nts were eager to discuss race, and factors that prevented /inhibited White students from discussing race. Midwestern University was a Safe Environment In light of the literature previously presented in this study, it was established that for the most part, White people have a low degree of racial self-awareness, feel they lack a culture, have difficulty in talking about or defining their own race, and view White as being normal. Taking these aspects into consideration, I was able to find 10 students at Midwestern University who willingly met with me for several hours to talk a bout what it meant to be White. The students I interviewed perceived Midwestern University to be a fispecialfl place where they could talk about raceŠa topic many White people are known for havi ng difficulties discussing, especially with someone they do not know. My sense from interviewing each of these 10 students was they would have willingly continued the conversation, and this surprised me based on my reading of the literature. Instead of encountering the speechless and confused students who provided uniform answers and tried to avoid answering my questions, I experienced studen ts at varying levels of racial consciousness who were reflective and yet inexperienced with examining an essent ial and influential element of their identity. More can be done at the postsecondary level to stimulate and engage White students in these critical convers ations. Additional strategies are needed to help White students extend their learning from the fispecialfl confines of their colleges and universities to the various other realms of their lives wh ile in and after postsecondary education. The next subsection offers some suggestions based on the sketches of four students featured in Chapter Six who showed an eagerness to discuss race. 221 Students Eager to Discuss Race The purpose of this study was to understa nd the nature of White college students™ experiences related to race a nd more specifically to find st udents who could perceive and understand the meaning of Whiteness. As a result of these goals, I selected students from the ORAS-R with higher scores on the Dominative/Integrative (D/I) scale, and considered the scores on the Reactive and Conflictive scales to help me select participants. In Chapter Six, I provided sketches of three participants who were particularly engaged in the two interviews conducted for this study and one whose comments provided insight to the other end of the racial acceptance continuum: Rachel, Abigail, April, and Wayne . Among this grouping, Wayne was the outlier. He scored the lowest in the population pool on the D/I scale. However, his responses provided much to consider related to the broad spectrum of ways White students interpret their race. These students™ responses are considered next in relation to the literature and the significance of the data gathered for this study. Each of the four students featur ed in this section told me in various ways that they wanted to dialogue with other Whites about race and wanted to have interactions with persons of Color. Rachel admitted she did not know much about her White classmates and she had finever really talkedfl to persons from Arabic cu ltures, despite being among both populations constantly. Abigail reported her reason for volunteering for this study was because White people typically study how fiWhites treat other r acesfl but do not fifocus on what™s actually happening to them [White students], how they™re changing.fl April took this sentiment and made it more personal, stating that her classes often focused on the experiences of persons of Color, and finobody asks – White people what we think. They, um, gene ralize – our beliefs based on who, who speaks the loudestfl referring to the White upper and mi ddle class often featured in the media. 222 The benefits of college students interacting with diverse groups is well-documented (Gurin, 1999; Gurin, Dey, Hurtado, & Gurin, 2002; Harper & Hurtado, 2007; King & Magolda, 2005; Ortiz & Rhoads, 2000; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005. A dditionally, there are studies (Ford, 2012; Hurtado, 2005; Nagda & Zuniga, 2003) showing the benefits of intergroup relations, a pedagogical model described as conversations that fibring together members of two or more social identity groups that have a hi story of conflict or potential conflictfl (Nagda & Zuniga, 2003, p. 113). These extended, facilitated dialogues provide opportunities for students to go far beyond simply interacting with peers. Rather, intergroup dial ogues encourage students to articulate their thoughts, hear perspectives from diverse peers, and ask questions. Additionally, Ford (2012) explored the benefits of intragroup dialogues for White students and found these to be successful in engaging groups of White students in fiissues of race, racism, and privilegefl and produced fisophisticated and nuanced understanding of whiteness and its complexitiesfl (p. 155). Based on my limited interactions with the students in this study, I would suggest each of the students I interviewed would have enjoyed being a part of an intragroup dialogue, as described by Ford. However, using intragroup dialogue with White students could easily be misunderstood as once again elevating the voices of White people. Judging from the students I met through this study, intragroup dialogues would also have enabled participants to gain a deeper understanding of their own racial consciousness and the range of ways White persons identify and interpret their own race. Having intragroup dialogues seems like an important precursor to help White students gain needed insight and skills before being involved in intergroup dialogues with persons of Color. Wayne said he rethought previous stereotypes after having extended contact with a student he described as Arab American through one of his classes at Midwestern University. 223 After being in prison for over a decade, Wayne sa id he had a very difficult time containing his emotions and this prevented him from being able to articulate his feelings verbally either to the student or to others in conversation. Instead, he wrote a paper several semesters later about his feelings and read a portion of it to some of his classmates. For Wayne, this writing about his realizations about race provided a way for him to process his feelings and experiences in a controlled environment. While I was opposed to many of the statements Wayne made during his interview, his responses provided me with much to consider about the range of ways White persons interpret their race. I am certain the reflection paper he described would have provided me with additional insights into understanding White persons who identify as strongly Dominative and Conflictive on the ORAS-R. Severa l researchers used autobiographical journals to study racial issues (McKinney, 2005; Myer s & Williamson, 2001; Picca & Feagin, 2007) and have reported success in conceptualizing the experiences of White college students. These writing pedagogies could be implemented in colle ge classes to stimulate reflection for White students. Factors that Prevented/Inhibited Wh ite Students from Discussing Race Participants named various factors that cau sed them to avoid talking about race or addressing racism both while at Midwestern University and in their lives while away from campus. These reasons included friends and fa mily members students described as racist, perceived power differentials due to gender, age, faculty members, and persons of Color. This section contains an examination and discussion of each factor. Whites need to be forced to talk about race. Overall, students interviewed for this study said they felt Whites needed to be fiforcedfl into having conversations about raceŠthemselves included. Rachel said most White people were fiob livious to race, gender, and age issues.fl Faith 224 said she did not often consider her own race until someone or an event focused the conversation on being White or race. April voiced feeling frustrated that classroom conversations were often focused on blaming White persons for racism. Wh at I heard from these students was while they wanted to engage in conversations about thei r own race, they needed required, ongoing, and educational opportunities to do so. The theoretical framework suggested by Ortiz and Rhoads (2000) was created to fipromote higher levels of White racial consciousnessfl and fideepen student understanding of culture and privileg efl (p. 220). Their multicultural educational framework provided a five step approach that takes students on a structured and deliberate journey from defining what culture is through deconstructing White culture and finally to acquiring a multicultural outlook. This promising educational practice shoul d be considered and required by higher education institutions in conjunction with first-year seminar programs, general education courses, and other required elements of undergraduate programming. In the words of Jillian Kinzie of Indiana University and known for her work with the National Survey of Student Engagement, fiStudents don™t do opti onalfl (Kinzie, 2013). Higher education can no longer leave to chance that White students will ga in an appreciation for diversity as is mentioned in so many mission statements of colleges and univ ersities. Instead, activities that increase the understanding of White students™ racial identity need to be intentional and thoughtfully woven throughout the required curriculum and co-curriculum. Friends and family members. In this study, some students talked about living in two very different worlds related to their racial identity. At Midw estern University, students said they saw an inclusive environment that was co mprised of diverse populations and encouraged dialogue across race. At home and away from campus, several students reported having relatives and friends they characterized as firacistfl and fibigoted.fl These students described themselves as 225 thinking and acting differently than their intolerant and discrimina tory White family and friends. However, after analyzing students™ transcripts across both interviews, I observed several instances of the participants themselves making racially uni nformed statements. John, who described his father as racist and unwilling to change at one point in our time together, also said, I think with affirmative action, like, with someone, if I had been, you know, a diff-if I hadn™t been a White male with my grades and my test scores, I think I would have gotten more financial compensati on, just straight up. John™s comment was particularly disturbing becaus e he was already receiving what he described as fipretty much a full-ridefl scholarship at Midwes tern University and yet felt he deserved more. John™s statement also suggested he misunderstood affirmative action. The research of Solórzano, Ceja, and Yasso (2000) documented the experiences of African American students and the way microaggressions negatively affected their dail y lives through ignorant and hurtful statements made by White students on subjects such as coll ege admissions. John was able to identify his father™s racism but not his own. In Macy™s interviews, she talked about tryi ng to educate her daughters about racism while living with a husband who she said was, fiextremel y – racist, bigoted – redneck.fl Earlier in the interview, she spoke with such regret about having been raised by a father who fiwrote the bookfl on racism. Macy admitted the contradiction of her statements: she was uncomfortable with the intolerance of her childhood and then married a ma n who was also prejudiced. She talked about having learned so much at Midwes tern University about racism, diversity, and inclusion. Yet, she seemed unaware she made seve ral racially biased statements in her interview about persons receiving food and living assistance. As an adult learner who was pursuing a degree in sociology and enjoyed courses in women and gender studies, Macy was also raising 226 children with a husband she described as fiset in his ways.fl She acknowledged the paradoxes that were part of her story but admitted she lacked the ability to change her situation at present and did not have strategies to impr ove it. White students like John and Macy need help understanding the history and roots of racism first and at the same time, need to gain practical strategies for interrupting racism with family members in their homes. The work of Kendall (2013) could be helpful in accomplishing both of these tasks, as she offers practical checklists and examples of concrete statements that can help White college students understand what White privilege and racism looks like in everyday life. For White students who are work ing through learning about racism and trying to gain a healthier racial identity while living with family members who are not doing this same work, being at a place like Midwestern Universi ty provided important experiences for growth. Postsecondary education can provide students with tools and resources to extend their learning beyond campus so they do not have to live the fis plit lifefl Macy described. To effectively interrupt racism wherever it occu rs, White students need deliberate practice in an environment where they can feel comfortable to talk about race, make mistakes, build skills and competence, and gain confidence in their abilities. Colle ges and universities must provide such an educational environment for students. Power Differentials. Students reported a significant reason that prevented them from speaking up about, questioning, or discussing race while in college was they understood there to be power differentials between themselves and ot hers. While gender and age have already been addressed, the influence of faculty members has not. Interviewees said socioeconomic status, race, and their status as students caused them to be withdrawn and silent in the classroom. When faculty members led discussions on race, White stude nts said they felt fidiminishedfl as described 227 by April and out-of-place as described by Monroe. The students only presented their side of the exchange and were working through the dissonance of processing many ideas that could have affected their understanding of th eir race. However, if White st udents perceived faculty were not providing reasonable and safe places for dialogue across the students™ multiple identities, participants reported disengaging from the conversation. At many times during this study, I was frustrat ed with the uninformed and insensitive responses of students and yet felt compelled to re main in the conversation to better understand how to work through their ignorance of privilege in order to learn more about White racial identity development. McKinney (2005) offered suggestions for faculty to use pedagogically, such as hosting speakers who have experienced racism directly, be ing cognizant of actions that will shut down engagement for White students while still challenging their privilege, and ficarefully defining termsfl such as firacefl and fiethnicityfl (p. 225). Tatum (2007) underscored the importance of all who work in higher educati on to admit that we may not have all the tools necessary to fifacilitate these conversations ou rselvesfl and that mistakes will be made and ongoing education is needed. Faculty may have a difficult time admitting they feel unprepared for conversations about race and it is crucial for them to do so since professors spend much time with students and have great influence. Ongoing faculty professional development and keeping current with the latest research in pedagogical journals are ways faculty can ensure they provide a safe and stimulating environment for all students i nvolved. Seeing Racism In her seminal work about racial identit y, Helms (1993) offered the following dictum about White racial identity development: In order to develop a healthy White identit y, defined in part as a nonracist identity, 228 virtually every White person in the United St ates must overcome one or more of these [individual, institutional, or cultural] racism. Additionally, he or she must accept his or her own Whiteness, the cultural implication of being White, and define a view of Self as a racial being that does not depend on the perceived superiority of one racial group over another (p.49). Although I did not include the topic of racism in my interview protocol, I was hopeful participants would talk about it, in line with Helms™ statement. Several students introduced the subject of racism in our conversations and I asked as many follow-up qu estions as possible to explore how participants made sense of it. Rachel and Marianne proudly provided textbook definitions of terms they learned in their studies at Midwestern University. Rachel explained race was socially constructed and therefore should not be used to classify people. Marianne offered an explanation of structural racism that sounded polished. However, both students™ words seemed to portray only a surface level understanding of these concepts. More disappointing were the statements of students who either provided direct examples or responses that indicated a lack of understanding racism or contradict ed the lessons they told me they learned. Additionally, few students admitted to ac ting in a prejudiced way in their own lives. Research suggested contemporary college students ha ve acted in ways consistent with colorblind racism (Reason & Evans, 2007). Additionally, part icipants in this study and the majority of White college students very likely have acted in conscious and or unconscious ways that could be categorized as racial microaggressions (S olórzano, Ceja, & Yosso, 2000). Not only are White students ignorant of the privileges their race gua rantees them, they also overrate how satisfied students of Color are with their college experience (Harper & Hurtado, 2007; McKinney, 2005), which blinds them further to the damaging effects of prejudice on college campuses. 229 Responses about living in the most segregated racial/ethnic area in the United States were of particular significance in this study. I am not aware of another study that queried White college students about their interpretations of why the metropolitan Detroit area is so uniquely separated by race. Participants™ seemed to struggle most with the word fisegregatedfl because it seemed they felt that was a part of the distant past and not relevant to today™s society. However, over and over students said they finever put two and two togetherfl or never heard that this modern segregation was factual. Students acknowledged the racial and socioeconomic divides and said they were aware Detroit had a major ity African American population and Dearborn had the highest concentration of persons of Middle Eastern or Arab American descent. The only piece of the equation students ha d not calculated was that they themselves were persons who lived in the predominantly White suburbs. Part icipants were either unaware or unwilling to admit that poverty, employment, transportation, a nd quality of life issues in the Metropolitan Detroit area were related to segregationŠand the most disadvan taged persons were persons of Color. When participants were asked what they knew about the history of how the greater Detroit area became so segregated, an insidious feature of color blind racism was evident in students™ answers. Bonilla-Silva (2006) found that when asked about segregation patterns of neighborhoods and schools, half of the respondents in his research used what he called the finaturalization framefl to explain White persons™ c hoices to live apart from persons of Color and then view racial groupings as fithat™s the way it isfl (p.37). Even students who demonstrated higher levels of racial acceptance via the ORAS-R offered answers that were aligned with color blind racism when attempting to explain the racial housing patterns in and around Midwestern University. Despite being at an institution that students said fostered inclusiveness and diversity 230 and studying subjects focused heavily on inequality, participants in this study had much to learn about racial discrimination and c onsequently as suggested by Helms in the quote at the start of this subsection, about developing a healthy, antiracist White iden tity. Limitations This study examined the nature of the experi ences of White college students related to race in an attempt to determine what educational and other types of events led to students being able to fiseefl their own race. The findings of this study were not intended to be generalized to other populations or locations but instead to provide a rich explanation and understanding of a discreet group of persons at one institution, in line with the descriptive aims of qualitative research. This study was limited in a number of ways, including study population, usage of the ORAS-R, and the conditions under which the study was conducted. This section includes an examination of these limitations. At 10 participants, the population for this study was small but did c ontain variety. There were only two men in the pool, and the remaining in terviewees were women. Six of the students were over the age of 25 years old, providing much needed data on non-traditionally aged adult learners. From the responses re ceived from my emailed study i nvitation, I chose not to select some students who were under the ag e of 25. Participants were recruited from several resource centers and programs on campus, which may have bi ased the population in favor of students who are more engaged in campus activities. In order to participate, students had to have access to a computer and be willing to meet me twice on campus, which may have dissuaded some students who did not have transportation or technology from participating. My sample contained slightly more students who were pursuing careers in the social science or public service fields, and these students may have had more exposure to courses in which societal inequality was studied. 231 There were also limitations in the design of the study and the methods used to collect data. Meeting with students for only two interviews provided but a small glimpse into the complex area of racial identity. I was able to obtain an incomplete and minimal profile of students at best. Also, racial consciousness and identity are fluid and constantly changing. The responses of participants provided a snapshot of a few particular points in time. Additionally, the ORAS-R was intended to be used with larger sample sizes and measures racial consciousness at a given point in time when the instrument is completed. While the ORAS-R helped me select students who displayed each of the four types, ther e may have been events in students™ lives that caused them to change before and/or after each of the interviews completed. Implications White college students in this study wanted to talk about race but needed several conditions and tools in order to do this successfully. In addition to needing a safe space and a non-judgmental dialogue partner, participants need ed time to reflect and respond as well as the space to explain answers and ask for clarificat ion. While these conditions are not always available in the world outside the walls of acad emia, my findings suggest higher education has an opportunity to engage White students in conver sations of race, guide them in navigating their own racial consciousness and identity development, and help them become full participants in opposing racism. I must acknowledge the possibili ty that using the Oklahoma Racial Attitude Scale-Revised (ORAS-R) may have resulted in my sample including a population of students who wanted to talk about being White and their experiences with racial issues. Students who were not comfortable talking about race most lik ely did not respond to my survey invitation and this may have affected my results. Also, the ages of students in my population and where they resided prior to being interviewed may have affected what was reported. However, these 232 limitations withstanding, the findings of this stu dy provide some insights in to the situations and experiences of ten White students at Midweste rn University. While these results are not generalizable, the findings add to the ongoing conversation about race and diversity in higher education. Colleges and universities can truly live their mission statements and achieve their educational outcomes of instilli ng in students an awareness a nd appreciation of diversity by ensuring White students learn the history and current ways their privilege oppresses others and the language and skills necessary to navigate a multiracial society. The next section includes implications for practice and policy. Implications for Practice In much of the literature, I saw studies and articles written by scholars and activists who are livid about racial inequality, and rightfully so. I had the fort une of hearing several of these scholars speak at Midwestern University, and they were unapologetically angry and passionate about decrying the oppressiveness of White culture that permeates postsecondary education as they advocated for justice for students of Color. Outrage and impassioned condemnations are absolutely necessary to confront privilege, eliminate racism, a nd change the landscape of higher education as well as society. At the same time, approaches faculty and student affairs professionals take when working directly with White students must be different in order to achieve the desired educational outcomes of inspiring awareness a nd appreciation of diversity. In order to provide supportive spaces for conversations on race to be effective, students need educators who are skilled in working acro ss the many ways in which White populations identify themselves (e.g., social, racial, ethn ic, sexual, gender, and gender identity, etc. (Abes, Jones, & McEwen, 2007; Bondi, 2012; Wolff & M unley, 2012). Demonstrating competence in these areas and being well-creden tialed are essential for faculty as well as student affairs 233 practitioners involved in leading discussions of race. Granted, many faculty may not be comfortable discussing race or admitting their lack of knowledge of techniques and pedagogies to do so effectively. More so, faculty may not want to confess that they do not have experience leading conversations on race, particularly if th eir discipline or subject area does not explicitly include race. Fortunately, there are a number of studies and theoretical papers that provide pedagogical recommendations and pr actical strategies for teaching a variety of students in a range of subject areas about race, privilege, and racism. Faculty are warned that White students often struggle in classrooms th at are diverse, and may openly challenge faculty when talking about race and racism (Chavez & Guido-DiBr ito, 1999; Cho, 2011) or become silent and disengage from discussion (Carter et al., 2007). These authors advocate that faculty read as much as possible about how to facilitate conversa tions about race successfu lly so as to provide an environment in which White privilege can be identified and named, promoting learning for all students. Lensmire (2010) suggests, fiWhite ra cial identities are multifarious messes of thought and feelingfl and encourages faculty to firemai n attentive to the pedagogical possibilities of complexity and conflictfl (p. 170). Additional studi es have yielded much insight on topics such as: working with White male college students as they process the meaning of race, the importance of locating students™ racial identity development, the ways White students present defensive strategies to avoid discussions of race in the classroom, and how teaching White students about oppression and privilege has led to the adoption of more comprehensive appreciation of race (Ambrosio, 2013; Cabrera, 2012; Dunn, Dotson, Ford, & Roberts, 2014; and Dass-Brailsford, 2007). Professional development for faculty is necessary, and yet must be planned in accordance with the type of institution and related responsibilities of faculty. Institutions that are small 234 and/or faith-based may embark upon professional development reaching the majority of faculty, while the same approach may be challenging for larg e, research institutions in which priority is given to research and publishing. Attention mu st be given to considering how professional development could be incorporated into the tenure and reward system for faculty. Student affairs professionals may benefit from workshops such as those provided by The National Intergroup Dialogue Institute at the University of Michigan or professional organizations such as NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Educ ation. Institutions could send small groups of faculty or staff to quality training experiences and then have those individuals educate others on campus. These efforts may be expensive in bo th monetary and time resources but can build competence for faculty and student affairs pr ofessionals. Students in this study articulated several factors that caused them to disengage from discussions of race, including perceived power differentials based on gender, age, faculty member presence, and working in groups where pe rsons of Color are present. McKinney (2005) cited additionally fifears of social awkwardness or interpersona l discomfort and tensionfl may prevent White students from talking about and ac ross race. Faculty can consider these factors when preparing lessons. An examination of the classroom environment through Kivel™s (2011) questions for assessing the culture of power can help faculty unearth assumptions and areas of pedagogical bias in the classroom. Using peda gogies such as the multicultural framework suggested by Ortiz and Rhoads (2000) can assist faculty in constructing m eaningful lessons that fiincrease the multicultural understandi ng of all students, but especia lly White studentsfl (p. 226). Incorporating these types of strategies may not be possible in all courses but are necessary parts of the overall postsecondary educational experience of White students. Another recommendation that benefits all students is to teach them practical strategies for 235 interrupting and addressing racism when it happ ens on campus and in th eir lives away from campus. Students in this study said they learne d about racism when hearing persons of Color share their personal stories of discrimination which may be one method for raising students™ awareness of large scale prejudice. To avoid burdening persons of Color with the responsibility of educating students about these issues, White sta ff and faculty need to engage in this work and share the responsibility of helping White students learn about racism. Students should also be taught about racial microaggressions that typically occur in college spaces, such as the events documented by Solórzano, Ceja, & Yosso (2000). While data and theory are important to increasing understanding and awareness, the outcome of learning for White college students must be real-word tactics they can use to disrupt racial jokes, slurs, and stereotypes when they are voiced by partners, family member s, friends, and classmates. Any recommendation directed solely to be nefit White students may draw scorn from many in the field as reifying the White hegemony th at is distressingly present in higher education and American society and channeling scarce re sources away from the students who are most underserved. However, the only way to make steady and long-term progress in helping White college students see their own race, the privileges associated with it, and the effects of racism is to draw students into intentional, required, ongoing, and well-facilitated campus experiences. White students, who comprise the largest part of enrollment in higher ed ucation today, need to be present during discussions of race and to stay engaged. Making the needed changes in college and university settings will take substantial effo rt at all levels of th e organization, and these approaches must be appropriate to the audiences. To truly live out the prevalent postsecondary missions of promoting diversity a nd social justice, student affairs practitioners and faculty need to determine where White students are in thei r journey toward developing a nonracist White 236 identity and support them as they navigate through new spaces and experiences. This work is not more important than righting the many wr ongs experienced by students of Color in the current system. Instead, substantial efforts must be made to s upport all students on their journey to understanding their multiple identities and identifying and breaking down systems of oppression. White students have an important role to play in this effort and need to be taught about their responsibilities in the pursuit of social justice. Implications for Policy Colleges and universities can no longer simp ly offer mission statements promising to promote diversity or make effort s to recruit diverse incoming cl asses of students, staff, and faculty to insure equality acro ss higher education today. With ample evidence to prove that the majority of students enrolled in postsecondary education are White and those students are not able to identify their racial pr ivilege or racism, leaders of postsecondary institutions must create policies addressing these disparitie s or risk reinforcing them. At the highest levels, educational admi nistrators of both K-12 and postsecondary institutions must commit to requiring all st udents participate in high-quality multicultural educational experiences. While this goal is lofty, there is a need to address students™ lack of cultural competence before they arrive on coll ege campuses. Assuming students complete their undergraduate education within four years, colleges and universities may have only a limited time to influence students. Chesler, Peet, & Se vig (2003) found White students in their study at the University of Michigan stated fionce in college, they still did not think about themselves as being whiteŠeven in the presence of diversity; no one and no program invited or required them tofl (p. 224). While there are a variety of institut ional types, administrato rs can create policies that require students to complete coursework and cocurricular ac tivities that satisfy a general 237 education or university requirement for cultural competency. Part icipants in my study who said they wanted to talk about race but needed to be fiforcedfl to provide additional support for this suggestion. Participants reported courses in sociology and psychology caused them to make life- changing discoveries about inequality and oppression. Making these opportunities mandatory for students will not be easy but wi ll be worth the effort. To alleviate the anxiety and myths that are by-products of the college admissions processes and scholarship awards, institutions need to share as much of this information as possible well before potential students arrive on campus. While institutions of higher learning cannot control what high school students think or hear about affirmativ e action and scholarship processes, admissions officers and other univers ity staff can visit high schools and sponsor workshops on campus to share real information a bout who gets in and why and how scholarships are awarded based on merit, athlet ic or legacy status. The need to share data with incoming students about admissions and scholarship awards ar e not relegated for just selective institutions, as students in my pilot study conducted at a smal l, private, institution that was not highly selective shared their erroneous beliefs and concerns that students of Color received the vast majority of scholarships on their campus. Universities also need to share updated information with existing students as they make their way through the institution on their way to graduation. The students I interviewed talked about how mu ch they enjoyed and benefitted from having experiences with diverse peers on campuses like Midwestern University, particularly those whom had come to campus from predominantly White school and neighborhood experiences. The confines of this study did not permit me to explain to students how valuable those interactions were, nor to challenge some of the insensitive responses they provided. Higher education can erase some of the unnecessary mystery around the admissions and funding 238 processes by sharing real and meaningful data wi th students and helping them interpret it in light of larger social justice issues within education. Areas for Future Research Much has been written in recent years about a finewfl subtler racism that has replaced the previous Jim Crow era of racism (Bonilla- Silva, 2006; Neville, Yeung, Todd, Spanierman, & Reed, 2011; Poteat & Spanierman, 2012) . This belief that race does not need to be discussed and racism is an old construct was ec hoed in the responses of several participants in my student when I queried them about the future of race relations. The ORAS-R instrument I used to assess my study participants™ racial consciousness was originally developed in 1996 and reconceptualized in 2002, before much of the recent research and findings on color blind ideologies were published. Since the ORAS-R is still one of the few tools to determine White racial consciousness, more research is needed to determ ine if the language in the questions on the tool stands up to the test of time and the progression and transformation of racism. As I read through the questions and saw words such as fiminoritiesfl fiminorityfl being used on the ORAS-R, I wondered if today™s White college student ra ised in a colorblind society would respond differently to that type of language than a college student almost 20 years ago. The scope of this study did not allow me to gather specific demographic information about students™ socioeconomic st atus, although all students shared this indirectly through their answers to my open-ended questions. In this study, students who self-reported that they struggled financially had lower scores on the ORAS-R on the Dominative/In tegrative scale, but this was not true of all students. More research is needed to determine if socioeconomic status has an influence on the racial consciousness and racial identity of White students. 239 An interesting finding in this study was that despite the fact that nine of the 10 students were raised in predominantly White schools and neighborhoods and had few childhood friends who were persons of Color, seven of these students showed themselves to be actively engaged in working against issues of discrimination or oppre ssion or well on their way to learning how to do so. Hardiman (2001) called for more research on fihow and why some Whites come to reject privilege and racist-defined sense of self while others see themselves as victims of affirmative action and champions of –. race-b ased privilegefl (p. 122). More research in this area would enable institutions of higher learning to develop better educational tools to help assess where White students are in their racial development and interventions to support them in achieving higher levels of racial acceptance. Understanding more about how students develop individual facets of their identities, such as gender, sexual orientation, religion, social class and how these identities work in conjunction with each other would help faculty and student affairs practitioners develop better strategies for teaching White students about race and racism. 240 APPENDICES 241 APPENDIX A: Interview Protocol Introduction: When the participant arrived and we we re comfortably situated, I introduced myself and provided a bit of information abou t my background. I thanked the student for participating in my research. Purpose: The purpose of the study was explained. I stated that the reason for conducting this research was to understand how Wh ite students at Midwestern Un iversity experienced their own race while in college. I explained that the st udy was being conducted as part of my doctoral dissertation requirements at Michig an State University. Procedures: I informed students that pseudonyms would be used instead of their actual names and that all interviews would be audio recorded with me being the only researcher with access to the recordings. After briefly reviewing the Consent Form and emphasizing confidentiality, I provided participants with two copies. Students were encouraged to take time to review the forms. If they elected not to pa rticipate, I thanked them and ended the meeting. If they agreed to continue with the interview, I asked them to si gn both forms and returned one copy to them. I explained to participants that the first interview would last about one hour and consist of open-ended questions and follow-up questions to clarify responses. Students were informed that transcripts would be created afte r the first interview and then available for their review during a second interview. Participants were also informed that I would be taking notes during both interviews. Finally, I told participants that at the end of the second interview, I would provide them with a $25 gift card to show my appreciation for their time. Interview Questions: 1. Please tell me your name. 2. Please select a pseudonym for yourself that I will use in my notes and transcripts. 3. Please describe your standing at the institution (i.e., first-year student, sophomore, etc.) and your major/minor. 4. Tell me a little more about you. 5. Tell me about the demographic composition of students in your grade school, high school, and neighborhood before you came to college. 6. When you think of yourself, do you identify as a White person? 7. Describe what being a White person means to you. 8. Tell me about any family discussion s you have had about being White. 9. How has being White affected you r life while in college? 10. Think of a time when you were very aware of being White. Please describe that event. Note: I will try to determine if the student has the fiskills and consciousness (or instructional and experiential assistance) to deal with or act on it productivelyfl (Chesler, Peet, & Sevig, 224). 242 11. Have you ever had conversations with other college students about being White? If so, please describe a few of those conversations. 12. On a daily basis, how aware are you that you are White? 13. How does being White impact your daily life? a. Have you noticed an advantages or disadvantages of being Wh ite? Tell me about a few. 14. Were you aware that Midwestern University is located in one of the most segregated racial/ethnic areas in the United States? a. The City of Detroit has residents that are primarily African American, the City of Dearborn has the highest concentration of Arab Americans living in the U.S., and the majority of the surrounding s uburbs are predominantly White. b. What has your experience been as a White student living in this area? 15. Think about any experiences you may have had in college that caused you to think about being White. Describe those experiences. a. If student struggles, I might suggest a cla ss, service-learning project, movie night, or other diversity or multicultural programming. 16. Do you think that most other White students share your ideas about what it means to be White? Tell me about that. 17. Has your idea of what it means to be White changed at all since you started college? Explain. 18. What else would you like to tell me about your experiences in college as a White student? 243 APPENDIX B: Invitations to Participate Email Invitation to Study Greetings, My name is Chris Benson, and I am a doctora l student in the Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education (HALE) program at Michigan State Univ ersity. I invite you to participate in a study that will be part of my dissertation research. My purpose is to understand how White college students experience their own race while enrolled in college courses. If you take part in this study, you will be as ked to complete one email questionnaire and participate in two face-to-face intervie ws during the Spring-Summer 2014/Fall 2014 semester/Winter 2015 semester(s). In sum, this will take approximately 75-90 minutes of your time. The interviews will be audio taped so that I can accurately transcribe what we discuss. The recording will be destroyed after my research is completed. All information recorded from the interview will be kept under a pseudonym that you choose. Your name will not be used in any written records or reports. Participation in this study is completely vol untary. You have the right to say no. You may change your mind at any time and withdraw. You may choose not to answer specific questions or to stop participating at any time. Whether you choose to participate or not will have no effect on your grade or evaluation. There is no cost to participate in this study. After completing the second interview in the study, you will receive a $25 gift card for a restaurant or store for your participation. If you are interested in being part of this study, please reply to this email. If you have any questions, please contact me at (734) 432-5430 (office) or (313) 215-7905 (cell) or via email at bensonc4@msu.edu. If you have questions or concer ns about your role and rights as a research participant, would like to obtain information or offer input, or w ould like to register a complaint about this study, you may contact, anonymously if you wish, the Michigan State University™s Human Research Protection Program at 5173552180, Fax 5174324503, or email irb@msu.edu or regular mail at 207 Olds Hall, MSU, Ea st Lansing, MI 48824. With gratitude, Chris Benson MSU HALE Doctoral Student Bensonc4@msu.edu (734) 432-5430 244 Email Questionnaire Hello, Thank you for agreeing to participate in the research study for my dissertation program at Michigan State University. As I mentioned in my previous email, my purpose is to understand how White college students experience their ow n race while enrolled in college. Your participation will help me complete my research. Please reply to this email with answers to the questions below. From the completed responses I receive, I will select students to participate in one-on-one interviews with me. You may or may not be selected to participate in two interviews during the Spring Summer 2014/Fall 2014 semester/Winter 2015 semester(s). In sum, the two interviews will take approximate ly 75-90 minutes of your time. The interviews will consist of open-ended questions about your ideas and perceptions about being a White college student. The interviews will be audio taped , I will create transcripts, and the recordings will be destroyed after my research is completed. All information recorded from the interview will be kept under a pseudonym that you choose. Your name will not be used in any written records or reports. Participation in this study is completely vol untary. You have the right to say no. You may change your mind at any time and withdraw. You may choose not to answer specific questions or to stop participating at any time. Whether you choose to participate or not will have no effect on your grade or evaluation. There is no cost to participate in this study. After completing the second interview of the study, you will receive a $25 gift card for a restaurant or store for your participation. If you have any questions, please contact me at (734) 432-5430 (office) or (313) 215-7905 (cell) or via email at bensonc4@msu.edu. If you have ques tions or concerns about your role and rights as a research participant, would like to obtain information or offer input, or would like to register a complaint about this study, you may contact, anonymously if you wish, the Michigan State University™s Human Research Protec tion Program at 5173552180, Fax 5174324503, or email irb@msu.edu or regular mail at 207 Olds Hall, MSU, East Lansing, MI 48824. Please answer the questions below and send your reply to me via email. With gratitude, Chris Benson MSU HALE Doctoral Student Bensonc4@msu.edu (734) 432-5430 245 QuestionnaireYourName:Preferredemail address:Preferredphone number: Major:Withwhich racialorethnic group(s) doyoumostidentify? AfricanAmerican (non Hispanic)Asian/PacificIslanders Caucasian/White (non Hispanic),LatinoorHispanicNativeAmerican orAleut, orOtherAge: Days/times you areavailabletobeinterviewed: Forthenextseriesofstatements, pleaseindicate yourlevelofdisagreement(fromstronglydisagreeasa1tosomewhatdisagreeasa2)oragreement(from somewhatasa4tostronglyasa5).Ifyouneither agree nordisagree,indicate 3. Strongly Disagree 1SomewhatDisagree 2NeitherAgreeNorDisagree 3SomewhatAgree4Strongly Agree5Please indicate your feelings about the followingstatementsusing the scale above. 1.Icanaccept minoritiesintellectually, yetemotionallyI™mnotreally sure. 2. Minorities deservespecial help ineducation. 3.Welfareprograms areusedtoomuch byminorities. 4.Inselecting myfriends,raceandculturearejust notimportant. 5.BeingWhite givesusaresponsibility towardminorities. 6.Idon™twanttodealmuch withminorities because they aredifferent inways thatIdon™t like. 7.Minorities havemoreinfluence ongovernment programs thantheyshouldhave. 8.Idon™tmind beingoneofthefew Whites inagroupofminoritypeople. 9.Sometimes Ifeelguilty aboutbeingWhitewhenIthink aboutallthebadthings Whiteshavedonetominorities. 246 10.Ibelieve thatminoritypeopleareprobably notassmartasWhites. 11.Previousethnic groups, suchastheIrishorItalians,adaptedtoAmericanculturewithoutmassivegovernment aidprograms, andthatiswhat minoritiestodayshoulddo. 12.Iamcomfortable withmynonracist attitude toward minorities. 13.Whiteshaveanunfairadvantageoverminorities. 14.Minorities deservetobetreated fairly, butthey demandtoomuch.Strongly Disagree 1SomewhatDisagree 2NeitherAgreeNorDisagree 3SomewhatAgree4Strongly Agree5Please indicate your feelings about the followingstatementsusing the scale above. 15.Ibelieve thatitissociety™sresponsibilitytohelp minoritypeople whethertheywantitornot. 16.Overthe pastfewyears thegovernment haspaid moreattention tominority concerns thantheydeserve. 17.Ifaminority familywithaboutthesameincomeandeducation asIhavemovednext door, Iwouldnotlikeitatall. 18.It™simpossible togetafairdealifyouareaminority person. 19.Minorities getmoremedia attentionthan isnecessary. 20.The advantages thatWhitesgetaretaken forgranted. 21.Aboutallthatisnecessary toachieveracialequality inthe U.S. hasbeendone. QuestionsfromtheOklahomaRacial Attitudes Scale,Revised [ORASR].Reproduced with permission ofthe copyrightowner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 247 Email Invitation to Interview Hello,Thank youforcompleting thequestionnaire Irecentlysentyouandagreeingtoparticipate intheresearchstudy formydissertationprogramatMichigan State University. Mypurpose istounderstand howWhitecollegestudentsexperiencetheirownrace while enrolledincollege. Yourparticipation willhelpmewiththisresearchandisgreatly appreciated. Basedonyourresponseandwillingnesstoparticipate, Iwouldliketoschedule aninterviewwith you.Thefirstinterview willconsistofseveralopenended questionsaboutyourideas andperceptions aboutbeingaWhitecollege studentandwilltakeabout45minutes. The interviewswillbeaudiotaped ,Iwillcreatetranscripts,andtherecordingswill bedestroyed aftermyresearch iscompleted. Allinformationrecordedfromtheinterview willbekept under apseudonym that youchoose.Yournamewillnotbeusedinanywritten recordsorreports.Participationinthisstudyiscompletely voluntary.You havetherighttosayno.Youmaychange yourmindatanytimeandwithdraw.Youmaychoosenot toanswer specific questions ortostopparticipating atanytime. Whetheryouchoosetoparticipate ornotwillhavenoeffectonyourgradeorevaluation.Thereisnocosttoparticipate inthisstudy.Aftercompleting the secondinterview ofthestudy,youwillreceivea$25giftcardforarestaurantorstoreforyourparticipation. Pleasereplytoletmeknow whichofthe followingdays/times workwithyourschedule foraninterview: Wecanmeetwhereveryouaremostcomfortable, provided itisfairly quiet asIwillbeaudiotapingourconversation.Pleasesuggestafewlocations orletmeknowifyouwouldlike metofindaplace forustomeet. Iamhappy totraveltoalocation thatisconvenient foryou. Ifyouhaveanyquestions, pleasecontact meat(734)4325430(office)or(313) 2157905(cell) orviaemailatbensonc4@msu.edu. Ifyouhave questionsorconcerns aboutyourroleandrightsasaresearchparticipant, wouldliketoobtaininformationorofferinput, orwould like toregisteracomplaint aboutthisstudy,you maycontact, anonymously ifyouwish, theMichigan StateUniversity™s HumanResearchProtectionProgramat5173552180, Fax5174324503,oremailirb@msu.eduorregularmailat207Olds Hall,MSU, EastLansing,MI48824. Thankyousoverymuch for yourassistance!Withgratitude, ChrisBensonHALEDoctoralStudent Bensonc4@msu.edu(734)4325430 248 APPENDIX C: Research Participan t Information and Consent Form UNDERSTANDING HOW WHITE COLLEGE STUDENTS EXPERIENCE THEIR OWN RACE WHILE IN HIGHER EDUCATION Explanation of the Research: This is a research project being done as part of the requirements for my doctoral degree at Michigan State University. You are being asked to take part in this study because you are currently a college student. The purpose of this study is to learn about how White college students experience and interpret their own race while enrolled in college. About 25 people will take part in this study. If you take part in this study, you are being asked to complete one email questionnaire and participate in two interviews during the Fall 2014/Winter 2015 semester(s). In sum, this will take approximately 75-90 minutes of your time. Audio tape will be used to help me reflect on the information I learn. It will also be used to create transcripts. All information recorded from the interview will be kept under a pseudonym that you choose. Your name will not be used in any written records or reports, and interview notes will only be reviewed by me (the research er). The audio recordings will never be used in any presentations and will only be listened to by the researcher. The recordings will be destroyed after I create acceptable transcripts. Your Rights to Participate, Say No, or Withdraw: Participation in this study is completely voluntary. You have the right to say no. You may change your mind at any time and withdraw. You may choose not to answer specific questions or to stop participating at any time. Whether you choose to participate or not will have no effect on your grade or evaluation. Costs and Compensation for Being in the Study: There is no cost to participate in this study. After completing the second interview of the study, you will receive a $25 gift card for your participation. Contact Information for Questions or Concerns: If you have concerns or questions about this study, such as scientific issues, how to do any part of it, or to report an injury, please contact the researcher, Christine Benson, at (734) 432-5430 (office) or (313) 215-7905 (cell) or via email at bensonc4@msu.edu . If you have questions or concerns about your role and rights as a research participant, would like to obtain information or offer input, or would like to register a complaint about this study, you may contact, anonymously if you wish, the Mi chigan State University™s Human Research Protection Program at 5173552180, Fax 5174324503, or email irb@msu.edu or regular mail at 207 Olds Hall, MSU, East Lansing, MI 48824. Documentation of Informed Consent Your signature below means that you voluntarily agree to participate in this research study. Signature _________________________________________ Date Printed Name: 249 APPENDIX D: Summary Table of Study Participants Table 2: Summary Table of Study Participants PseudonymAgeStanding Major/ Program ofStudy (All pursuing Bachelor's Degree) Residence Status (At Time ofInterview) Part Time orFull Time Student Locations Participant has Lived Employment Status Wayne67SeniorGeneral studiesOff campusPart time South Dakota, various suburbs ofDetroitNot employed Rachel30Sophomore Public communications/ Culture studies Off campus; with parentsPart time Maryland, suburb ofDetroitFull time Macy43Sophomore Criminal Justice/sociologyOff campusPart time Various suburbs ofDetroitFull time Marianne27SeniorPolitical ScienceOff campusPart time Various suburbs ofDetroitFull time John 21SeniorCommunications Off campus; with parentsFull time Suburb ofDetroitNot employed Monroe56SophomoreCriminal Justice Off campusPart time Detroit, various suburbs ofDetroitNot employed Faith37JuniorGeneral studiesOff campusPart time Illinois, various suburbs ofDetroitFull time Abigail18First YearBiology /Psychology Oncampus apartmentsFull time Suburb ofDetroitNot employed April23 Graduate Student Teaching Social Work Bachelor's Off campus with motherFull time Detroit, various suburbs ofDetroitNot employed Kimberly21Senior Industrial Engineering &ChemistryOff campusFull time Suburb ofDetroitInternship 250 BIBLIOGRAPHY 251 BIBLIOGRAPHY A Message from Chancellor Dan Jones. 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