Trials of triumph : campus climate, academic resilience, and racial battle fatigue among Black college students
Academic resilience provides a strengths-based framework for examining personal and contextual factors that impact the academic success of Black college students. At the same time, it is imperative to acknowledge negative outcomes that exist in tandem with academic resilience such as racial battle fatigue (i.e., race-related psychological, physiological, and behavioral stress responses). The present study examined campus climate (i.e., general, academic, and racial campus climate), academic resilience, racial battle fatigue, and civic engagement among Black college students attending a historically and predominantly white institution (PWI). An online survey was used to collect data from a simple random sample of approximately 380 Black college students attending a Midwestern university. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were used to test for (1a) the direct effect of campus climate on academic resilience, (1b) the moderating effect of civic engagement on the relationship between campus climate and academic resilience, (2a) the direct effect of campus climate on racial battle fatigue and (2b) the moderating effect of civic engagement on the relationship between campus climate and racial battle fatigue. This scholarship aimed to advance knowledge about how campus climate impacts Black students holistically, and the significance of civic engagement for guiding how Black students negotiate and navigate the academic milieu to advance their academic goals and support their well-being. Findings revealed differential relationships between general, academic, and racial campus climate and academic resilience such that general and academic campus climate positively predicted academic resilience, but racial campus climate negatively predicted academic resilience. The findings also revealed differential moderation of civic engagement such that civic engagement only moderated the relationship between general campus climate and academic resilience. Similarly, findings revealed differential relationships between general, academic, and racial campus climate and racial battle fatigue (physiological, psychological, physio-behavioral, and psycho-behavioral). General campus climate negatively predicted psychological and psycho-behavioral racial battle fatigue. Academic campus climate negatively predicted each type of racial battle fatigue. Racial campus climate negatively predicted physiological and psychological racial battle fatigue. In addition, the findings revealed differential moderation and conditional variation of civic engagement between each form of campus climate and racial battle fatigue. Civic engagement moderated the relationship between general campus climate and physiological racial battle fatigue. Civic engagement moderated the relationship between academic campus climate and psychological racial battle fatigue, but this moderation was opposite of the hypothesized direction. Civic engagement also moderated the relationship between racial campus climate and psychological racial battle fatigue. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.
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- In Collections
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Electronic Theses & Dissertations
- Copyright Status
- In Copyright
- Material Type
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Theses
- Authors
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Mills, Kristen J.
- Thesis Advisors
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Watling Neal, Jennifer
- Committee Members
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Davidson, William
Johnson, Deborah J.
Royal, Genyne
Anderson-Carpenter, Kaston
- Date Published
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2019
- Subjects
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College environment
African American college students--Social conditions
Academic achievement
African American college students
Psychological aspects
Racism in higher education
United States
Middle West
- Program of Study
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Psychology - Doctor of Philosophy
- Degree Level
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Doctoral
- Language
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English
- Pages
- xii, 200 pages
- ISBN
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9781085687881
1085687880
- Permalink
- https://doi.org/doi:10.25335/b71k-9p61