‘I’m Black and I’m Proud’: A Majority Ecological Context Protects Affective Aspects of Black Identity Under Stereotype Threat

We provide evidence that stereotype threat, a phenomenon that causes stigmatized individuals to experience group-based evaluative concerns (Steele in Am Psychol 52:613–629, 1997; Whistling Vivaldi and other clues to how stereotypes affect us, W.W. Norton, New York, 2010), impacts affective aspects of Black identity as a function of majority versus minority ecological contexts. Black/African-American students, enrolled in either Africana Studies (Black ecological majority) or Psychology (Black ecological minority), completed private and public regard subscales from the Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity (Sellers et al. in Pers Soc Psychol Rev 2:18–39, 1998) at baseline (Time 1) and after being randomly assigned to a stereotype threat or no-threat/control condition (Time 2). In threat, participants were introduced to a ‘puzzle’ task as diagnostic of intellectual abilities, whereas in no-threat the same task was introduced as culture fair, such that people from different racial/ethnic groups had performed similarly on this task in the past. In Psychology, students under threat exhibited a simultaneous decrease and increase in private and public regard, respectively, a pattern shown in the literature to be associated with discrimination-based distress and lesser well-being in Black ecological minority environments. In contrast, Africana Studies students’ racial identity under threat remained intact. We discuss the protective effects of Africana Studies on racial identity and implications for educational reform.     

‘They dug up wounds’: University of the Free State students’ experiences of transformation and integration in campus residences

This article seeks to illuminate the deeper and complex dimensions of post-apartheid transformation by examining how University of the Free State (UFS) undergraduate students experienced racial integration within campus residences. Data were drawn from a sample of 17 individual semi-structured in-depth narrative interviews with student participants. Three emergent themes (a) conceptualizing transformation, (b) racial diversity vs. relational unity, and (c) discourses of openness and possibility are presented. Drawing from the framework of Contact Theory, the article discusses how the three themes inform the nature of contact in post-conflict contexts and, specifically, UFS as an exemplar of a South African historically white university.     

The new ‘twice migrants’: motivations,experiences and disillusionments of Italian-Bangladeshis relocating to London

Taking our cue from an earlier study of East African Asians who ‘onward-migrated’ to the UK in the 1960s and 1970s, this paper looks at the more recent phenomenon of Bangladeshi immigrants in Italy who are onward-migrating to London. We seek to answer three questions. First, why does this migration occur? Second, how does the ethnic group we call ‘Italian-Bangladeshis’ narrate their working lives in London and to what extent do they feel ‘at home’ there? Third, what are the gaps between their expectations held before the move and the actual social and economic conditions they encounter in London? Empirical evidence comes from 40 in-depth interviews with Italian-Bangladeshis who have already onward-migrated or plan to. Most Italian-Bangladeshis move to London to escape socially limiting factory work in Italy, to invest in the educational future of their children, and to join the largest Bangladeshi community outside of their home country. In London, they describe feeling more ‘at home’ than in Italy, due to the size and multiple facilities of the Bangladeshi community, their lack of ‘visibility’ and of racialisation, and the greater sense of religious freedom. But their onward-migration experience has its more negative sides: the inability to access more than low-paid casual work in London’s service economy, the cost of housing, and the difficulty of making social contacts beyond their ethnic community, especially with those they regard as ‘natives’, i.e. ‘white’ British.     

‘Both an Arab and a woman’: gendered,racialised experiences of female Palestinian citizens of Israel

Following feminist and postcolonial discourses, this paper uses the concept of ‘everyday experience’ as a tool to trace the social world of educated Palestinian women in Israel. The term refers to the complex array of these women's experiences in racialised and gendered social sites, as well as within the class, religious, and ethnic contexts in the subordinated group and its relations with the dominant Jewish group. Based on 108 in‐depth interviews with Palestinian women citizens of Israel, the paper claims that educated Palestinian women are located in a ‘third place’ between cultural, gender, class, national and racial structures that generates a continual ambivalence. Within this marginal, ‘unhomely’ space women negotiate their own identities and challenge dominant social definitions. Women create various modes of interim spaces and multi‐dimensional, shifting identities for themselves. The ambivalent attitudes generated by the women's experiences expose the possibility of shedding categorising markers. The omnipresent existence of the gendered, racialised regime of knowledge makes every place a potential site of subversion and resistance.     

‘Chinese-Mexicans’ and ‘Blackest Asians’: Filipino American youth resisting the racial binary

This study provides a deeper understanding of the interracial connections not just between non-whites and whites, but among non-whites. Filipino American youth attending high school in New York City contended with a dominant bipolar racial discourse that marginalizes the racialized experiences of Asians and Pacific Islanders. However, instead of feeling invisible or marginalized, data point to how they negotiated a black–white racial discourse to decide when and how they enter dialogues about race. Filipino youth reconceptualized this racial binary to position themselves on a continuum to form the racial ‘middle ground’ between blacks and whites. Importantly, rather than a racial hierarchy that places whites at the top, youth used discursive strategies to place themselves on a racial continuum that emphasizes the interconnectedness among racial minorities.     

‘I feel myself to be a world citizen’: negotiating Turkish and Alevi identity in Melbourne

The complexity and heterogeneity of modern multicultural societies can both highlight and obscure the diversity which exists within identity groups. Whilst the majority of the Turkish community in Melbourne are Sunni Muslim, significant groups of ethnically, religiously and linguistically different communities also exist. Recent research with women who participate in activities at the Alevi community centre in Melbourne has brought to light many of the issues which are faced by individuals who are doubly excluded from the mainstream of Australian life and culture as migrants and from the mainstream of Turkish diasporic life through a non-Sunni Islamic religious orientation. For some, but not all of these women there is also an added dimension of difference through embracing their Kurdish ethnicity and linguistic background. Both first and second generation Alevi women use a range of strategies to locate themselves within what one respondent called the ‘rose garden’ of Australia since the advent of immigrant diversity.     

‘I was forced here’: perceptions of agency in second generation ‘return’ migration to Tonga

Migrants’ adolescent children sometimes live for periods of time in their parents’ homeland; however, little attention has been paid to this in the literature on ‘return’ migration and transnationalism. This paper explores the experiences of overseas born Tongan youth spending time in high schools in Tonga, whether by choice or because they have been taken or sent due to concerns about their behaviour. The importance of these young people’s perceptions of agency in relation to their move is considered as a factor in their responses to their experiences in Tonga. Other factors shaping those experiences include their family situation, the school they attend and the wider attitudes in Tongan society towards these young people. The paper also considers the question of agency in relation to the cultural expectations these overseas born youth must learn to meet, which entail significant restrictions on their behaviour yet are also a means of strengthening their cultural identity and sense of belonging.     

Counternarratives of students’ experiences returning to comprehensive schools from an involuntary disciplinary alternative school

Educators’ excessive uses of exclusionary discipline have led to increased placements of students in disciplinary alternative schools, but few studies examine student experiences after their alternative school placements. Using a theoretical framework informed by critical race theory and the role of the discourse of safety in student discipline, we compose the counternarratives of nine middle school students’ experiences with the transition from an involuntary disciplinary placement back to a comprehensive school. We then analyze across cases to identify commonalities in their stories. Findings show that students experience dehumanization and exclusion that reflect second-class citizenship. We discuss how educators can resist perpetuating this under class even as the overtly racist rhetoric of populist nationalism replaces the neoliberal color-blind version of the discourse of safety.     

‘Racism under the radar’: Student perceptions of school experiences in a multicultural context

In this study focus groups were conducted to explore Aboriginal and Caucasian student perceptions of school experiences within a multicultural context. Five major themes emerged from students’ dialogues that pose several questions about what sort of racist atmosphere the members of this community are being exposed to on a daily basis. The findings of this study underscore an understanding of Aboriginal student resiliency within a school setting that employs successful school initiatives that aim to promote student success. Further inquiry into these findings is needed.     

‘It wasn’t racism; it was more misunderstanding.’ White teachers,Latino/a students,and racial battle fatigue

This article explores how and why a group of Latino/a high school students identify and explain racism differently over the course of an 18-month participatory action research (PAR) project. To do this we examine what recent scholarship has termed racial microaggressions in what is thought of as the Post-Racial America public school system. Pulling examples from student and teacher interview, focus group, and class discussion data we first examine how these students’ teachers conceptualize and talk about racism, cross-racial relationships, and racial misunderstandings, and then we juxtapose that with students’ discursive work to make sense of the ways their teachers make their conceptualizations known and/or seen in school. Focusing on the K-12 context, this study finds racial battle fatigue may be why students switch between how they label these aggressions.     

‘I am studying in the US but’: observations and insights from Caribbean college students

This paper examines the experiences and views of 12 Caribbean students studying at four Liberal Arts colleges and one large university in the Northeast, USA. The purpose of the study was to ascertain how young educated potential immigrants to the US today are thinking about race, identity, and homeland. The data were gathered through a 12-item open-ended questionnaire electronically administered through Google Forms. Among other issues, the researcher wanted to learn about participants’: decision to study in the US, experiences with race, identity and attitudinal shifts, feelings about being assigned racial labels, and current thinking about returning to their home countries. The findings highlight the acceptance of racial labels except for ‘African American’, a dogged adherence to national identity, the challenge of adjusting to the US racialized space, the view of the US as an education and economic transitional point for migrants on their return journey to their home countries, the formulation of new understandings and attitudes regarding mixed ancestry, and the defining role of sexual orientation in the attitude towards home country versus the US.     

From ‘Black people are not a homosexual act’ to ‘gay is the new Black’: mapping white uses of Blackness in modern gay rights campaigns in the United States

This paper examines the ways in which rhetorics of Blackness and civil rights have been deployed by Whites positioned on both sides of modern gay rights discourse in the United States. The authors argue that the contemporary deployment of Blackness by both gay and anti-gay movements concurrently is linked to the longstanding use of race on both sides of anti-gay referendum and initiative campaigns since the late 1970s, as well as to the even longer history of the racialization of homosexuality in Europe and the United States. The paper offers a brief history of the late nineteenth-century racial construction of homosexuality, which sets the stage for the later pairing of political discourses linking Blackness and homosexuality in the twentieth-century. Drawing on research of gay rights referendums and initiatives from 1977 to 2000, the paper then demonstrates how White religiously-motivated anti-gay activists relied upon divisive arguments about whether homosexuality is ‘like race’ to secularize and legitimize their campaigns. Furthermore, the authors show that White gay activists have adopted varying strategies as the lesbian and gay movement has evolved – from coalitional approaches that refused simplistic ‘like race’ arguments at the height of the gay liberation period, to color-blind ‘human rights’ frameworks in the 1990s, and more direct uses of race in the 2000s that mirror religious right rhetoric. The paper concludes with a discussion of the origins and effects of ‘gay rights versus Black rights’ discourses more broadly, and their implications for contemporary gay marriage debates.     

‘To what world am I being released to?’*: Canadian national news discourse and the anticipated repatriation of Omar Khadr

Between January 2010 and September 2012, Canadians anticipated the possible return of a citizen incarcerated in Guantánamo for approximately a decade. This temporal moment incited narratives about Canadian citizenship and belonging. Narratives, I argue, that are discursively mediated through (and anchored in) the figure of the White Canadian. Khadr’s potential return to Canada is expressed as a perilous racial encounter between white nationals and a foreign racial body. To bring to life this encounter, I draw on three expressions of fear in Canadian national news media. I first trace how narratives of descent, evident in discussions of Khadr’s family and its history, reinforce distinctions between authentic and inauthentic Canadians. Second, I consider how Khadr’s failure to incarnate Canadian values re-produces whiteness and rationality as qualifiers of national membership and belonging. Lastly, I demonstrate how the putatively contagious nature of the Muslim terrorist psyche valorizes racial distinctions between Canadians and Muslims. My work aims to make visible the ideological labor of national news discourse. I think through these representations within the racial politics which structure citizenship and negotiations about what it means to be Canadian.     

Tales from the playing field: black and minority ethnic students’ experiences of physical education teacher education

This article presents findings from recent research exploring black and minority ethnic (BME) students’ experiences of Physical Education teacher education (PETE) in England (Flintoff, 2008). Despite policy initiatives to increase the ethnic diversity of teacher education cohorts, BME students are under-represented in PETE, making up just 2.94% of the 2007/8 national cohort, the year in which this research was conducted. Drawing on in-depth interviews and questionnaires with 25 BME students in PETE, the study sought to contribute to our limited knowledge and understanding of racial and ethnic difference in PE, and to show how ‘race,’ ethnicity and gender are interwoven in individuals’ embodied, everyday experiences of learning how to teach. In the article, two narratives in the form of fictional stories are used to present the findings. I suggest that narratives can be useful for engaging with the experiences of those previously silenced or ignored within Physical Education (PE); they are also designed to provoke an emotional as well as an intellectual response in the reader. Given that teacher education is a place where we should be engaging students, emotionally and politically, to think deeply about teaching, education and social justice and their place within these, I suggest that such stories of difference might have a useful place within a critical PETE pedagogy.     

‘Strange faces’ in the academy: experiences of racialized and Indigenous faculty in Canadian universities

This paper is based on a larger qualitative study of exclusion and belonging as experienced by members of marginalized groups in the professions. The current analysis draws on a subsample of 13 racialized and Indigenous academics at Canadian universities to examine their experiences of both everyday racism – subtle, almost intangible micro-level interactions that convey messages of not fully belonging – and overt racism and colonialism. Overt experiences were less common, though intensely painful. Though in some ways they are more straightforward to address, as they are more obvious, they also consume considerable time and energy. Instances of everyday racism and colonialism were more common, often intricately interwoven with the very fabric of the institutional culture. Their cumulative nature is exhausting. Diversity initiatives, while popular in contemporary universities, are failing to approach equity, in that they deny the need for change in institutional cultures.     

‘Why is our love an issue?’: same-sex marriage and the racial politics of the ordinary

This article analyzes the implicit white racial normativity underpinning the socio-legal struggle for same-sex marriage in Canada. I argue that discursive representations of ‘ordinary lives’ require alignment with terms of neoliberal citizenship – the privacy of property and intimacy – that hold whiteness as the unspoken yet aspirational ideal. As a contestation of heteronormative citizenship, same-sex marriage is not simply a politics of sexuality but also a politics of race.     

Between international student mobility and work migration: experiences of students from EU’s newer member states in Denmark

ABSTRACT

Since 2009, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of students from EU’s newer member states, who enrol as full-degree students at Danish universities. Attracted by the fee-free access to highly ranked universities, these students often arrive with dreams of creating better lives for themselves, and of accumulating Western educational capital. Students from the EU’s newer member states are usually reliant on jobs to sustain themselves in Denmark. However, many find it hard to get regular jobs, and some of them become trapped in semi-legal employment or in low-status, low-paid jobs. Drawing on empirical material collected during a long-term ethnographic fieldwork among full-degree students attending English-medium MA-programmes at a Danish university, this article explores how students from the EU’s newer member states make sense of their lives as students and workers in Denmark, and how they respond to experiences of unequal access to student jobs.     

Return migration as a ‘family project’: exploring the relationship between family life and the readjustment experiences of highly skilled Austrians

Most research studies on return migration analyse remigration and reintegration as individual projects, without considering the interconnectedness of remigrants with their family members. This article addresses this research gap and seeks to add to our understanding of the role which the family plays in shaping reintegration outcomes through a qualitative analysis of the experiences of highly skilled Austrians who returned, with their co- or inter-ethnic family members, in the last 10 years. Results show that the relationship between family and reintegration is complex. Core family members may act both as constraints and as enablers of readjustment. Partners and children ease reintegration by providing enthusiasm, motivation and emotional support. At the same time, family members may also complicate the reintegration process by increasing the amount of administrative work to be done in order to re-organise family life or by triggering feelings of alienation, when family members face (re)-integration challenges. The reintegration process was also found to have a significant impact on highly skilled returnees’ family life. The problem-solving strategies which returnees develop during their process of reintegration either impede the formation of new families, impact on the structure of existing families or change the division of family work in the household.     

Between a ‘student abroad’ and ‘being from Latvia’: inequalities of access,prestige, and foreign-earned cultural capital

ABSTRACT

This paper visualises tertiary-level students who study abroad as simultaneously both international students and members of an emerging diaspora. Coming from a country (Latvia) which is peripheral and relatively poor by European standards, students go abroad for multiple reasons not necessarily directly connected with study (e.g. family reasons, labour migration); yet their evolving diasporic status is instrumentalised by the Latvian government which wants them to return and contribute to the country’s development. Based on 27 in-depth interviews with Latvian students and graduates who have studied abroad, our analysis focuses on three interlinked dimensions of inequality: access to education at home and abroad; the varying prestige of higher education qualifications from different countries and universities; and the inequalities involved in getting recognition of the symbolic and cultural capital that derives from a non-Latvian university. Within a setting of neoliberal globalisation and conflicting messages from the homeland, students and graduates are faced with a challenging dilemma: how to balance their materialistic desire for a decent job and career with their patriotic duty to return to Latvia.