A Theory of Minority Students' Survival in College

This paper sets forth a theory to explain the survival of minority students in college. Minority students are faced with barriers such as cultural and racial isolation, unfamiliarity with college life, and hostility. As colleges place greater emphasis on diversity, campuses are more likely to turn into hostile milieus for minority students. In reaction, minority students will close ranks and seek other minority students on campus to form ethnic social networks rooted in their ethnic subculture. The ethnic social networks serve: (1) to reinforce excellence in academics; (2) to provide social support and information for students in navigating the college maze; and (3) to increase solidarity and pride in members. These minority social networks on campus help integrate minority students into the college social and academic systems and thereby maximize the students' survival in college.     

Gender and White College Students' Racial Attitudes

New forms of racial attitudes among whites, including racial resentment, help to uphold institutionalized inequalities in the United States. As a way to dismantle institutionalized forms of racial inequalities, colleges and universities have implemented various curricula and programs designed to expose students to diversity and reduce social inequalities. This study attempts to uncover the extent to which college experiences affect levels of racial resentment among white students, with emphasis on whether the effects differ for women and men. Findings from a representative sample of students at a large Midwestern university revealed that white men showed higher levels of racial resentment than white women and that their attitudes were significantly affected by many college experiences. By contrast, white women are less affected by aspects of their college experience.     

Applying critical race theory in social work education in Britain: pedagogical reflections

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on personal experiences of teaching white British and Black African students on a social work Master’s course in England. In this paper, I critically discuss the fire at Grenfell Tower in London (14 June 2017) and how it served as a pedagogical tool to open up critical discussions among students about racial in/justice, intersectionality and neoliberal racism. I also explore how Black students were enabled to share their experiences of immigration, racism, and racial inequality in Britain as part of these discussions. Inviting personal experiences of race in the classroom can be highly emotive; but, as this paper shows, these voices can also highlight institutionalized racism and provide a way for Black and ethnic minorities’ histories to be told and learned. These histories matter and can develop student consciousness about racial inequality for pursuing a social agenda. They also challenge claims that Britain is now a ‘post-racial’ society. Using Critical Race Theory (CRT) provided a way to counter such claims and critique my ‘whiteness’ and socio-economic class in my teaching, as well as challenge the neoliberal ideologies and structures that reproduce and mask ‘white privilege’ and racial injustice in Britain today.     

Profiles of African American College Students’ Alcohol Use and Sexual Behaviors: Associations With Stress,Racial Discrimination,and Social Support

Though studies show that alcohol use and sexual activity increase during emerging adulthood, few studies examine within–ethnic group differences, particularly among African American college students. This investigation utilized a latent class analytic methodology to identify risk behavior profiles of alcohol use (frequency and amount of alcohol consumed), sexual activity (number of intimate partners), and co-occurring risk behaviors (drinking before sexual intercourse) among 228 African American college students. This investigation also examined whether identified risk behavior profiles were associated with stress (interpersonal, intrapersonal, academic, and environmental), experiences of racial discrimination, and social support (from family, friends, and the college community). Results identified five distinct profiles within this sample: (a) High Sexual Risk—above-average sexual activity; (b) Abstainers—below-average alcohol use and sexual activity; (c) Low Risk—average alcohol use and sexual activity; (d) Alcohol Risk—above-average alcohol use and below-average sexual activity; and (e) Co-Occurring Risk—above-average alcohol use and sexual activity. Identified profiles differed across interpersonal and environmental stress, and self-reported frequency of experiences with racial discrimination. Implications for prevention programs and interventions aimed at reducing alcohol and sexual activity for African American college students are discussed.     

What do we know the experiences and outcomes of anti-racist social work education? An empirical case study evidencing contested engagement and transformative learning

ABSTRACT

In social work education there have been very few attempts to empirically capture and measure how professional training programmes prepare students to work with ‘race’ equality and cultural diversity issues. This paper interrogates the experiences and outcomes of anti-racist social work education and evaluates the pedagogic relevance and practice utility of teaching social work students about ‘race’, racism and anti-racism. The data presented in this paper suggests that it is possible to discover the situated experiences of learning about anti-racism and measure how this teaching can affect and lead to knowledge, skills and attitudinal change. The triangulated mixed methods evidence presented in this paper combines nomothetic and idiographic approaches with quantitative data for a matched pair sample of 36 social work students and uses non-parametric statistical tests to measure at two time intervals (before and after teaching); knowledge, skills and attitudinal change. The paper explores how anti-racist social work education enables students to move from ‘magical consciousness’, where racism and racial oppression is invisible and thereby left unchallenged and maintained, to more critical and reflexive level of awareness where it is named, challenged and no longer shrouded in a culture of professional denial and silencing.     

Mexican American Challenge to a Sacred Cow,by Deluvina Hernandez. Aztlan Publications,Chicano Studies Center,University of California,Los Angeles, 1970. 60 Pages

This study explored the attitudes of MSW students (N?=?147) toward transracial adoption and included an investigation of the students' personal experiences that may affect their attitudes. Statistical analyses revealed that although the majority of students supported the practice of transracial adoption, a number of students gave neutral responses to several items related to transracially adopted children's ethnic identity, likely indicating a lack of awareness of the consequences of transracial adoption. White students were more likely than students of other racial groups to support the practice of transracial adoption. Personal experiences, such as dating interracially and supporting interracial dating, appeared to affect students' attitudes toward transracial adoption. Limitations and implications for social work education and research are discussed.     

Racial microaggressions and black social work students: a call to social work educators for proactive models informed by social justice

ABSTRACT

With efforts to create and sustain racial diversity and inclusive practices at institutions of higher education, a corollary emphasis on proactive implementations to support students of color in these environments is essential. Informed by a commitment to social justice, there are rich opportunities for social work to take leadership in strategizing new ways of approaching and prioritizing the wellness and success of students of color. This paper serves to explore the impact of racism specific to Black students by applying the theoretical lens of Racial Battle Fatigue (RBF) to challenge social work education in confronting racialized experiences within their programs. A modified, context-specific framework is proposed that (1) defines microaggressions in social work education programs, 2) prompts critically informed dialogue to enhance how social work as a profession understands the prevalence and role of microaggressions in social work educational contexts, and (3) explores considerations for the unique needs and challenges of Black social work students in an effort to inform strategies to most effectively recruit, retain, support and empower.     

Navigating the First Year of College: Siblings,Parents, and First-Generation Students’ Experiences

Although college education is a key to upward mobility, students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to enter and complete college than their more advantaged peers. Prior literature has illuminated how cultural capital contributes to these disparities. An alternative conceptualization of cultural capital, however, suggests that it can also play a role in social mobility. In this study, we build on and extend the literature on cultural mobility by proposing that exposure to education can benefit not only individuals but also families. We examine the influence of older siblings who attended college on the experiences of younger college-going siblings in families where neither parent has completed college (i.e., first-generation families). We find that students rarely rely on their older siblings as sources of information and advice, except in a few instances where older siblings attended the same institution. However, both the topics and nature of conversations between parents and students differ between families with and without older college-educated siblings. The primary benefit of having college-educated siblings is thus related to students’ engagement with and support received from parents. These findings have important implications for cultural capital research and understanding experiences of first-generation college students.     

Impact of Research Orientation on Attitudes Toward Research of Social Work Students

This article discusses the Self and Other Awareness Project (SOAP) cultural competence development model and presents the results of a study that evaluated its impact on the racial attitudes of 110 undergraduate students enrolled in an undergraduate interdisciplinary Minority Groups course at a mid-sized public university in the Southeastern United States. Findings indicate that students experienced a statistically significant change in racial attitudes (measured by the Color-Blind Racial Attitudes Scale (Neville, Lilly, Duran, Lee, & Browne, 2000) from the beginning to the end of the course. Further analysis revealed that social work majors (n=30) were significantly more aware of racial privilege and blatant racial issues at the end of the course than they were at the beginning of the course.     

Choice of Social Work as a Career: Possible Influences

Abstract

Little is known about why students choose social work for a career. Certain life events in the family of origin may exert a compelling influence, though other factors are certainly involved. This study examines the influence of selected life events and such factors as prior employment, volunteering, and influential persons via a survey of 415 social work students and a comparison group of 203 nonsocial work students. Social work students were more likely to report problems such as alcoholism and emotional illness within their families of origin and to attribute these experiences to their choice of career.     

“Gay Equals White”? Racial,Ethnic, and Sexual Identities and Attitudes Toward LGBT Individuals Among College Students at a Bible Belt University

While past research has certainly explored a variety of correlates of attitudes toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals, the current study is among the first in an emerging line of inquiry that examines attitudes toward each of these groups separately utilizing an intersectional framework with special attention to racial, ethnic, and sexual identities. Using a college sample of students from the Bible Belt of the United States (N = 1,940), I investigated the roles of racial and ethnic identities (Caucasian/White, African American/Black, Asian/Pacific Islander, Native American/Alaskan Native, other race, and Hispanic/Latinx), religiosity, patriarchal gender norms, parental perspectives, and the intersections among these identities and experiences as they relate to attitudes toward LGBT individuals among heterosexual (n = 1,551) and LGB respondents (n = 389). This moves beyond explorations of White heterosexual people’s attitudes about “homosexuals” (i.e., away from a focus only on gayness and Whiteness) and expands to include non-White LGB people’s LGBT attitudes. Overall, results indicate that racial, ethnic, and sexual identities play a significant role in southern college students’ LGBT attitudes, and these patterns are further complicated by interacting cultural experiences with religiosity, patriarchy, and family dynamics. Campus policy and program implications are provided.     

Beyond and below racial homophily: ERG models of a friendship network documented on Facebook

A notable feature of U.S. social networks is their high degree of racial homogeneity, which is often attributed to racial homophily--the preference for associating with individuals of the same racial background. The authors unpack racial homogeneity using a theoretical framework that distinguishes between various tie formation mechanisms and their effects on the racial composition of networks, exponential random graph modeling that can disentangle these mechanisms empirically, and a rich new data set based on the Facebook pages of a cohort of college students. They first show that racial homogeneity results not only from racial homophily proper but also from homophily among coethnics of the same racial background and from balancing mechanisms such as the tendency to reciprocate friendships or to befriend the friends of friends, which both amplify the homogeneity effects of homophily. Then, they put the importance of racial homophily further into perspective by comparing its effects to those of other mechanisms of tie formation. Balancing, propinquity based on coresidence, and homophily regarding nonracial categories (e.g., students from "elite" backgrounds or those from particular states) all influence the tie formation process more than does racial homophily.     

Choosing social work as a profession: Behavioural indicators of a developmental process

The choice of an occupation is a lengthy process that takes place during adolescence. The young person passes through a number of stages until he or she reaches a realistic choice based on an awareness of his/her own potential and of the existing occupational opportunities. Empirical studies have generally attempted to reconstruct the attitudinal stages respondents went through prior to reaching their final choice. Hardly any attempts have been made to demonstrate the existence of these stages by means of behavioural indicators.

The present paper tries to demonstrate that the process of occupational choice, which leads to the social work profession, is accompanied on the behavioural level by participation in a number of frameworks for people-oriented work.

The empirical data reported are drawn from a study that compared between social work students and social science (sociology, political science, economics) students in Israel. The respondents were 279 students in a university based school of social work and 263 social science students from the same university.

It was found that a larger proportion of the former than of the latter group had indeed participated in people-oriented work, during the years prior to university entrance. Their activities in these frameworks were interpreted as reflecting, on the behavioural level, stages in the gradual crystallisation of their occupational choice. The possible implications for recruitment to social work training are discussed.     

Reframing Black Social Work Students' Experiences of Teaching and Learning

This article draws on critical race theory (CRT) to foreground the role of race and racism in the ways in which Black students experience social work teaching and learning. It reviews some of the available literature on Black social work students' experiences of teaching and learning. The article reframes understandings of the perceived failures of this group of students to adapt to the world of higher education. It is argued that race and racism are salient determining factors in the experiences of Black students within social work education. Emphasis is placed on understanding the specificity of this group of students taking into cognisance the social, cultural, economic, and political contexts within which they are located. The article uses CRT as critical lens to reflect on peer support groups as potential counter spaces that can disrupt the negative experiences of black social work students.     

Problems and Issues in Social Casework,by Scott Briar and Henry Miller. New York,Columbia University Press, 1971. 274 Pages, $9.00. Hardbound

Abstract

The rapid growth and increasing visibility of ethnic and racial groups has vigorously challenged social work to educate students for ethnic-competent practice in cross-cultural settings. This article examines an approach to teaching effective intervention involving ethnic and racial groups and helping students integrate cultural factors and society's concerns into clinical practice. Pedagogical issues and classroom processes of teaching culturally sensitive and competent interpersonal practice are discussed. Implications are drawn for culturally sensitive education and issues are raised for critical examination.     

Social Class and Habitus at the End of College: Cultural Similarity and Difference among Graduating Seniors

ABSTRACT

Existing research offers a range of perspectives on the impact of the college experience on culture. While some scholars claim that higher education leads to cultural convergence or homogenization among students, others emphasize the durability of class-based cultural differences during college. This article seeks to understand the degree to which students from across class backgrounds leave college with a similar habitus. Drawing from interviews with 62 graduating seniors from three distinct class backgrounds, I examine cultural similarities and differences at two layers of habitus as students look toward life after college. Findings demonstrate that while students’ specific aspirations for graduate study and careers are similar, their general cultural schemas—evidenced by students’ perceptions of what constitutes success and failure after graduation—and sense of self diverge along class lines. In other words, these interviews provide evidence that college seniors across class backgrounds are comparable in their secondary habitus but differ at the level of their primary habitus. These findings have implications for the way we conceive of social mobility through higher education as well as our understanding of multiple layers of habitus.     

Decrypting cultural nuances: using drama techniques from the theatre of the oppressed to strengthen cross cultural communication in social work students

ABSTRACT

Despite widening participation in social work education in the UK, social work students from black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds can find that they have less positive experiences on social work courses than their counterparts. This can happen when courses do not equip students to navigate the subtle rules of communication with service users that are premised on dominant UK values. As a consequence BME students can be assessed as having poor interpersonal skills and poor skills in engaging service users. However, the issue is often more one of cultural differences and high expectations of cultural integration than one of incompetence.

This paper reports on a drama workshop using techniques from the Theatre of the Oppressed to foster awareness of the complexities of cross cultural communication that BME students may face. The workshop facilitates insight into the nuances of culturally informed values that differ from dominant UK values.

Drawing on student workshop evaluations, the authors highlight the positive use of techniques from the Theatre of the Oppressed as a pro-active pedagogical approach to equipping BME students with insight and skill to circumnavigate cross cultural communication in practice and develop awareness of empowering strategies to combat negative paradigms about BME cultures.     

Negotiating everyday life in Australia: unpacking the parallel society inhabited by Asian international students through their social networks and entertainment media use

Work on the experiences of international students in Australia often point out that these students do not successfully integrate into Australian society with many international students counting very few or no Australians as friends by the time they complete their studies. Through in-depth interviews with 47 Melbourne-based higher education international students from Asia – the source of Australia's largest export education market – this study explores the ways in which international students navigate their everyday experiences in their host nation. The findings suggest that Asian international students live in a parallel society almost exclusively made up of fellow international students who primarily come from the home nation and the Asian region. This parallel society allows them to create both a sense of belonging in Australia yet not to Australia due to disengagement from local society and culture. By investigating their social networks (society) together with their consumption of entertainment media (culture), this study presents an indirect yet creative way of understanding how international students negotiate everyday life as transient migrants in the Australian city of Melbourne. Doing so, this research highlights the ways in which international students make use of social networks and entertainment media to feel a sense of belonging in a foreign country.     

Everything but racism: A critical analysis of Latina/o college sorority and fraternity research

The persisting disparity in college graduation rates along racial and ethnic lines combined with growing Latina/o college‐age population has compelled an increasing number of researchers to examine inequalities in higher education outcomes. Some of these researchers have attempted to better understand Latina/o college experiences by researching Latina/o Greek life. In this article, I review the literature on Latina/o sororities and fraternities. I identify four approaches in the scholarship: Latina/o student development through campus involvement, Latina/o ethnic identity development through sorority or fraternity participation, finding cultural congruence in sorority and fraternity membership, and perceived discrimination and racial climates in college. This article reveals that scholarship about Latina/o Greek life examining race and racism is severely limited. Given the scope of existing work, I suggest that analysts have examined “everything but racism.” I conclude by highlighting some of the research on higher education that centers race and ethnicity as an analytical focus, demonstrating deeply embedded processes that impact Latina/o college student success. I argue that research about race and racism in college points to significant opportunities for researchers seeking to examine how Latinas/os navigate such environments, as Greek life is woven into the social and academic fabric of higher education institutions.     

Arab students of social work in Israel: adjustment difficulties and coping strategies

Israel is a multi-cultural society, and this can no longer be ignored. However, there is a serious lack of theoretical and empirical literature dealing with the implications of Israel's multi-cultural social context for social work education in Israel, as well as its impact on social work practice with different ethnic and national populations in that country. The dearth of material is even more pronounced in the case of Arab students attending Israeli universities.

This paper documents the first stage of a project focusing on Arab students at the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A triangulation method was applied for collection of data from students enrolled in the 3-year programme, graduate students, faculty members and field work supervisors, as well as reports from previous years.

Personal, academic and socio-cultural difficulties are documented as well as coping mechanisms and recommendations for schools of social work in Israel. The results are used to demonstrate cultural misunderstanding, educational dilemmas and differences in professional ideologies.