Biracial college students' racial identity work

Abstract

While there is some scholarship on multiracial college students’ experiences, most of these studies focus on students at predominantly white institutions (PWIs). There is little research on the experiences of multiracials at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Focusing on this gap in the literature, I compare the experiences of black-white biracial students attending HBCUs and PWIs. I explore the ways these students navigate race and negotiate their racial identities within different institutional contexts and how they discuss this racial identity work in relation to class and gender. Drawing upon 55 interviews with biracial students, I show that an ideology privileging lightness pervades colleges with different racial structures and that biracial students’ identity work is often related to attempts to garner the privileges of whiteness or distance themselves from accusations of racial privilege. My analysis highlights the social construction of race and the intersectional nature of race, class, and gender.