White institutional presence: The impact of whiteness on campus climate & the relational context of white institutional presence

摘要

This dissertation purports to offer a new lens on the retention puzzle of African-Americans in Predominately White Institutions. The purpose of this paper is to notice the properties of a PWI and analyzes the relational context these properties create for its African-American undergraduates. This dissertation is formatted into two sections. The first section frames, examines, and theorizes the "racism effect" in higher education - the "ways in which race and racism explicitly and implicitly impact on the educational structures, processes, and discourses that affect people of color" (LatCrit Primer, 2000, p. xx). I maintain that African-Americans' experiences of marginalization and discrimination in a predominately white chilly climate are outward manifestations of a socio-cultural framework I call White Institutional Presence (WIP). To identify an institution's structures, policies, and practices that can marginalize and oppress African-Americans in higher education and develop the attributes of WIP, I used existing empirical data in higher education retention and persistence literature. This paper offers and expands four attributes of WIP: White Ascendancy, Monoculturalism, Whiteblindness, and White Estrangement.;The second section, using the Listening Guide, developed by Gilligan and her colleagues (Brown et al., 1988; Brown & Gilligan, 1992; Gilligan, 1990; Rogers, Brown, & Tappan, 1993; Taylor, Gilligan, & Sullivan, 1995), investigates the complex and multi-layered experiences of one African-American female undergraduate as she attends two different predominately white institutions. This section reveals the structural barriers of WIP in two PWI sociocultural environments drawing on two conceptual lenses: Psychological Sense of Community and Relational-Cultural Theory. Seven narratives that include classroom dynamics, administrative policy and practices, community membership, and faculty relationships were chosen to illustrate the four attributes of WIP, as well as self-in-relation, need for belonging, and chronic disconnection.