Monoracial normativity in university websites: Systematic erasure and selective reclassification of multiracial students.

Abstract

It is well-documented that multiracial college students experience microaggressions in their everyday schooling experiences. However, little research has gone on to place these individual experiences in the overall organizational structure of educational settings. Using a racial formation theoretical frame, we explore how institutions make use of various racial projects when representing multiracial students. By applying a critical discourse analysis approach to the examination of 271 university website representations of student body diversity, we found that university websites erase and selectively reclassify multiracial students in representing their student bodies. These practices mirror multiracial microaggressions that occur routinely at the individual level, but are situated at the institutional level and perpetuate monoracial normativity, the assumption and centrality of monoracial identities.

Exploring the status of diversity in policies and practices of Spanish universities. An asymmetric dual model

“…In the first stage, as a means of diagnosing institutional philosophy and policy, an ex post facto study was performed through documentary analysis and review of information accessible via university websites. Website content analysis has already been used in other research as a source of information about the commitment of higher education institutions to diversity, inclusion, equity and social justice (e.g., Ford et al., 2019 ; Ford and Patterson, 2019 ; Holland and Ford, 2020 ; LePeau et al., 2018 ; Wilson et al., 2012 ; Wilson and Meyer, 2009 ), so that this tradition was continued in our first stage. This data collection strategy is more objective than survey procedures when researchers focus on normative information, since limited cognitive ability of respondents to retrieve stored data is avoided, even if, on the other hand, content analysis includes an interpretative component when linking text units to codes ( Krippendorff, 2013 ).…”

Appearance, Parentage, and Paradox: The White Privilege of Bi/Multiracial Americans with White Ancestry

“…As a result of the omnipresence of monoracism, bi/multiracial Americans report feeling like an “invisible minority” whose unique experiences are imperceptible to monoracials because monoracials are oblivious to “a type of [monoracial] privilege” that they enjoy (Waring 2014:93). Even highly educated professors in the purportedly liberal, progressive space of academia have perpetuated the invisibility of bi/multiracial people (Harris 2016; Waring 2014) or the “systematic erasure” of this community through “monoracial normativity” (Ford et al 2019). This invisibility generates another layer when bi/multiracial individuals are White-appearing, as is the case with Kerry Ann Rockquemore (2005:18), who wrote in her auto-ethnography, “.…”

“…Whereas initial research concentrated on racial identity (Funderburg 1994; Rockquemore and Brunsma 2008; Root 1992), the field has evolved to examine family socialization and relationships (Atkin and Jackson 2021; Stone and Dolbin-MacNab 2017; Waring and Bordoloi 2019), dating and intimacy (Buggs 2017; Curington, Ken-Hou, and Lundquist 2015; Waring 2013b), educational experiences (Anderson 2015; Ford, Patterson, and Johnston-Guerrero 2019; Harris 2016), and much more. These concomitant factors have generated more interest in and recognition of the bi/multiracial American population, which is significant, considering that the multiracial reality has experienced “systematic erasure” (Ford et al 2019:252) due to an “ever-present monoracial paradigm of race” (Harris 2016:797). This documented institutionalized inclination to stick to a single-race script for centuries, despite seismic racial shifts in American society, has profoundly shaped the public imagination about race.…”

The Influence of Familial Relationships: Multiracial Students’ Experiences with Racism at a Historically White Institution

“…Other challenges include filling out demographic forms, dating and lack of representation of their ethnic heritages in the curriculum and even encounters with support service offices, and academic offices (Gasser 2002). While more students seek to claim a biracial or multiracial identity, the option to choose more than one racial group on official forms is still limited by the way the racial data is analyzed (Morning 2005) or institutions not properly disaggregating multiracial student data (Ford et al 2021).…”