Role of Student Background, Perceptions of Ethnic Fit, and Racial Identification in the Academic Adjustment of African American Students at a Predominantly White University

A Phenomenological Investigation of African American Counselor Education Students' Challenging Experiences

“…Scholarship from other academic disciplines and programs concerning African American students’ doctoral program experiences offers some insight, particularly related to obstacles students encounter while enrolled in doctoral programs. Difficulty associated with combining personal culture with program culture or cultural integration (Chavous, Rivas, Green, & Helaire, 2002; Protivnak & Foss, 2009; Rendon, Jalomo, & Nora, 2000) and feeling a sense of academic and social isolation from the rest of the university body (Daniel, 2007; Johnson‐Bailey, Valentine, Cervero, & Bowles, 2009; Protivnak & Foss, 2009; Shealey, 2009) are two salient themes in the literature on African American students at PWIs.…”

Role of Student Background, Perceptions of Ethnic Fit, and Racial Identification in the Academic Adjustment of African American Students at a Predominantly White University

“…The main premise behind this assertion is that African Americans differ in the extent to which race plays a defining role in their lives, and these differences in identification should be related to how individuals experience and react to situations and contexts related to race (Sellers, Smith, Shelton, Rowley, & Chavous, 1998). This research has indicated that the extent of identification with one's ethnic group (racial centrality) moderated the relationships between African American students' racial ideologies (which tap into beliefs about how race works in American society) and their academic performance (GPA) (Sellers, Chavous, & Cooke 1998), as well as the relationship between PWI students' perceptions of their college racial climate with their beliefs about their own academic and social competence in their college setting (Chavous, Green, Rivas, & Helaire, 2002). In these studies, the impact of race-related perceptions was stronger for students with higher racial centrality, whereas the relationship of race-related perceptions with adjustment outcomes was minimal or nonexistent for those with lower racial centrality.…”

“…Based on the described research that suggests the importance of racial centrality for African American students (Chavous et al, 2002;Ethier & Deaux, 1990Sellers, Smith, et al, 1998), we expect that racial centrality will be related to perceiving more ethnic fit. However, both racial centrality and PEF will have the strongest positive relationships with academic adjustment (e.g., perceived competence, satisfaction, and performance) for individuals from backgrounds that reflect the least precollege interracial contact.…”

Using outgroup comfort to predict Black students' college experiences.

“…He argued that the racial environments at PWIs are particularly negative toward men, leading high-centrality men to disengage. Chavous and colleagues found perceived person–environment fit was a stronger predictor of Black men's academic adjustment than women's, and that Black men (but not women) who expected their professors to be biased against them had lower grade point averages (Chavous et al, 2004; Chavous, Rivas, Green & Helaire, 2002). Chavous et al (2004) speculated that although Black men are particularly stigmatized in PWIs, experiencing racialized gender stereotypes and social sanctions for assertive responses to racism, Black women at PWIs may experience more subtle forms of discrimination, such as social “invisibility,” which might be related to global outcomes such as well-being.…”