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Few researchers have examined the contributing factors to racial identity development for White Americans. In order to better understand White racial identity development, the current study was designed to use Helms’s (1990) theory of White racial identity development to examine the associations between racial attitudes and status profiles of White racial identity, with particular interest in color-blind racial attitudes (i.e., the belief that race is a non-issue in modern society) and belief in a just world (i.e., the view that the world is fair and just). To gain further insight into profiles of White racial identity, additional social attitudes were included in the analyses, including social dominance orientation and internal and external motivation to avoid prejudice, as well as demographic variables. A sample of 350 White American adults recruited from Amazon’s MTurk completed measures of racial identity, racial attitudes, social desirability, and demographic information. K means cluster analyses were conducted to create five status profiles of White identity. Among all study variables, cluster group membership was primarily defined by color-blind racial attitudes, social dominance orientation, and age. Results revealed color-blind racial attitudes were the strongest variables across all five clusters, even those in which the primary racial identity status was autonomy. Belief in a just world, on the other hand, did not appear to be a prominent factor in determining cluster membership in the current study. These results pointed to implications for both research and theory on White racial identity statuses, given that participants who were autonomous were also high in color-blind racial attitudes, which is inconsistent with current conceptualizations of the autonomy ego status. The results indicated the possibility of an ego status prior to autonomy and hold implications for identifying additional statuses of White racial identity within Helms’s (1990) model. The study results hold further implications for future research in the exploration of connections between White racial identity and multicultural counseling competence.

My dissertation examines the enrollment patterns of White children in traditional U.S. public schools in 2010. I link schools to their attendance boundaries to compare the percentage of White children living in a catchment area to the percentage of White children who attend the local neighborhood school. I find that just under a third of schools are roughly representative of their catchment area (29%), the plurality are underrepresented White (40%), and the remaining 31% are overrepresented White. Descriptive analyses determine that White underrepresentation is more common in urban schools. White underrepresented schools tend to be in poorer neighborhoods and have a higher-than-average share of students in poverty and students with limited English proficiency. I investigate whether there is a connection between White representation and school quality outcomes. I focus on four facets of school quality that I hypothesize might be responsive to White representation: 1) school funding metrics, 2) school-supporting nonprofit presence, 3) standardized test scores, and 4) Gifted and Talented programming. Overall, the findings here offer mixed support for the theory of “opportunity hoarding,” in which White underrepresented schools receive fewer resources. Taken together, descriptive analyses find that White underrepresentation is largely associated with negative outcomes. White underrepresented schools have less public and charitable funding than their peers. White underrepresented schools are lower performing academically than White overrepresented schools, although they are not clearly academically different from representative White schools. White underrepresented schools are not necessarily less likely to have a GAT program, but when they do have a GAT program, it disproportionately targets White students. Furthermore, multivariate analyses reveal that the bivariate relationships between White representation and school outcomes are not entirely explained by the percentage of White students in a school, nor other covariates. This suggests that there is a meaningful distinction between White representation and the percentage of White students in a school. In other words, White representation tells us something about a school, net of the presence of White students. However, this was not the case for every multivariate model in the study. I find a significant negative association between White representation and school funding. White underrepresented schools have significantly lower mean teacher salaries and per-pupil salary expenditures, net of the percentage of White students within the school. This could be evidence that disproportionately low White enrollment leads to diminished school resources or less experienced teachers. Alternately, it could be that White families are more adept than non-White families at avoiding under-resourced schools. I find no evidence of a connection between White representation and whether a school has a school-supporting nonprofit. Instead, the economic composition of the school appears to be a more important driver of school nonprofit presence and nonprofit revenue. I also find no connection between White representation and test scores. However, White representation appears to influence the racial composition of GAT programs. Schools that are less White than their neighborhoods tend to have GAT programs that are significantly Whiter than the schools. / Sociology

In this thesis, I explore how white producers of U.S. agriculture’s top commodity—cattle—understand participation in government farm programs. As such, the central research question guiding this research is: how do white Mississippi cattle producers portray their decisions to pursue (or not pursue) government farm programs? Specifically, I offer insights into how farmers reconcile tension between being independent/self-sufficient and accepting government subsidies. Using data from 289 hours of participant observation at agricultural events and 33 interviews with producers, I examine sociologically how these understandings of farm program participation relate to producers’ ideological notions of “success” and how race and gender shape these understandings.

This study emphasizes the methodology of linguistic resistance in Eldridge Cleaver's best-known work, Soul on Ice. Through a process of signification, Cleaver works to redefine key words and concepts that form a web of racialist and racist thinking called normative whiteness. By emptying key terms, like those of "life," "liberty," and "property," Cleaver's text attempts to offer a new, less biased foundation on which a more inclusive and pluralistic American narrative can be written, a move that both makes his rhetoric significantly different from that of many contemporary resistance writers and positions him as an important link in a larger genealogy of resistance and African American literature.

Most colleges and universities in the United States today claim that “diversity” is an important institutional value, but it is not always clear what this term means or how “diversity” is actually experienced and understood by students at predominantly white institutions. This ethnographic study examines a predominantly white liberal arts woman’s college in New England, applying data from participant observation, semistructured interviews, autoethnography, and textual data. My research addresses three intersecting areas of inquiry: the experience of students attending a predominantly white institution in relation to issues of race and racial identity, institutional practices related to race, “diversity,” and “culture,” and examples of “white cultural practices” within the institution. The study found that institutional discourse promotes an ideology that marks “students of color” as “other” and the embodiment of “diversity” and creates a dynamic where white students are placed in the role of cultural tourists. Throughout the college community the invisibility and silences surrounding whiteness reinforced an ideology of white privilege. The analysis focuses on four central themes or narratives that circulate through a predominantly white campus. The first theme is the articulation of “diversity” and the “diverse community” specifically through the lens of the college admissions process. The next theme is “culture” as understood through an examination of institutional sites where “culture” is named and deployed on campus such as student cultural organizations. The third looks at the invisibility of whiteness and “white culture.” The final theme considers what happens on a predominantly white campus when there is a high profile racial conflict, or “racial incident.” The conclusion provides specific recommendations and interventions for the broader higher education community related to “re-framing” the “diverse community” and shifting towards the creation of “diverse, inclusive, and engaged learning environments.” Possible interventions include integrating the academic mission of the college more closely with the goals of diversity and inclusion; providing more opportunities for white students to think critically about race and their own racial identity; and an increasing emphasis on the intersections and complexity of identity rather than a reliance on monolithic categories such as “students of color.”

The aim of this thesis is to explore and analyze what the effects capoeira has on its practitioners when it comes to how it interacts in their everyday life, what capoeira means to them, what feelings they attach to the practice and what meaning they make of the historical aspect of capoeira. This study is based on 7 interviews with people who practice capoeira and 2 observations of capoeira training. The main theoretical framework applied in the thesis is phenomenology, with an overall focus on the phenomenology of the body, as well as critical race theory. The result shows that the impact on the practitioner was positive not only when it came to the physical aspect of working out, but gave them an insight regarding differences between the two cultures. The one they live their lives in, and the one capoeira offered them. The discussion highlights how the practitioners valuing capoeira as something positive that enriched their lives, but also became a tool that made them reflect on their role as consumers of a culture rooted in oppression.

Thesis advisor: Julia Chuang / In trying to explain the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, many post-election analyses focused on President Trumps’ perceived white working-class base. The idea that President Trump is an advocate for the working-class, though, is up for debate: many scholars have highlighted the ways in which President Trump is more of an advocate for the elite than for the working-class. Given President Trump’s appeal to individuals outside of the working-class, I decided to interview Trump supporters at Boston College—a campus with one of the wealthier student bodies in the nation. In my interviews, I looked for different narrative frames and discourses that my interviewees used in their articulation of their support for President Trump. I found that interviewees drew on parental influences, emphasized the value of hard work, shared narratives of victimization, and more. In addition, I learned about the large network of conservatives at Boston College. Given white working-class tropes surrounding the 2016 Election and stereotypes of college campuses as liberal echo chambers, this paper highlights the presence of conservatism on Boston College’s campus and calls for more research on the topic. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2019. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: Sociology.

The actor and artist Gladys del Pilar takes us on a journey through her different personas. We follow her into the four different stages of life from childhood into adulthood. What she has been facing as adopted and non-white and how she has navigated within the norm of whiteness. How the white privileged society has affected her life and how the structural racism has created obstacles in everyday life and in the profession as an actor and artist.

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