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The University for Who? Student Narratives of Native Identity, Belonging, and Navigating a Racialized Organization

This qualitative case study aims to understand the ways in which students identifying as Native American, American Indian, and Indigenous navigate attending a university informed by their identities. Through semi-structured interviews with Indigenous students and participant observation with a Native American student organization, this study identified how this demographic of students navigate and conceptualize their identities as Native and Indigenous peoples, the benefits of joining a Native American student organization on their university campus, and how they experience the university as a racialized organization. One overarching and three nuanced research questions were examined to illustrate how students' identities inform how they experience university life with themes surrounding Native and Indigenous identity construction informed by federal policy and Indigenous community practices, collective identity and student involvement, sense of belonging at college, and understanding universities as racial organizations that participate in racial capitalism. The study findings indicated that students' identities are regularly negotiated, engaged with, and leveraged throughout their college experiences and recommendations were made for how colleges and universities can more adequately and equitably serve this student demographic.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc2179336
Date07 1900
CreatorsGaston, Emilia Morgan
ContributorsScarborough, William, Marroquin, Craig, Ho, Phoebe, Painter, Matthew
PublisherUniversity of North Texas
Source SetsUniversity of North Texas
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis or Dissertation
FormatText
RightsPublic, Gaston, Emilia Morgan, Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights Reserved.

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