Doing Race in Different Places: Black Racial Cohesion on Black and White College Campuses

Introduction

This study focuses on the Black student experience at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) compared to Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) with an emphasis on feelings of racial cohesion and/or dissonance with one’s racial community. For the purposes of this paper, racial cohesion refers to how one’s racial identity affects one’s desire to engage, uplift, and associate with that racial identity. Racial dissonance, on the other hand, describes those who have a weak or negative connection to one’s own racial community. The two terms are not mutually exclusive, but they provide important context about the differences in the Black experience at both types of post-secondary education institutions. The study includes further analysis regarding how Black students feel about academic engagement, civic participation, and their levels of racism-related stress within each university setting. Given current attitudes about affirmative action and a rise in racially charged incidents, like racially offensive parties and rioting, on college campuses, this research provides important findings for institutions of higher education to consider as they attempt to foster communities of inclusion for their students. 

Dr. Keisha L. Bentley-Edwards is an Associate Professor of General Internal Medicine and the Associate Director of Research/Director of the Health Equity Working Group at the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University. Dr. Collette Chapman-Hilliard is an Associate Professor in the Department of Counseling and Human Development Services at the University of Georgia. Both Dr. Bentley-Edwards and Dr. Chapman-Hilliard focus on how racism can affect the psychology, development, and mental health of members of the African diaspora, among other topics. Led by their interdisciplinary backgrounds, the authors review literature from psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, and many different disciplines. 

Methods and Findings

The researchers had the following research questions for this study: 

•  Are there differences between racial cohesion and racial dissonance among Black students at HBCUs and PWIs?
• Are there differences in racism stress, school engagement, and civic engagement between Black students at HBCUs and PWIs? How do these variables relate to racial cohesion and dissonance?
• To what degree are prior racial (neighborhood, school, and social) interactions related to racial cohesion and dissonance for Black students, and are their differences based on college context? Does racial cohesion and dissonance moderate the relationship between prior racial interactions and racism stress?

To address their research questions, the authors conducted an online survey of Black postsecondary students. 242 Black students from 102 colleges and universities took the survey, with about 49 percent of respondents attending HBCUs and 51 percent attending PWIs. The sample was mainly high-achieving (3.0 or greater GPA) undergraduate students. 76 percent of the sample were women, and 24 percent were men. The survey included multiple components, including a Racial Cohesion Questionnaire (RCQ) focused on measuring the behaviors and emotions that develop towards one’s racial community, a Black Racial Dissonance Inventory (BRDI) that determines the degree of racial hostility one may have towards those of their own race, and the Index of Race Related Stress – Brief which quantified the experiences of racism and race-related stress an individual has experienced.  After conducting the survey, the authors outlined descriptive statistics, like the mean and standard deviation for each questionnaire and index. The authors also conducted a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) for the effects of being a member of a PWI vs. a member of an HBCU on racial cohesion and racial dissonance, school & civic engagement, pre-college racial interactions, and racism stress. The ANOVA model, which shows whether two populations are distinctly different to a statistically significant degree, helped to illuminate key differences between Black students at PWIs and Black students at HBCUs. Following the descriptive statistical analysis, the authors used regression models to determine whether controlling for attendance at an HBCU, PWI, and other variables affected the relationship between racism stress and white social interactions. 

There are several key findings from their survey, including meaningful correlations between variables that illuminate important patterns between Black feelings about their race and attending an HBCU vs. PWI: 

• Feelings of racial cohesion were higher for Black HBCU students. For racial dissonance, there were no statistically significant differences among students. 
• Feelings of racial stress were higher for Black students at PWIs. On the Index of Race Related Stress Brief, used by the authors to test racial stress, students at PWIs indicated higher levels of racial stress as well as higher levels of institutional and individual racism. 
• Black students at HBCUs were more likely to have had more pre-college interactions with those of their own race, and Black students at PWIs were more likely to have had pre-college interactions with white individuals. Furthermore, pre-college interactions with your own race had a positive correlation with racial cohesion, which implies that having pre-college interactions with your own race can lead Black students to feel more engaged and supportive of the Black community. 
• Students who engage in community-based activities (e.g., clubs, extracurricular activities, etc.) or are focused on social commitment do better academically and have a better experience at college. In general, civic engagement and involvement in non-academic activities seem to be highlighted with many variables of perceived cultural congruence and acceptance. 

Conclusions

The conclusions of this study identify a necessity for strategies that address the specific needs of Black students depending on what type of college or university they attend. The authors make a compelling case for the difference in feelings of racial cohesion and stress that Black students can have at HBCUs vs. PWIs. As educators and administrators think through the best ways to support Black students and all racially minoritized students, this research illuminates how important it is to understand how those students fit into the broader university population from a demographic perspective. To increase the success of Black students in college, consideration of their feelings of racial cohesion and their level of stress intake is crucial.