The journey to finding one's place in academia can be complex, especially for Black students navigating Predominantly White institutions (PWIs). My path through higher education--from feeling invisible in some White spaces to discovering true belonging at a Historically Black College and University (HBCU)--illustrates how educational environments…

This conceptual essay explores the contentious discourse surrounding Coach Prime Deion Sanders' decision to leave Jackson State University (JSU), a historically Black college and university (HBCU), for the University of Colorado (CU), a predominantly white institution (PWI). Using King's principle of Black historical contention and Glaude's…

This study aimed to develop and validate the Institutional Racial Bias Cost (IRBC) scale, a race-focused construct grounded in Situated Expectancy-Value Theory (SEVT) (Eccles & Wigfield, 2020), to capture the experiences of Black students at Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs). Drawing on cognitive interviewing procedures and qualitative…

Using a comparative case study methodology, we aimed to understand how sense of belonging, among Asian American and Latinx undergraduates, impacts their academic help-seeking behaviors in the classroom. We recruited 19 participants attending one of two universities--one public Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) and one private Predominantly White…

This hermeneutic phenomenological study explores the experiences of African American doctoral students with tokenism at a Midwestern predominantly White institutions (PWI), revealing both advantages and disadvantages, including the toll of "Black taxes" in academia. Tokenism offers benefits like visibility and resources but brings…

Teacher preparation programs are being called to comprehensively engage preservice teachers (PSTs) in expansive learning about equity issues beyond one "diversity" course or superficial approach. Our interdisciplinary faculty collaborative within a Midwestern predominantly-white institution met this call by implementing a Critical Social…

This dissertation explores the perceptions of African American male students regarding mentoring programs at Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). It evaluates the impact on career planning, academic performance, and self-efficacy. Using a causal-comparative mixed-method research design,…

"Plantation politics" refers to the lingering impact of slavery's afterlife or how vestiges of enslavement permeate contemporary culture, including institutions of higher education (IHEs; Hartman, 2008; Squire et al., 2018; Williams et al., 2021). For Black women administrators (admins), the enduring legacy of caretaking, bodily control,…

In this manuscript, we share results from a qualitative case study that analyzed the disciplinary experiences of four Black boys who attended the same predominantly white Christian school (PWCS). Our research on Black boys in PWCS provided critical insight into the ways in which school discipline is handled in contexts that have been under…

Bold interventions are needed to change racial disparities and unacceptably low STEMM completion rates at historically white institutions that have the resources to train a new generation of scientists with diverse backgrounds. Three university case studies were conducted on the Meyerhoff Adaptation Partnership, which sought to develop…

This phenomenological study examines how women and Students of Color who attend a small undergraduate predominately white institution (PWI) make meaning of their experiences in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and how individual and contextual factors influence whether they decide to stay, leave, or add an STEM major. We…

Foreign-born scholars as allies from non-advantaged minoritized groups have historically provided critical insights about the racism that is directed at Black people in a racially driven U.S. society. The current collaborative autoethnography is based on the intersecting paths of three university faculty, a Black female scholar and two…

Grounded in Critical Multiracial Theory and notions of performativity, this study utilized Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis to examine 12 multiracial undergraduates' embodied experiences of monoracism within dance-based contexts at a predominantly White institution. Interviewees described the relative diversity of dance spaces, internalized…

Of the research examining undergraduate students' belongingness, monolithic approaches to LGBTQ+ student studies are common. Bisexual, pansexual, and other multi-gender attracted students (also known via umbrella terms such as plurisexual, bisexual+, or multi-sexual spectrum) are relatively understudied, despite calls for a more thorough…

Black suffering at historically and predominantly white institutions cannot be analogized with other racially minoritized groups. By drawing upon insights from Black Critical Theory (BlackCrit), this study elucidates how antiblackness as a distinct form of racism manifests in Black undergraduates' lives. This study is guided by an instrumental…