The Meanings of Race Matter

Abstract

Given the historical legacies of racial exclusion and disparities within U.S. higher education and contemporary manifestations of racial tensions on college campuses, this study explores the meanings college students make of race within a sociopolitical context often claimed to be “postracial” (i.e., one where race no longer matters). Based on interviews with a sample (n = 40) of undergraduates recruited from two U.S. West Coast public research universities, constructivist grounded theory methods allowed for an emergent understanding of how precollege experiences and campus contexts influenced race-related patterns in students’ experiencing of and learning about race. Such experiences contributed to six patterns of racial meaning (ancestry, culture, concept, embodiment, identity, power) that help explain how college students refute postracial claims and see race mattering (or not) on multiple levels.

Keywords

race college students meanings

College campuses across the United States are in the midst of renewed focus on racial dynamics in higher education and broader society. Such attention has been spurred by college students themselves, many leveraging their collective voices following in the steps of a highly publicized hunger strike and football team boycott at the University of Missouri during the 2015 fall academic term (Kelderman, 2015). Moreover, the heightened attention to race by the extrajudicial taking of black¹ lives by police officers and vigilantes as well as the June 2015 racially motivated mass murder in Charleston, South Carolina, counters any claims of living in a so-called postracial era. As witnessed in the media attention to President Barack Obama‖s racial identity during his ascension to the top political post, our nation saw itself in a potential postracial moment. This moment offered the promise that the racism of the past could be transcended (see Nagourney, 2008; Steele, 2008).

Much of the writing about postraciality has focused on refuting such postracial claims (Cabrera, 2014; Moses, 2011; Smith & Brown, 2014). However, political scientist Wilbur Rich (2013) argues the United States is in a nascent postracial era, which the author defined as “a society in which phenotype, racial ancestry and color do not determine one‖s life chances” (p. 3). In Rich‖s perspective of a postracial society, racist laws and policies and other discriminatory practices are no longer supported by government and nongovernmental entities, and therefore “racial categories such as white, black (African American), Asian and Latino are irrelevant” (p. 3). Several factors may contribute to such a perspective when considering U.S. higher education, including the recent moves away from race-targeted initiatives (e.g., outreach, transition, and support programs) and toward a broader operationalization of diversity outside (or in place) of race (Cobham & Parker, 2007). For example, offices that were once geared toward supporting “minority” students became “multicultural,” and summer bridge programs designed for assisting the transition to college for underrepresented students of color changed eligibility criteria to be based solely on income status (Cobham & Parker, 2007; Stewart, 2011). When coupled with the increasing backlash against and attacks on affirmative action (Allen, 2005; Orfield, Marin, Flores, & Garces, 2007) and push for race-neutral alternatives to college admissions given recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings (Alger, 2013), these more “colorblind” approaches to higher education may serve to fuel postracial claims that race-conscious practices are no longer needed because of the misperception that we have moved past race and that race no longer has to matter.

Despite such proclamations, institutions of higher education continue to struggle with long legacies of racial exclusion, discrimination, and reproduction (Museus, Ledesma, & Parker, 2015; Posselt, Jaquette, Bielby, & Bastedo, 2012). Anderson (2002) noted how African Americans were “virtually excluded” from U.S. higher education until after the Civil War, due to legal mandates in Southern slave states and institutionalized racism in Northern free states. As access slowly increased, black and other racially minoritized students were still met with discriminatory practices and unwelcoming campuses, further reproducing hierarchies across racial lines (Allen & Jewell, 1995; Brayboy, 2005; Harper, Patton, & Wooden, 2009; Shotton, Lowe, & Waterman, 2013; Solórzano, Villalpando, & Oseguera, 2005; Teranishi, 2010). Studies continue to document racist incidents on campus (Garcia & Johnston-Guerrero, 2015) and demonstrate the impact of such incidents and overall negative campus racial climates on students of color (Harper et al., 2011; Harper & Hurtado, 2007; Van Dyke & Tester, 2014; Yeung & Johnston, 2014). However, such disparities across race are not often explicitly attributed to racism, defined by Harper (2012) as:

individual actions (both intentional and unconscious) that engender marginalization and inflict varying degrees of harm on minoritized persons; structures that determine and cyclically remanufacture racial inequity; and institutional norms that sustain White privilege and permit the ongoing subordination of minoritized persons. (p. 10)

Given that racism is a complex phenomenon operating on multiple levels, how do college educators more effectively help students understand the realities of race within a not-so-postracial era?

In order to answer this question, we must have a better grasp of where students are currently. This study investigates contemporary meanings of race among a sample of mostly traditional-aged college students (the so-called Millennials). These students have too readily been labeled postracial by news outlets due to their open-mindedness to and acceptance of diversity while coming of age alongside Obama‖s presidency (Apollon, 2011). Given that most postracial claims conclude that race “no longer matters,” this study asked college students whether or not race matters to them. Through constructivist grounded theory methodology, I explored how students’ claims about whether or not race mattered were tied to the meanings they made of race (developed through experiences with and learning about race). By better understanding the everyday perceptions of race among our society‖s future leaders and scholars, this research informs new ways to approach educating students about the social realities of race in changing sociopolitical (e.g., “postracial”) contexts.

Literature Review

Although the literature related to race and higher education has multiple threads, one prominent theme has been to investigate the negative effects and benefits of racial diversity. Within this section, I briefly review literature related to racial diversity and various meanings of race.

Racial Diversity on U.S. College Campuses

Both negative and positive effects have resulted from increases in the compositional diversity of U.S. colleges and universities over time. Students of color at predominantly and traditionally white institutions continue to face hostile or toxic campus racial climates negatively influencing their sense of belonging and subsequent success (Gusa, 2010; Harper, 2013; Harper & Hurtado, 2007; Hurtado, Alvarez, Guillermo-Wann, Cuellar, & Arellano, 2012; Hurtado & Carter, 1997; Strayhorn, 2012). These issues have been widely documented in the literature, and contemporary trends in race relations in collegiate contexts counter such postracial claims made by Rich (2013) that race does not determine life‖s chances. Campuses continue to face issues of balkanization or fracturing by race, perhaps due to the need for students of color to find counterspaces away from the subtle, covert, and everyday forms of racism they encounter on campuses, referred to as microaggressions (Pérez Huber & Solórzano, 2015; Solórzano, Allen, & Carroll, 2002; Solórzano, Ceja, & Yosso, 2000; Sue et al., 2007; Villalpando, 2003; Yosso, Smith, Ceja, & Solórzano, 2009). Yet negative climates are not just influenced by microaggressions. High-profile and overtly racist incidents, such as hate crimes and racially themed parties, continue to show how racism manifests in various ways on college campuses (Garcia, Johnston, Garibay, Herrera, & Giraldo, 2011; Van Dyke & Tester, 2014).

Scholars have well documented the beneficial impact of campus diversity, especially for student learning and related outcomes (Chang, 1999, 2002; Gurin, Dey, Hurtado, & Gurin, 2002; Hurtado, Dey, Gurin, & Gurin, 2003; Milem, 2003). Much of this empirical research has been in response to threats against race-conscious admissions policies toward demonstrating the compelling interest for institutions of higher education to create and maintain racially diverse campuses (Chang, Witt, Jones, & Hakuta, 2003). Revisiting this debate, Bowman (2010) used a meta-analytical approach to systematically review the extant literature on the influences of racial diversity on cognitive outcomes, such as critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Using a sample of 17 studies (77,029 students total), Bowman found that the type of diversity experience (e.g., informal interactions among racially diverse students, diversity courses), the type of cognitive outcome (i.e., skills vs. tendencies), and the study design (e.g., experimental, surveys, inclusion of controls) all contributed to variability in reported effects on cognitive outcomes. In terms of types of diversity experiences, Bowman found that interpersonal interactions with racial diversity had significantly higher effects on cognitive development than interactions across nonracial diversity (e.g., across gender), diversity courses, or diversity workshops. This finding supports arguments that having a racially diverse campus has unique benefits (antonio et al., 2004; Gurin et al., 2002) yet also reinforces that just having compositional diversity (i.e., numbers of different racial groups) is not enough for accessing the positive benefits of diversity (Milem, Chang, & antonio, 2005).

In another meta-analysis of 16 quantitative studies, Denson (2009) found that cross-racial interaction (both in and out of the classroom) was important to reducing racial bias for all students, although white students appeared to benefit more from diversity when compared to students of color. Similar to Bowman’s (2010) findings, the conditions of these experiences also influenced the outcomes. Denson‖s analysis demonstrated that curricular and co-curricular diversity interventions that included facilitated cross-racial interactions exhibited stronger effects on reducing racial bias than interventions that only used pedagogical approaches to expand students’ content-based knowledge of other groups. An important mediating mechanism included in Denson‖s study was cognitive processes, or what she described as the ways in which people think about others. When these others are racially defined, the cognitive processes may reflect a student‖s underlying meaning-making of race (Quaye & Baxter Magolda, 2007). In Denson‖s study, these processes were viewed as intermediate steps between the interventions and the outcomes, without a clear indication if or how a student may have developed these processes. This study posits that the meanings students make of race may serve as or inform these intermediate cognitive processes and seeks to explore how such meanings of race are developed.

The Many Meanings of Race

The literature on race is filled with scholarly debates and dilemmas over various ways of conceptualizing and defining race in academic research (Duster, 2005; Morning, 2009; Moya & Markus, 2010; Omi, 2010; Renn, 2004; Smedley & Smedley, 2005). Despite general consensus among educators and social scientists that race is socially constructed, Omi (2010) argued that “notions of innate racial differences haunt the ongoing debate about the political and social meanings of race” (p. 349). Reviewing scholarship in history and anthropology, Smedley and Smedley (2005) outlined how contemporary scientific research perpetuates notions of immutable racial groups (and their disparate social outcomes) based on perceived biological or genetic factors. Since most of this literature examines scholars’ “armchair” theorizing about race (Glasgow, 2009), it is important to also examine everyday lay understandings of race, especially college students, who will be increasingly called on to employ their racial views when participating as citizens of a diverse democracy (Hurtado, 2007).

In focusing on the meanings college students make of race, the current study also builds on social psychological and sociological literature on lay theories of race (Hong, Chao, & No, 2009) and racial conceptions (Morning, 2009, 2011). In their review of studies related to underlying meanings of race, or what they termed lay theories of race, Hong et al. (2009) outlined important differences among individuals endorsing various views of race. For instance, those who endorsed an essentialist theory of race (i.e., attributing biological or genetic “essences” to determining race and related group-based traits) saw racial group boundaries as more rigid and viewed cultures as more discrete when compared to individuals who held a more social constructionist view of race. The authors argued that each lay theory served as a lens through which individuals interpreted various racial phenomena, with essentialist theories more readily encoding racial categories and inferring group differences were due to race. Although Hong et al.’s review demonstrated the psychological processes behind lay theories’ role during racial interactions, the authors only cursorily discussed influences on which lay theory was used (e.g., primes from media, endorsement of cultural norms). Therefore, it is unclear how these lay understandings of race may develop, especially for college students as they likely experience and learn about race in new ways in the college campus context (Johnston, 2014).

Research Focus

In a previous exploratory study on college students’ lay understandings of race, I found four unique racial conceptions (social, cultural, biological, power) students used to help make sense of racial phenomena (Johnston, 2014). However, as I returned to “the field” to collect additional data in line with constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006), I found that these conceptions of race seemed inadequate for understanding how students were reasoning through whether or not race mattered. Indeed, investigating conceptions by starting with students’ definitions of race became more of an intellectual exercise for participants. In this follow-up study, I further explicate students’ meanings of race by focusing on how students experience race and whether or not they claim race matters. In going back into the field and collecting additional data, I asked more direct questions about students’ experiences with race and how race matters to them and society. Two broad research questions guided this study:

Research Question 1: What meanings do students make of race given their varied experiencing of and learning about race?

Research Question 2: How do these meanings of race relate to whether or not they believe race matters?

Theoretical Framework

Much of the racial phenomena students encounter in order to make meaning of race could be viewed as racial projects, or what Omi and Winant (1994) define as the simultaneous “interpretation, representation, or explanation of racial dynamics [with] an effort to reorganize and redistribute resources along particular racial lines” (p. 56). The concept of racial projects comes from racial formation theory (RFT), which Winant (2000) outlined as an “approach” to studying race and racism, positing three main perspectives: (a) the instability and politically contested meaning of race and content of racial identity that (b) stem from intersections or conflicts of racial “projects” that combine elements of representation/discourse with those of structures/institutions and that (c) at these intersections exist interpretations (or articulations) of the meaning of race from various perspectives (e.g., individual vs. organizational, global vs. local). Within particular discourses or practices, the meanings of race are connected to “the ways in which both social structures and everyday experiences are racially organized” through these racial projects (Omi & Winant, 1994, p. 56). Examples of racial projects include more “macro-social” processes, such as those found within the political spectrum, including neoconservatives’ “colorblind” politics, and more “micro-social” level racial projects, which “operate at the level of everyday life” at often unconscious levels that reinforce “commonsense” notions of racial meanings (Omi & Winant, 1994, p. 59).

Somewhat similar to RFT, racial conceptualization theory (Morning, 2009) also guided this research on the meaning of race. According to Morning (2009), racial conceptualization pulls together four main perspectives on race, including: (a) there being no single definition of race, (b) racial conceptions being grounded in historical and social configurations of race, (c) racial stereotypes being bounded by conceptual assumptions, and (d) demography and changing contexts being critical influences on racial conceptions. Using this theory in addition to approaches from RFT seemed helpful in connecting how the larger social and historical constructions of race get enacted by students through conceptually bound stereotypes that come from changing contexts. Using both theories assisted with bridging the micro-level processes that students encounter (e.g., interpersonal experiences with race) and macro-level processes and discourse (e.g., the broader claims made about postraciality after President Obama‖s election) that students must also navigate in their meaning making of race.

Methods

This study is part of a larger project that explored how college students understand the concept of race on campus. In line with constructivist grounded theory methodology (Charmaz, 2006), an exploratory preliminary study examined college students’ understandings of race, finding core categories of: (a) developing diverse racial meanings and (b) using genetics as evidence to back up divergent claims about biological race. The current article focuses on the first core category. Through theoretical sampling, or the addition of more data to fill out the study‖s emerging theoretical categories, I recruited more participants toward saturation, the point when no new data added further theoretical insights (Charmaz, 2006).

Sample

The sample included 40 undergraduate students recruited from two large, public, research institutions within the same state university system on the U.S. West Coast. The demographic profiles of the institutions were similar, with student bodies where no racial group accounted for more than 50% of the population. The largest racial group on both campuses was the pan-Asian group (38.2%–48.4%), followed by white (24.2%–33.9%), Latinx² (14.9%–15.5%%), black (1.9%–3.5%), and Native American (<1.0%) students. Additionally, part of the diversity profile includes both campuses having many outlets for students to get involved in race-related activities (e.g., cultural and political student organizations), but only one of the campuses had a professionally staffed multicultural center. While both campuses have touted their student diversity, they also have had to deal with ongoing incidents negatively affecting campus racial climate, several of which have made national news headlines in the past few years.

The 40 self-selected participants, who responded to email listserv and flyer announcements, included 27 women, 12 men, and 1 participant who identified as genderqueer. The racial breakdown of the sample included 17 Asian American, 9 white, 6 Latinx, 5 mixed-race, and 3 black/African American students, which were my major groupings of how participants responded to an open-ended demographic question about how they racially identified. The overrepresentation of Asian Americans likely reflected my identification as an Asian American researcher (see positionality statement in the following) and the institutions’ compositional diversity where Asian Americans were the largest racial group at each institution. All class years were represented (2 first-years, 7 sophomores, 10 juniors, 16 fourth-years, and 5 fifth-years) as well as a variety of majors (ranging from engineering to linguistics). All but 1 of the participants were considered traditional-aged students (entered postsecondary education directly after high school). Cited participants (in alphabetical order by self-selected pseudonym) are included in Table 1, along with their open-ended racial identification response, my racial categorization/grouping, year in college, and major(s).

Table 1

Cited Participants With Background Information

Pseudonym	Self-Identification	Racial Group	Year	Major
Ace	Korean American	Asian	Third year	Management science
Amanda	Multiracial	Mixed	Fourth year	Physiological sciences
Annie	Indian (Asian) American	Asian	Fourth year	International studies/ economics
Bob	Chicano	Latino	Fourth year	Chicana/o studies
Brenda	Filipina	Asian	Fourth year	Political science
Christy	White/European descent	White	Fourth year^a	Sociology
Coffey	Afrikan American	Black	Fourth year	World arts and culture
Constantine	Latino (Mexican)	Latino	Fifth year	Psychology and human development
Dracula	Asian; Korean	Asian	Fourth year^a	Biochemistry
Emma	Mexican American	Latina	Second year	International development
Fred	Filipino	Asian	Fourth year	Chemistry
Gwen	Mixed	Mixed	Third year	Political science/ international relations
Gustava	Thai	Asian	Third year^a	Chemistry
Ian	Black	Black	Fourth year	Ethnic studies
J.B.	Filipino-American	Asian	Third year^a	Psychology
Justice	White	White	Third year	Sociology and geography
Melanie	Mexican and Portuguese	Mixed	Fifth year	Human development
Melissa	White	White	Fourth year^a	History and psychology
Melodie	Hispanic, Latina	Latina	Fifth year	General biology
Natasha	Indian American	Asian	Fourth year	Religion and geography
Russell	Multiethnic	Mixed	Third year	Sociology
Sally	I am white	White	Fourth year	Bioengineering
Victoria	Mexican	Latina	Third year	Human development

Indicates transfer student.

Data Collection

Data were collected through a demographic questionnaire, brief survey (including a quantitative measure of racial conceptions; Williams & Eberhardt, 2008), and one-on-one interviews, which occurred across the years 2011–2013. The current study focuses exclusively on the qualitative interviews, with demographic data used only to help identify any potential patterns. These interviews consisted of several introductory and background questions to establish trust (Seidman, 2006), followed by a protocol modified from Morning’s (2009, 2011) study on racial conceptions in order to focus on higher education and “postracial” claims. The combination of open-ended questions (e.g., asking students to define race) and closed-ended questions (e.g., asking whether participants agree or disagree with a statement that “there are biologically distinct races within the species homo sapiens,” which was adapted from Morning‖s use of a similar item from Lieberman’s [1997] survey of faculty members in the 1980s) allowed for gathering both exploratory and confirmatory data. The semi-structured nature of the interview included frequent probes (i.e., follow-up questions to elicit detail or clarification of participants’ responses), making it possible to investigate the nuances of respondents’ views, including the arguments, claims, and values comprising the meanings they made of race. Furthermore, later interviews were used to focus more intentionally on filling out the emerging theoretical categories related to how students developed their meanings of race within “postracial” contexts. All participants received a $10 gift card for the interviews, which lasted between approximately 45 and 90 minutes.

Positionality

Since data were collected through face-to-face interviews, I want to acknowledge my positionality and its potential influence on the research process. During data collection, I worked as a graduate research assistant for a student affairs unit on one of the campuses in which several of the participants also worked. Though my position was a graduate student role with no supervision responsibilities, some participants may have still viewed me as being a part of the staff and possibly tailored their responses to appear a certain way since the unit had a strong stance on the importance of social justice and inclusion. Also, being a multiracially identified Asian American man with racially ambiguous physical features may have played a role in who opted into the study (e.g., note the overrepresentation of Asian American participants) as well as how students responded to me during the interview. I noticed this potential influence because in my initial interviews, I tried to limit the presence and influence of my own racial identity by not talking about my racial background. Several participants seemingly waited to ask me about my heritage until after the interview concluded, which made me realize that some of them may have been curious about my race during the entire interview. Therefore, in the following interviews, I inserted my own identity toward the beginning of the interviews when it made the most sense (e.g., after participants shared how they identified). Finally, with my positionality as someone who claims a mixed race identity and a former practitioner whose work was largely around improving campus racial climate, I question claims of being in a postracial era since I have experienced personally and continue to witness how and why race matters in U.S. higher education. Given that “qualitative researchers are the instrument of analysis” (Jones, Torres, & Arminio, 2014, p. 39), these experiences and views informed data analysis, as outlined in the following.

Data Analysis

Data analysis consisted of open and axial coding techniques, constant comparative analyses, and simultaneity of data collection and analysis (Charmaz, 2006; Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Although the racial conceptions literature was helpful for coding of initial categories in the preliminary study, I encountered difficulty coding some of the racial conceptions when students discussed race being about ancestry. Was ancestry something biological or cultural? A. J. Morning (personal communication, March 16, 2011) suggested that the interpretation depended on what and how participants were talking about race, for instance, in terms of genealogical origins and lineage (biological conception) or transcendence of heritage and customs (cultural conception). As I moved forward with theoretical sampling and the addition of more data, this distinction between biological and cultural seemed less helpful for how students were claiming whether or not race mattered. Therefore, race as ancestry seemed to be its own standalone category of racial meaning since it often hinged on both biological and cultural assumptions that students held about heredity. As I moved forward with analyzing the data in new and emergent ways, my interpretations moved further away from Morning’s (2009, 2011) use of racial conceptions and toward more grounded meanings students made of race on multiple levels, informed by RFT.

In adding more participants, I used extensive memoing and then open coding of both the interviews and my memos to develop an initial coding scheme and direct further data collection. As new data were added, I used constant comparisons to update the previous codes and fill out emerging theoretical categories. After subsequent revisions through further constant comparisons with new insights from additional interviews, I established the final coding scheme that was used to recode all interviews. Since the previous study‖s protocol did not prompt specifically for racial meanings and mattering, the emergent theoretical categories from the newly collected data helped to fill out potential gaps in the original data. To aide in the management of the coding process, I used the qualitative software program HyperRESEARCH 3.0.2 to code all interviews.

To ensure trustworthiness of the study‖s findings, I employed several strategies recommended for assessing the “goodness” of qualitative research (Arminio & Hultgren, 2002; Jones et al., 2014). First, adhering to my epistemological (constructivist) and methodological (grounded theory) assumptions provided a source of goodness. For instance, instead of interpreting participants’ intellectual claims about the “social construction of race” as evidence of their deep understanding of racial formation, I tried to ground myself in their realities, asking further questions and constructing findings from their direct experiences. Second, I used peer debriefing with three colleagues: one with expertise in qualitative methods, another with expertise in racial issues in higher education, and another with expertise on the relationship between genetics and society. Debriefing was guided by the question, “Could other reasonable researchers make these same claims?” (Arminio & Hultgren, 2002, p. 457). Although few, in the instances where my interpretations and claims did not seem consistent with theirs, we worked through the data to revise the claims toward being “more probable.” Third, preliminary findings were also shared with several of the participants as a way of member checking. By incorporating these techniques, I felt confident that my interpretations were trustworthy.

Findings

This study examined the ways college students made meaning of race within a sociopolitical context that was claimed to be postracial, or beyond race and at institutional contexts touted for being racially diverse. Findings are presented by outlining the multiple meanings of race students endorsed and how students developed these meanings. Then I report findings on students’ claims about whether or not race mattered on various levels.

Meanings of Race Are Varied

As participants responded to questions about defining race and whether biologically distinct races existed, it became clear that both across participants and within participants themselves, a variety of racial meanings were endorsed. These meanings included (a) race as embodiment (e.g., how bodies get marked as certain races), (b) race as power (e.g., how historical and contemporary forms of power and oppression create and maintain races), (c) race as culture (e.g., how traditions, customs, or values are connected to racial groups), (d) race as ancestry (e.g., how lineage or heritage inform racial grouping), (e) race as concept (e.g., how one‖s mind creates race as something conceptual/ideological), and (f) race as identity (e.g., how individuals or groups claim race as an important identifier). Table 2 outlines the six unique forms of racial meanings, along with descriptions and illustrative quotes. Although unique, these meanings were not mutually exclusive since participants often held overlapping meanings. However, there seemed to be one dominant meaning for each individual participant, especially when asked to reason through whether or not race mattered. For instance, Russell‖s explanation of race (see Table 2) included both physical features (embodiment) and also claims about ancestry, yet he acknowledged that some people do not even take ancestry into account (and therefore, it appeared as though embodiment was a more dominant meaning of race for him).

Table 2

Meanings of Race

Meaning	Description	Illustrative Quote
Race as embodiment	Race is viewed largely based on how bodies get marked as certain races (e.g., by skin color, hair texture, etc.) and the categorization that occurs based on these markers.	“I feel like race is socially constructed based on someone‖s appearance and their ancestry. So depending on someone‖s skin tone, skin color, physical attributes and their ancestry and heritage, someone‖s race is determined. . . . And a lot of times . . . they just look at your looks and they say, ‘oh, he‖s this or that.’” (Russell)
Race as power	Race is directly tied to historical and contemporary forms of power and oppression (at multiple levels).	“I honestly feel like [race] is a way to keep hegemony alive. And I feel like the elite class uses it to subordinate others.” (Bob)
Race as culture	Race is seen as being a function of the traditions, customs, or values of particular groups of people.	“I think race matters to a certain extent because race is kind of like a reflection of your culture, the racial culture that you have and with every racial culture, there are racial values that should be respected.” (Dracula)
Race as ancestry	Race is viewed as resulting from lineage or heritage; closely linked with heredity and genetics.	“I would say that race is associated more with like the country that you‖re associated with, your ethnic background, the blood that you come from, almost to say that the people that are your ancestors, almost biologically, but not completely biologically.” (Emma)
Race as concept	Race is seen as something that resides mostly in one‖s mind as something conceptual/ideological or not real.	“As seen in US history, race has always been a topic of concern . . . but sometimes it feels as though racism is sensationalized in the media . . . I see like people playing the race card all the time . . . and it‖s also not okay to think that everything that goes wrong is because you‖re being discriminated against.” (J.B.)
Race as identity	Race is seen as a function of individual or group identity; hinges on race being an identity choice.	“I think race would have to come down to what, like it would be a group identity, as opposed to like a cultural identity. So what group, grouping of people that you identify with.” (Natasha)

How Racial Meanings Developed

As I probed further for how students came to develop these meanings of race, I found that both their experiences with race as well as learning about race influenced the dominant meaning of race they held. In the following, I provide examples of what these experiences and learning looked like for participants. Although not exclusive, a race-related pattern emerged where mostly students of color described experiencing race and mostly white students described learning about race.

Experiencing Race Influences Meanings

Students of color in this study described multiple types of experiences with race, with distinctions between both their own experiencing of race and observing others’ experiences as well as the magnitude of those experiences. Students of color experienced race in two forms: (a) recalling significant racial events (e.g., experiencing overt manifestations of racism) in one‖s life and (b) experiencing racial microaggressions, or the more subtle, covert forms of racial discrimination they experienced on an everyday basis.

Significant events seemed to shake the foundation of students’ racial realities. They did not just experience these events; students of color were moved by them. When recalling these events, a common thread was that participants could see themselves as being vulnerable to or threatened by racism. This threat was most apparent when it resulted from or produced thoughts of death, creating a severe sense of vulnerability. For example, although he did not have many significant events personally, Fred recalled one experience during middle school when his friends and peers began calling him “Chinese” even though he is Filipino. This experience of not having his identity validated and dealing with family issues resulted in thoughts of suicide as he wondered if anyone would notice if he was gone since they did not really see him.

And it came down to my thoughts that day, I was like, I wonder if people actually care about who I am and who I am as a person. And if I left or just disappear suddenly, would people really care if I was gone? So, that just came down to that and I really tied that back to being racially discriminated against in middle school.

This experience allowed Fred to have a meaning of race as power, understanding how race could be manipulated to influence the experiences and livelihood of others. Similarly, Ian, who had a keen awareness of racial climate issues as a black-identified man on campus and highly involved in the Black Student Union, recalled one specific significant event he described as “a life changing moment.” This significant event occurred when he found a noose hanging on campus property. Thoughts of death shook his core because the noose was life sized and he could “imagine a person in it.” Through this significant event itself, along with the subsequent responses by fellow students and administrators (or lack thereof), Ian was able to identify and connect the experiences of his parents, who were civil rights activists, to why he was able to make meaning of race as a function of power so well.

Melanie recalled a significant racial event she experienced when studying abroad in Spain. While on a bus “full of Australians,” she described how someone brought up being a skinhead and the tensions that commenced. She saw it as “weird” to see how race gets brought up in different countries, which allowed her to make meaning of race as a concept since it could be internalized differently across national contexts. Yet at the same time, she likely felt threatened in the given situation (i.e., being one of only a few Americans and people of color on the bus with a supposed “skinhead”), adding to why this event stuck out as significant. These significant events can open students’ minds and provide new insights on the meaning of race.

Yet, experiencing race was not always in the form of isolated significant events. Specifically, participants of color described regularly experiencing racial microaggressions in college, those covert, subtle, everyday forms of discrimination based on race (Sue et al., 2007). These experiences seemed most salient and impactful when they came from close relationships, especially from those peers with whom participants lived. For instance, Melodie recalled how her roommate sophomore year (who Melodie described as Asian) told her, “You only got in here because of affirmative action.” The micro in the term microaggression should not negate the amount of potential impact of such experiences (Minikel-Lacocque, 2013; Sue, Capodilupo, Nadal, & Torino, 2008). For Melodie, who was highly involved in the Latinx community at her institution and made meaning of race as power, this experience with her roommate likely colored her views on whether affirmative action based on race should be allowed in college admissions. Despite understanding how systems of inequality operate to disadvantage certain racial groups, she did not believe in affirmative action, stating that race should not even be collected on admissions forms: “like there shouldn‖t be those categories like for any government form . . . [or] application for a college, like I don‖t think you should, you know, put those things there.” This belief seemed somewhat counter to Melodie‖s affirmations about the power dynamics related to the social construction of race (see the following).

Experiencing microaggressions appeared to not only influence students’ opinions but could also change how students identified themselves. For instance, Victoria described changing her identification from Mexican American to solely Mexican because of her experiences living with peers in the residence halls.

My first-year I found like people would isolate me for being Mexican . . . people that lived in my dorm were . . . of Asian descent and then they wouldn‖t talk to me because I was Mexican or they would think I was my roommate because we were both Mexican. I was just like, “okay, this is not working” and that‖s why I started going to MEChA and then that‖s what helped me identify [differently].

The invisibility and isolation Victoria felt drove her to seek out a community of support, which she found in the activist-oriented student organization Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA), a space that allowed her to develop her meaning of race as identity and claim specific identifiers for herself.

Within the contexts of these campuses, which were often publicly touted for being racially diverse (since no single group constituted a numerical majority), some students of color still experienced racial microaggressions related to being isolated in the classrooms. For instance, Coffey explained, “there have been numerous times where I have been like one of two or the only black student in the classroom” and being asked by professors to “speak on behalf of your people.” Coffey, whose experiences allowed her to see race both as important for group identity but ultimately as a result of power dynamics, also experienced microaggressions living in the residence halls because,

Like as a black woman with your hair, living in the dorms, becomes an issue. People want to touch your hair and ask questions about it. You had your hair done one day and then the girl goes, “your hair grew so long.” Like, oh my God, just leave me alone. Don‖t ask me to touch my hair.

These types of microaggressive experiences have been commonly found in the literature with data collected over 10 years ago (Solórzano et al., 2000, 2002), yet black and Latinx participants in particular continued to experience them even within a purported postracial era and on campuses claimed by administrators to be racially diverse. These campuses in particular seemed to use their compositional diversity as rationale for not focusing more explicitly on campus racial climate, which only became a focal point after the noose-hanging and other high-profile incidents occurred, forcing administrators to acknowledge the not-so-postracial contexts.

Experiencing race also consisted of those participants of color, particularly Asian Americans, who were able to observe others’ experiences with race, which often developed into connections among shared community as well as solidarity across groups. For instance, Brenda, who was highly involved in the Filipinx community on campus, learned through experience why she should stand in solidarity with other groups who were the targets of a racist incident on campus.

So I realized like their struggle is my struggle and if that [incident] ever happened to Filipinos, like I would have acted the same way they did too as being deeply offended. Because at that time, I thought they were over exaggerating and now, I felt like ashamed that I thought that way.

Seeing another group‖s struggle with a racist incident allowed Brenda to develop her meaning of race that was tied to her own ancestry as Filipina but also connected to understandings of intergroup and power dynamics. Similarly, Annie felt that she mostly learned about race by seeing other students’ experiences with racial discrimination when she described how she came to make meaning of race as power. Annie shared she learned, “also just with students who have experienced racial discrimination and just learning from better understanding what it feels like to go through such experiences.” In Annie‖s and other participants’ cases, experiencing race, whether their own or in observing others’ experiences, offered new perspectives for learning about the meaning of race.

Learning About Race Influences Meanings

Connected to how students experienced race was how they learned about race, although this learning was predominately described by white and some Asian American students. Learning about race meant encountering content from classes, trainings and programs, or relationships, which helped students make meaning of race in various ways. For instance, practically all participants had heard that “race is a social construct[ion]” with half (20) of all participants using this phrasing verbatim without being prompted. Most participants could identify the particular class or training from which they learned that phrasing. Annie, who stated “race is a social construction and it‖s not related to biology by any means,” described how participating in equity-based training as a resident assistant helped her “see society from a different perspective and your vision and your perspective is just so different. I can‖t explain but it’s . . . empowering.” So in addition to how experiencing race could offer new perspectives on the meaning of race, new perspectives could also be gained from learning about race through trainings and workshops.

Students consistently described classes as particularly important contexts for learning about race. However, participants may have also placed too much emphasis on classes since their beliefs about how their peers thought about race differed by the types of classes required by different majors or schools within their institution. For instance, when I asked participants if they thought other students at their campuses agreed or disagreed with whether or not biologically distinct races existed, their answers were often contingent on whether or not students were in a particular major/school (since different majors/schools had different diversity requirements) or took a particular class. Christy articulated this belief when she recalled learning about race from a sociology class she took.

I think it would be a mix, but maybe a lot of people would agree [that there are biologically distinct races], just because you see this whole campus is diverse and so they kind of, not that they don‖t know any better, but I feel like the sociology class that I had just like ingrained that in my mind that race is just a social construct. So maybe they don‖t know that and yeah, more people on campus would agree with that.

For Christy, who made meaning of race as a concept, this one course ingrained in her mind that race was “just a social construct,” and so she felt that anyone else who had not taken that sociology class might agree with the statement that there are biologically distinct races. Similarly, Sally discussed her learning from a required course in her respective major.

I’m pretty sure in [name of required course] we go over like race is not a biological concept and that‖s why I was immediately uncomfortable with this statement and then I just remembered that we had like a lecture on like race and biology. I don‖t know how other [majors/schools] would say. But I feel pretty confident any like second or third year [in my major/school] will be able to say race is not a biological concept.

Here Sally, who made meaning of race predominately as embodiment, could point to her class lecture to explain why race was not biological but still promoted ideas that race was part of an automatic process to categorize different groups of people based on how they looked stating, “you will catch yourself grouping people together just based on one like attribute about them and because it‖s natural to like categorize things.”

Although classes were important learning contexts, it was unclear how much students were just repeating content they learned in those classes (e.g., that race is a social construct) or whether they were actually making meaning of race in different ways because of what they were learning. This level of articulating changes in meaning-making and connecting those changes to classes seemed to be the case only for a small group of students, all of whom were upper-division students. For example, Melodie discussed the importance of her ethnic studies class (which she initially took only to fulfill a requirement).

[Race] does matter because it‖s been constructed to matter. So you know a lot of things do depend on race like even if it‖s unconsciously. You know, from my ethnic studies classes I‖ve learned so much and honestly I can say that if it wasn‖t for like the requirement for like [my major] I wouldn‖t have, probably wouldn‖t have taken an ethnic studies course because I had never been exposed to it, didn‖t know what it was. . . . And then like that‖s when my eyes got opened.

Melodie was not just repeating “race is a social construct” but could actually articulate how and why race mattered because she could now see how race has been constructed to matter.

Although students generally identified particular classes or trainings that helped them to learn more about race, some students felt like their learning came mostly from interracial relationships or informal processing of racial issues. For example, Gwen, who admitted not taking ethnic studies classes and feeling “not that well versed” on issues of race, credited her learning about race to her friends.

I think a lot of my learning actually comes from just having a wide group of friends here. One of my friends, he‖s probably one of the best friends I‖ve made here and he‖s actually mixed. He‖s half black, half white but he phenotypically looks black. . . . He also worked at my job and we‖re friends before so we would work for eight hours and because a lot of things would come up in work, we just do a lot of discussion about race and class and things like that. I think more than any class that I‖ve taken, that‖s what I‖ve learned from because I don‖t have friends like that at home. It was really eye-opening.

Gwen’s discussion of how she mostly learned about race from the informal discussions with her diverse group of friends confirms the importance of not only compositional diversity or diversity-related courses but providing the climate in which such informal processing can occur (Milem et al., 2005). In Gwen‖s case, working in the same job (through an access and retention program) with diverse peers offered the opportunity to connect with others to discuss race, which was more important to her learning than any class. Similar to Melodie‖s description of why race mattered previously, Gwen could also articulate different meanings of race, including embodiment (e.g., how her friend “phenotypically looks black”) but ultimately conveyed why race mattered based on the meaning she made of race as power.

Race [Still] Matters

In terms of the second research question on how the meanings of race students endorsed related to their views on whether race matters, it is important to note that no students claimed that they were living in a postracial era where race no longer mattered. In fact, they generally saw this broader discourse of postraciality as false, as Melanie bluntly stated in reaction to President Obama‖s election being used to fuel postracial claims, “just because we have a black president doesn‖t mean anything.” However, several participants still hoped for a day when society would become past race, like Annie who stated, “I think [race] will continue to matter. I hope . . . I think ideally it would be nice if it doesn‖t matter.” Overall, participants believed that race matters, but there were two main caveats that also exhibited a race-related (though not exclusive) pattern: (a) Race matters but not to participants personally (held mostly by white and some Asian American students), and (b) race matters but should not matter (held mostly by students of color). In explaining their positions on whether race matters, participants seemed to pull from their experiences with race and learning about race.

More often than not, when participants reasoned that race mattered, they saw race as something negative. Justice, who held a meaning of race as power, saw how race mattered and was important to consider, but mostly because of the negative stereotypes applied to different races.

I think it‖s also important to look at race, because also like stereotypes play a role. I know in education like right from a young age I have heard studies where black kids are like basically not expected to do well, so then their teachers don‖t expect much from them and like they end up not doing as well because of that. So that‖s the way that race is still very important in that area.

This negative framing of race related to how some white participants likely felt the need to explain that race mattered but not to them personally. For example, Melissa reasoned that race mattered by stating,

When I look at people it doesn‖t matter for me what race they are but I think it matters in the sense of some people will act differently towards them or towards people because of race and some people are racist.

Melissa, who made meaning of race predominately as a concept that was mostly in one‖s mind, believed race matters but not to her personally. She was aware that others were racist but wanted to distinguish herself by claiming race did not matter “for me.” This distancing of self from those who “are racist” allowed participants to notice race (i.e., reject a colorblind racial project) but also alleviated them from feeling responsibility for taking action toward racial justice. For these participants, race seemed to operate solely on the individual/interpersonal level in terms of identifying some people as racist.

This negative framing of race also likely influenced why some participants of color clarified that race should not matter even though it does. Constantine held a meaning of race as embodiment, stating race is “like how you look like outside . . . a white person is, I guess, generally blue eyes, blonde hair, white.” Yet he reasoned that race mattered this way:

But I guess [race] matters. . . . I know it matters politically and like federal government especially when like I guess hiring specific people . . . or even in college admissions with affirmative action laws and all that, so I guess it matters in that sense, but again, I feel that it shouldn‖t matter at the end of the day because we all live in this, I guess, wonderful world and we should protect it and work together as a group to make everyone happy.

Here, Constantine was able to distinguish between different instances where race matters but ultimately thought race should not matter when viewed on a more worldly level.

Race Matters on Different Levels

Whether or not race mattered also seemed related to what level students saw race operating. Annie distinguished between race not mattering to her personally when stating, “I think for me like being in a relationship with someone from another race, I don‖t think that matters at all for me.” Yet Annie‖s power meaning of race allowed her to also see race mattering at more societal levels.

I think personally for me I get to decide, like if it‖s in a relationship, I get to decide, “Okay race is not an issue.” But I feel like if we talk about something societal . . . I can‖t really decide if race is going to be an issue or not. There are institutional forces above me, bigger than me that have a deciding factor.

Although no participant thought that race never mattered, several would clarify that it did not matter sometimes. For instance, Dracula stated, “I think race matters to a certain extent because race is kind of like a reflection of your culture . . . but then at a certain threshold, we‖re all human beings and that‖s where humanity trumps the dividing lines.” Ace also mentioned this distinction when he stated,

Well I mean on a humans aspect, a humans point of view, I would say [race] does not matter, because you know, I can relate to any other human based off of what they do, you know, we eat, sleep, drink water.

At the opposite end of the spectrum of level in which race was operating, Gustava reasoned that “I honestly don‖t think [race] matters because when it comes down to it like we‖re all the same, we have the same DNA. There‖s nothing different.” So in thinking about the human species level, which was both conceived as being broad but also microscopic in terms of shared DNA, race did not matter. What appeared common among these participants who saw race not mattering at either a very macro (human species) or micro (DNA) level was that they held a predominant meaning of race as a concept or as ancestry.

On the other hand, students who held a power meaning of race were particularly versed at reasoning through race more deeply, seeing how race and racism operate on multiple levels, as Harper’s (2012) definition entails. Ian described different levels of race mattering on his campus in terms of where people thought racism occurred, for instance, at interpersonal, institutional, or systemic levels.

The biggest problem with this campus is everyone sees racism as between people . . . because interpersonal racism is a big problem on this campus. But people do not understand the institutional and systemic racism part of it. So a lot of people think it is personal like, “oh well, if I call you the N word, what is that going to do? You‖re still in college,” things like this . . . I think it misses a lot of people that this is deeper than just like slurs that you‖re saying to me. It has to do with like a background of racism within the university. It‖s just that your interpersonal racism right now is exposing the fact that the university has never educated anyone on these issues.

Here, Ian connected his own experiences with race to how race matters differently to different people, based largely on if and on what level they saw racism operating. Ian seemed to be able to see these multiple levels of race largely because of his meaning-making of race as power. Important to note here is that Ian also was able to identify the role institutions played in upholding racism. Given ongoing issues with campus racial climate after what he and others viewed as inadequate responses on behalf of the administration to a series of racially biased incidents that occurred on campus (including the noose-hanging discussed earlier), Ian recognized that the institution was at fault in not educating the student body about how racism operates on multiple levels.

Discussion

This study examined the meanings students make of race within a sociopolitical context claimed to be postracial in media and scholarship (Apollon, 2011; Rich, 2013; Steele, 2008), a claim participants in this study refuted. Expanding on the college student racial conceptions literature (e.g., Morning, 2009, 2011; Williams & Eberhardt, 2008), this study found that students endorse different meanings of race that develop through experiences with and learning about race. Participants discussed many social and institutional contexts that were influential for how they made meaning of race. These included precollege contexts (e.g., Fred‖s experiences with peers in middle school), along with college experiences (e.g., racially biased incidents and responses, classes/classrooms, residential halls, study abroad) that allowed for race to be experienced in certain ways (particularly for students of color). These contexts also provide opportunities for all students to learn about race. Consistent with the literature on the benefits of racial diversity (e.g., Bowman, 2010; Chang, 1999, 2002; Denson, 2009), racial experiences (including informal interactions across racial diversity) seemed most influential for students’ meanings of race rather than just content learned from classes. The findings also suggest that if students do not have enough experiences with race (either their own significant events and microaggressions or observing others’ experiences), they are likely only able to use evidence from their curricular-based learning when making claims about whether or not race matters. This sort of dependency on curricular learning seemed particularly evident among white students. When this occurs, racial explanations remain largely in the intellectual realm, detached from experience, which may distance students from understanding the racial realities on campus and in broader society.

Findings from this study also add to the literature on lay theories of race. Although the ways lay theories function to influence individuals’ interpretations of racial phenomena have been posited (e.g., Hong et al., 2009), the findings from this study help to advance understandings of how these lay theories develop. Students of color who experience racism seem more likely to connect their experiences with what they learn about race in their classes and in turn are able to view race through multiple meanings. As suggested by Denson (2009), cognitive changes may serve as mediators for the beneficial effects of diversity experiences in reducing racial bias. Part of these cognitive changes may be students’ changing meanings of race through which they view the world.

In line with racial formation theory (Omi & Winant, 1994), race operates on multiple levels, including more macro/societal levels and more micro/interpersonal levels. Particular meanings of race lend themselves to more complexly seeing the multiple levels at which race operates. Simply seeing race as a concept or just ancestry might limit viewing race to the most micro and most macro levels where students have easier access to rationales for why race does not matter. For instance, at a macro human species level, students claim race does not matter because we are all human, as evidenced in Ace‖s example. At the most micro level, students may invoke DNA or genetics in order to also claim that race does not matter, as in Gustava‖s example. However, students being able to access multiple meanings of race, particularly race as power, are more readily able to see race operating in more complex ways, like Ian, who saw multiple levels of race and racism rather than a singular myopic view.

In terms of experiencing and learning about race, influential experiences or learning likely allow students to view race on multiple levels. Through education, our vision can be trained (or not trained) to see race in various ways. For instance, Ian‖s example of finding the noose was a particular significant incident for him, but it was likely because he had already had his own experiences with racism and learned about the racial struggles of his parents, which allowed him to see race through a meaning of power. On the other hand, Christy, who viewed race as a concept, also mentioned hearing about the noose incident (although she did not see it in person like Ian). Yet she did not even think the noose had to do with race, stating, “It made me kind of think like, ‘Oh, was that racist?’ It‖s like a student couldn‖t take the pressure of classes. So, I was like, ‘Oh, what did I get into? Are these classes going to be hard?’ That was kind of my reaction to that.” Despite simply stating that their racial backgrounds (Ian is black and Christy is white) explain this difference, racial meanings seem to also be related to whether or not an experience actually has an impact on changing students’ perspectives on race. If race is viewed as a concept within one‖s mind, the racist symbolism of a noose may more easily be overlooked.

Although this study did not seek out differences in racial meanings by racial background, several patterns in how students developed those meanings became apparent during data analysis. Specifically, students of color recalled experiencing race either because of their personal experiences with significant incidents or racial microaggressions or because they were able to make connections to other students’ experiences with race. White students recalled their experiences with race mostly through learning about race within different settings. Moreover, although white students saw race as mattering, they tended to add the caveat that race did not matter to them personally. These patterns present the need for more attention to the role of whiteness and how it may not only limit white students’ ability to see their role in maintaining white supremacy and racism (Cabrera, 2014; Leonardo, 2004) but also their ability to have dissonance-enhancing racial experiences that allow them to see race operating on multiple levels. The race-related patterns found in this study also provide important implications for future research on racial issues in higher education. Students’ racial backgrounds and identities are necessary to consider when interpreting their racial claims, yet racial backgrounds themselves seem insufficient as explanations. The meanings students make of race might further explain in-group differences related to racial claims. For instance, Justice and Christy are both white-identified, but Justice‖s power meaning provided a more complex view toward seeing race matter on multiple levels, while Christy‖s concept meaning likely allowed her to more simply view race as “just” a social construct and up to individuals to decide whether something like a noose is racist or not. This study demonstrates that the meanings of race that students hold matter for understanding students’ racial claims (e.g., how race matters).

Limitations and Areas for Future Research

This study presents new lines of inquiry into the roles of learning about, experiencing, and making meaning of race for college students. However, there are several limitations to consider that lend themselves to future research. The small sample size across two institutions within the same university system, each with similar racial compositions, presents some limitations for transferability of the findings to other types of institutions. However, the study was not designed for generalizability or transferability as the strength of grounded theory lies, in part, in the substantive theory of racial meanings that developed being applicable in different settings. Another limitation is that I did not focus on comparing different institutions or racial groups, although race-related patterns did emerge in the findings. Differences between curricular requirements and campus climate by institution and different conceptualizations of race by different racial groups should be explored in future research. Additionally, the recruitment methods (through listserv solicitation and participant referral) did not allow for a response rate to be calculated since the number of students who actually received the recruitment email is unclear. Moreover, the fact that students self-selected to participate in a study on the “concept of race on campus” should also be considered. These students may have had a particular interest in race, and thus, the findings may not be representative of the larger campus population. However, the fact that even this small self-selected sample had such varied experiences with and meanings made of race suggests that the current study may have only scratched the surface of investigating meaning-making of race in U.S. higher education.

Despite these limitations, this study offers multiple avenues for future areas of research on racial meanings and mattering. Since experiencing race seemed more influential for students’ meaning-making than solely learning about race, more research should be done to better understand how learning could become more of an experience versus just something cerebral. Part of this research seems in line with Denson’s (2009) findings that diversity courses with facilitated interactions were more influential for reducing racial bias than courses with just diversity content. Further research is needed to unpack how learning could be made more like an experience, particularly for white students, since course learning is a common denominator across all college students and institutional types. Institutions have the ability to impact meanings of race through academics even if solely through distance or online education or for students who are only on campus for courses (e.g., not involved in extracurricular activities). Future research should investigate what experiencing and learning about race looks like at different institutional types. Although the focus on this study was not on comparing the two institutions in the sample, future research investigating the role of unique campus racial climates and diverse learning environments (Hurtado et al., 2012) to learning about race (outside of just the benefits associated with such climates/environments) should be pursued further. Moreover, this study was not longitudinal and did not fully investigate precollege experiences with race. Future research should encompass longitudinal designs to better connect the literature on racial meanings developed during childhood (e.g., Park, 2011) to development during college.

Implications

The findings from this study offer multiple implications for practice. First, although students were adept at repeating that race is “just” a social construct, most lacked a critical meaning of how this mantra related to forms of power. Educators must rethink the ways in which race is taught in both classes and trainings. Indeed, having students understand that race is not biological seems important for moving past scientific racism, yet some students may too easily move from race as socially constructed to reasoning that race is not real or does not matter. Educating students about race as a social construction needs to be able to assess what students take away from the learning so that they do not solely leave college regurgitating a sound bite about the social construction of race.

Second, this study adds to the literature suggesting the importance of compositional diversity as a necessary yet insufficient factor for learning about and experiencing race in meaningful ways. For instance, Gwen reflected on how her experiences with informal processing of race with her diverse group of friends were most influential for her learning. Therefore, institutions should promote these types of informal interactions outside of just creating a compositionally diverse student body (e.g., through recruitment and admissions decisions) or just allowing racial diversity to be discussed as a part of classes. The experiential learning that occurs through informal interactions seems most important to students’ developing meanings of race.

Third, college educators, such as student affairs administrators and academic advisors, may be especially poised to help the students understand the multiple meanings of race and how race operates on multiple levels since many educators have more flexibility in designing contexts for informal processing to occur or can work one-on-one with student leaders to help them process through information. Challenging students to think more deeply about race and how it matters differently depending on racial meanings and levels of race seems like an important task that educators should take on to support their students. Additionally, residence halls were significant contexts where both experiencing and learning about race could occur, so administrators should continue to strive to make these living environments more inclusive or design specific programs or outlets for students of color who experience microaggressions (e.g., from roommates) to be validated and have the opportunity to process their experiences.

Lastly, this study highlights the importance of curriculum, both classes and co-curricular trainings (e.g., the equity-based training for resident assistants), that educates students about the complexities of race and how race operates on multiple levels. This study‖s findings offer emergent relationships between how students make meaning of race and how these meanings are developed from their experiences with and learning about race. As educators work to help students understand the complexities of race and how it still matters in society despite any postracial claims, there must also be attention paid to helping develop more complex meanings of race, namely, that race is a function of power. Having students work through such complexities may offer developmental opportunities to advance their cognitive abilities as it relates to reasoning through whether or not race matters. For instance, having students examine recent examples of racial unrest on campuses (e.g., University of Missouri) and in larger society from multiple meanings of race may also help for understanding the multiple levels at which race operates and continues to matter.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this study offers insights into both how students develop their meanings of race and why these meanings are important for how students view race to matter within this not-so-postracial era. It is clear that race still matters in the minds of students, but the ways in which it matters seem to reflect different meanings students make of race. While understanding race to be a function of power allows students to see race operating and mattering on multiple levels, other meanings, such as race being a concept in people‖s heads or about one‖s ancestry, allow students to move toward claims that race does not matter. Educators must continue to help students understand the complexities related to race and to think critically about various meaning of race. The participants in this study demonstrated different abilities to view how race and racism operate on multiple levels within society and on their campuses. Although the discourse around being in a so-called postracial era may add an additional hurdle for educators, our goal must be to help provide the types of contexts where students will both learn about and experience race in ways that help them develop more complex thinking about the nature of race and how race continues to matter.

Footnotes

Notes

Marc P. Johnston-Guerrero, PhD, is an assistant professor, Higher Education & Student Affairs, at The Ohio State University, 301F Ramseyer Hall, 29 W. Woodruff Ave, Columbus OH 43210; e-mail: Guerrero.55@osu.edu . His research interests include racial dynamics and student development in higher education.

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