Racial Microaggressions and Student Life
Undergraduates: Jennifer Archer, Katelijn Berckmans Stacey Richardson
Faculty Advisor: Abigal Panter
Department: Psychology & Neuroscience
Racial microaggressions are common interactions that may imply discriminatory feelings or express subtle insults towards underrepresented individuals, such as racial and ethnic minorities. Research by Nadal as well as others identified the unique ways that certain ethnic groups experience these racial slights, such assumptions of criminality versus feelings of invisibility. Using 260 students from various racial specific organizations on a predominately-White campus as well as an introductory psychology class, this study investigates how microaggressions affect minority students¿ across various facets of academic life. Assessment was completed with the Senior Student Survey, which asked about campus satisfaction and involvement, as well as the Racial and Ethnic Microaggressions Scale, which asked participants to rate how often in the past six months they had been the victim of various racial slights. Analysis of results found that students who identified as Black had significantly higher scores on the REMS scale than other ethnic groups, with students who identified as Latino or Asian scoring similarly to White students. One-way ANOVAs as well as cross-tabulations were used to analyze the differences across racial groups for the various measures of student life. Discussion highlights how the results serve as evidence for universities to strive to create college campuses that are more accepting of minority students by acknowledging in which areas the students feel are lacking.