Skip to main content
Presentation
Whitened rainbows: how white college students protect whiteness through diversity discourses
Annual Meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association (2015)
  • Annie Hikido, University of California, Santa Barbara
  • Susan B Murray, San Jose State University
Abstract
This qualitative study investigates white students’ attitudes toward campus diversity at a large, multiracial public university. Drawing upon focus group data gathered from a larger campus climate study, we identified four themes: participants voiced that (1) racial diversity fosters campus tolerance, (2) diversity fragments into de facto racial segregation, (3) institutional support of diversity undermines and excludes whites, and (4) the university should avoid acknowledging white identity. Employing critical multiculturalism as a theoretical lens, we argue that these discourses maintain white dominance within a framework that promotes inclusion. These findings suggest that without more direct institutional guidance, white students will protect white supremacy even as they celebrate diversity in multiracial spaces.
Disciplines
Publication Date
April 1, 2015
Comments
Panel title: Whiteness, White Identity and Theorizing Race.
Citation Information
Annie Hikido and Susan B Murray. "Whitened rainbows: how white college students protect whiteness through diversity discourses" Annual Meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association (2015)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/susan_murray/15/