Racialized Symbols of Control and Empowerment at a Community College

• In Event: From Tech to Tours: Research Rethinking the Transition to College

Abstract

Community colleges largely serve racially and economically minoritized student populations, and the visual symbols their students encounter on campus may be the first of many along their educational journey. In this paper, we set out to examine two opposing types of visuals that we observed on a particular community college campus: visual symbols of control and visual symbols of empowerment. By combining visual methods in sociology and Critical Race Theory as methodological and analytic tools, we examined a collection of images that inform how students may experience this community college campus for the first time.

Authors

• Adrian Trinidad, University of Southern California

• Liane I. Hypolite, California Polytechnic State University