The Paradox of Whiteness-at-Work in Academic Advising

• In Event: Whiteness-at-Work in Higher Education

Abstract

Purpose: Previous work by Sarcedo and Matias (2018) looking at academic advising and the maintenance of whiteness in higher education theorized that advisors unwittingly perpetuate whiteness through academic advising by holding lower expectations for students of Color, peddling white advice that presupposed that what works for white students will universally work for all students, and pushing students into activities that reify whiteness, such as service learning. While it is important to understand these enactments of whiteness in academic advising, Yoon (2012) cautioned that whiteness-at-work can make it appear that these types of issues are being addressed, when in reality they are not. To truly address these entanglements, the purpose of this literature review will be to develop a stronger conceptualization of how whiteness-at-work operates within academic advising.

Perspectives: Yoon (2012) described the paradox of whiteness-at-work as the everyday practices that serve to obscure the insidious nature of whiteness in education, such as avoiding race talk even within groups dedicated to discussing so-called cultural competence. While whiteness in academic advising has been conceptualized (Sarcedo & Matias, 2018), the paradox that whiteness-at-work presents to the practice of academic advising is undertheorized.

Methods: This literature review will couple the body of knowledge on whiteness in higher education with the literature on academic advising to examine the paradox of whiteness-at-work in academic advising. A theoretical exploration serves as a first step to understanding how whiteness-at-work operates within academic advising, and should be conducted before engaging college students and advisors in research.

Source: To locate scholarly literature, Boolean searches of the databases Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), PsycINFO, and Education Full Text were used using various combinations of the keywords whiteness, academic advising, whiteness-at-work, college, and higher education. These searches were limited to scholarly and peer-reviewed journal articles, using related words and equivalent subjects and searching within the text of articles to remain inclusive.

Findings: Within academic advising, advisors can embody the paradox of whiteness-at-work by either perpetuating whiteness or working to disrupt it on their campuses, which extends to previous work of Sarcedo and Matias (2018). Understanding this paradox is central to interrupting the endemic whiteness present on college campuses (Gusa, 2010) and within academic advising in particular (Sarcedo & Matias, 2018).

Significance: Academic advising is considered a key aspect in college student success (Young-Jones, Burt, Dixon, & Hawthorne, 2013), so conceptualizing the ways in which whiteness-at-work operate within this integral component of supporting college students is significant in addressing the march toward social and educational justice through higher education. This sets the stage for future empirical research on best and promising practices in academic advising that disrupt whiteness-at-work.

Author

• Geneva L. Sarcedo, University of Colorado - Denver