The Undercurrents of Institutionalization: How AANAPISIs Navigate a Racialized Process to Promote Pacific Islander Student Success (Poster 2)

• In Event: AERA Promising Scholarship in Education Research: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

"Since its inception in 2007, scholars have documented the ways the Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (AANAPISI) federal grant program has enhanced the capacity of higher education institutions to better serve their Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) students. While institutions have used their federal grant funding to create culturally relevant programs and increase understanding and awareness of AAPI student experiences, the reality is that the federal funding is only awarded for five years. The temporary nature of this funding stream beckons the question of what happens to these AAPI-targeted programs and services once the grant ends. Furthermore, much of the AANAPISI literature focuses only on Asian American students or considers AAPIs in aggregate, neither of which illuminate how AANAPISIs ultimately serve Pacific Islander students.
Using qualitative research methods within a multiple-case study design, this study documents the strategies that administrators, faculty, and staff at AANAPISIs, specifically those that target Pacific Islander students, employ to institutionalize aspects of their grant-funded programs. Because AANAPISIs raise awareness and center the experiences of AAPI students, there is a need to examine the process of institutionalization through a racialized lens; thus, this study also investigates how race complicates the process of institutionalization. By documenting how two AANAPISIs have institutionalized aspects of their grant-funded program, this study seeks to: (1) provide insights on institutionalizing diversity-related efforts, (2) illuminate challenges that might emerge in this process, and (3) offer theoretical contributions to critique a process that is often disguised as race-neutral in practice."

Author

• Demeturie Toso-Lafaele Gogue, University of Massachusetts - Boston