Emotions and Whiteness: Discourses on the Purpose of Higher Education

• In Event: White Epistemic and Affective Violence: From Gaslighting to Innocence

Abstract

This qualitative study examines how college students mobilize far-right discourses to articulate the purpose of higher education and position themselves emotionally within it. Using Foucauldian Discourse Analysis, we examined 940 open-ended responses from a national engagement survey to explore how students expressing far-right views operationalize whiteness and construct the purpose of higher education. Emotions such as anger, fear, and exhaustion were key discursive tools to justify disengagement from institutional diversity initiatives and reframe the purpose of education as solely vocational using epistemologies of ignorance (Mills 1997). Findings contribute to broader efforts to ‘unforget’ the affective histories of white resistance in education, revealing how some contemporary student narratives shape and challenge institutional commitments to equity, learning, and public purpose.

Authors

• Antonia Bacigalupa Albaum, Indiana University

• Angie L. Miller, Indiana University