Turbo Hustle: Expressions of Radicalism, Liberalism, and Conservativism in Black Students' Racial and STEM Identity Construction

• In Event: Centering Their Epistemologies: Individual and Institutional Approaches to Student Development and Learning

Abstract

This one-year, hermeneutic phenomenological study examines tensions within racial and STEM identity development processes for Black college students at a predominantly white institution. We present data illustrating philosophies of individualism and meritocracy professed by Black STEM students, juxtaposed to the more critical, collective philosophies that undergirded these same students’ expressions of racial identity and higher education activist work. We introduce "strategic conservativism" as a racial coping strategy that resolves dissonance across spectrums of racial identity performance by individuals.

Authors

• Ashley N. Woodson, Albion College

• Terrell Roderick Morton, University of Missouri - Columbia