Navigating Double Consciousness: Role-identity Organization and Black Graduate Students

• In Event: 1284 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 13. Student Racial/Ethnic Identities

Abstract

While many researchers have studied role-identity organization, the question of how conflicting identities are ordered by their importance remains unanswered. Black graduate students provide an example of people who hold role-identities with different and conflicting demands. To explore this process, I use semi-structured qualitative interviews with Black graduate students from multiple disciplines to examine how being Black in a graduate school environment influences identity importance rankings, focusing specifically on the roles of “student” and “activist.” From these interviews I find that 1) respondents can be classified into one of four groups: Scholars, Activists, Scholar-Activists, and Scholar & Activists; 2) respondents explicitly discuss how racial identity shapes their sense of obligation to scholarship and activism; and 3) role support from faculty is not a critical factor in determining identity importance rankings.

Author

• Aminta Joy Moses Sharps, Indiana University - Bloomington