Mixed Race Studies

The New Multiracial Student: Where Do We Start?

The Vermont Connection
Volume 31 (2010)
pages 128-135

Jackie Hyman
University of Vermont

Jackie Hyman earned her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2008, and is anticipating her graduation from HESA in 2010. Having gone through periods of doubt and confusion throughout her graduate career in identifying as Biracial, she is now more confident than ever in her racial identity. Because of her experiences at University of Maryland and University of Vermont, she has committed herself to creating a Multiracial student group at UVM, as well as creating potential spaces for Multiracial students at her next institution, wherever that may be. Without a doubt, a passion has been ignited that will guide her research and involvement on college campuses for years to come.

In 2004, one in 40 persons in the United States self-identified as Multiracial. By the year 2050, it is projected that as many as one in five Americans will claim a Multiracial background, and in turn, a Multiracial or Biracial identity (Lee & Bean, 2004). With racial lines becoming more blurred, it is increasingly important for practitioners in higher education to address the issues surrounding identity development in Multiracial college students. By looking at a personal narrative of a Biracial woman, recent studies of Multiracial identity development, and the daily challenges that Multiracial and Biracial students face concerning their identity, student affairs practitioners can begin to create more inclusive spaces for this growing population of students.

Read the entire article here.

The Influence of K-12 Schooling on the Identity Development of Multiethnic Students

University of British Columbia, Vancouver
April 2010

Erica Mohan

Thesis submitted in the partial fulfullment of the requirments for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Graduate Studies (Educational Studies)

This study examined the influence of K-12 schooling on the racial and ethnic identity development of 23 self-identified multiethnic students attending high schools across the San Francisco Bay Area. All of the students participated in a semi-structured interview, nine participated in one of two focus groups, and five completed a writing activity. I approached this study with a postpositivist realist conception of identity (Mohanty, 2000; Moya, 2000a/b) that takes seriously the fluidity and complexity of identities as well as their epistemic and real-world significance. In defining racial and ethnic identity formation, I borrowed Tatum’s (1997) understanding of it as “the process of defining for oneself the personal significance and social meaning of belonging to a particular racial [and/or ethnic] group” (p. 16).

The findings from this study indicate that the formal aspects of schooling (e.g., curriculum and diversity education initiatives) rarely directly influence the racial and ethnic identity development of multiethnic students. They do, however, shape all students’ racial and ethnic understandings and ideologies, which in turn shape the informal aspects of schooling (e.g., interactions with peers and racial and ethnic divisions within the student body) which exert direct influence over multiethnic students’ experiences and identities. Of course, schooling is not alone in shaping the racial and ethnic understandings and ideologies of the general student body; other influences such as family and neighborhood context cannot be discounted. Nevertheless, the findings indicate that schools are sites of negotiation, that these negotiations influence multiethnic students’ identities, and that these negotiations occur in the context of, and are shaped by, both formal and informal aspects of schooling, including, but not limited to, school demographics, curricula, race and ethnicity-based student organizations, and interactions between all members of the school community. Based on the findings, it is recommended that educators infuse the curriculum and classroom discussions with issues of race, ethnicity, multiethnicity, and difference; actively engage in the process of complicating, contesting, and deconstructing racial and ethnic categories and their classificatory power; and end the silence regarding multiethnicity in schools and ensure its authentic inclusion in the curriculum.

Table of Contents

• ABSTRACT
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• LIST OF TABLES
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
  • Context
  • Problem Statement and Purpose
  • Research Questions and Methods
  • Definitions
    • Schooling vs. Education
    • Race, Ethnicity, and Multiethnicity
  • Limitations and Delimitations
  • Overview of the Dissertation
  • Significance of the Study
• CHAPTER TWO: CONCEPTUAL AND THEORETICAL FRAMING OF IDENTITY
  • An Essentialist Approach to Identity
  • Postmodern and Poststructural Approaches to Identity
  • A Postpositivist Realist Approach to Identity
  • A Theory of Multiplicity
  • Conclusion
• CHAPTER THREE: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
  • Section I: Multiethnic Identity Development
  • Section II: Problem, Equivalent, and Variant Approaches to Multiethnic Identity
    • Problem Approaches to Multiethnic Identity
    • Equivalent and Variant Approaches to Multiethnic Identity
  • Section III: Schooling and Student Identity Construction
    • Overview of Multicultural and Antiracism Education
    • Critiques of Multicultural and Antiracism Education
  • Section IV: The K-12 Schooling Experiences of Multiethnic Students
  • Section V: Integrating the Literature
• CHAPTER FOUR: METHODOLOGY
  • Participant and Site Selection
  • Research Procedures
    • Semi-Structured Interviews
    • Focus Groups
    • Writing Activity
  • Data Analysis and Presentation
    • Starting Points
    • Generating Participant Profiles
    • Analysis of the Data Relating to K-12 Schooling Experiences
  • The Complexities of Researching Multiethnic Identities
  • Self as Research “Instrument”
    • Insider/Outsider Research
    • Self as Insider/Outsider
    • Additional Methodological Considerations
  • Conclusion
• CHAPTER FIVE: PARTICIPANT PROFILES
  • Jill
  • Mialany
  • Dana
  • Andrea
  • Anthony
  • Frank
  • Jasmine
  • David
  • Cara
  • Amaya
  • Raya
  • Barry
  • Christina
  • Kendra
  • Renee
  • Jen
  • Hip Hapa
  • Kelley
  • Josh
  • Jordan
  • Anne
  • Hannah
  • Marie
  • Discussion
• CHAPTER SIX: PARTICIPANTS’ EXPERIENCES AND PERCEPTIONS OF THE FORMAL ASPECTS OF K-12 SCHOOLING
  • Documentation of Racial and Ethnic Identities
  • Race and Ethnicity-Based Student Organizations
  • Relationships and Interactions with Teachers and Administrators
  • Specific Lessons, Projects, and Classroom Activities
  • (Not) Learning about Multiethnicity
  • (Not) Learning about Race and Ethnicity
  • Diversity Education Initiatives
  • Integrating the Data
• CHAPTER SEVEN: PARTICIPANTS’ EXPERIENCES AND PERCEPTIONS OF THE INFORMAL ASPECTS OF K-12 SCHOOLING
  • School Diversity
  • Friendships
  • Diverse Friendship Networks and Boundary Crossing
  • Friends with Similar Identities and Heritages
  • Stereotypes
  • Challenged Identities
  • Racial Tension at School
  • Integrating the Data
• CHAPTER EIGHT: PARTICIPANTS’ BROADER REFLECTIONS ON SCHOOLING AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR EDUCATORS
  • Participant Perspectives
  • Integrating the Data
    • Correcting a “Blindness” Towards Multiethnic Students
    • Talking About Race (and Ethnicity and Multiethnicity)
    • Specifically Addressing Multiethnicity
    • Getting an Early Start
    • We All Have Similar “Needs”
    • A Desire for Awareness and Understanding
• CHAPTER NINE: CONCLUSION
  • Research Questions and Findings
  • Implications and Recommendations for Educators
  • Future Research Directions
  • Reflections on the Research Methodology
  • Reflections on a Postpositivist Realist Framing of Identity
  • Concluding Thoughts
• REFERENCES
• APPENDICES
  • Appendix I – Semi-Structured Interview Protocol
  • Appendix II – Writing Activity Prompt
  • Appendix III – Maria Root’s 50 Experiences of Racially Mixed People
  • Appendix IV – Behavioral Research Ethics Board Certificate of Approval

Read the entire thesis here.

mix-d™: Walsall Youth Conference: Debate, consultation and fact-find about the UK’s fastest growing population.

mix-d™:
Tuesday, 2010-07-13
County Inn, Walsall

View all of the photographs from the conference here. Photographs courtesy of Cheshire based photographer Rick Milnes.

Identity in Education: Future of Minority Studies

Palgrave Macmillan
May 2009
296 pages
ISBN: 978-0-230-60917-4, ISBN10: 0-230-60917-1
6 1/8 x 9-1/4 inches, 296 pages, 

Edited by

Susan Sánchez-Casal, Director
Tufts University / Skidmore College, Madrid

Amie A. Macdonald, Associate Professor of Philosophy
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York

This edited volume explores the impact of social identity (race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion and so on) on teaching and learning.  Operating within a realist framework, the contributors to this volume (all of whom are minority scholars) consider ways to productively engage identity in the classroom and at the institutional level, as a means of working toward racial democracy in higher education.  As realists, all authors in the volume hold the theoretical position that identities are both real and constructed, and that identities are always epistemically salient.  Thus the book argues–from diverse disciplinary and educational contexts–that mobilizing identities in academia is a necessary part of progressive (antiracist, feminist, anticolonial) educators’ efforts to transform knowledge-making, to establishcritical access for minority students to higher education, and to create a more just and democratic society.

Introduction—Amie A. Macdonald and Susan Sánchez-Casal

PART I: CRITICAL ACCESS AND PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION
Identity, Realist Pedagogy, and Racial Democracy in Higher Education—Susan Sánchez-Casal and Amie A. Macdonald
What’s Identity Go to Do With It?: Mobilizing Identities in the Multicultural Classroom—Paula M. L. Moya
Fostering Cross-Racial Mentoring: White Faculty and African American Students at Harvard College—Richard Reddick

PART II: CURRICULUM AND IDENTITY
Which America Is Ours?: Martí’s “Truth” and the Foundations of “American Literature”—Michael Hames-García
The Mis-Education of Mixed Race—Michele Elam
Ethnic Studies Requirements and the “White” Dominated Classroom—Kay Yandell
Historicizing difference in The English Patient: The Politics of Identity and (Mis)Recognition—Paulo Lemos Horta

PART III: REALIST PEDAGOGICAL STRATEGIES
Teaching Disclosure: Overcoming the Invisibility of Whiteness in the American Indian Studies Classroom—Sean Kiccumah Teuton
Religious Identities and Communities of Meaning in the Realist Classroom—William Wilkerson
Postethnic America? A Multicultural Training Camp for Americanists and Future EFL teachers—Barbara Bucheneau, Paula Moya, Carola Hecke, J. Nicole Shelton
The Uses of Error: Toward a Realist Methodology of Student Evaluation—John Su

Danbury’s multiracial students to star in film

The Connecticut Post
2010-04-02

Eileen FitzGerald, Staff Writer

Danbury, Connecticut—The three boys wore jeans and long-sleeve T-shirts. The two girls each wore a dozen bracelets and necklaces. They looked like typical students in the library media center at Broadview Middle School.

It was their differences, however, that brought them together Monday. They’re subjects in a documentary in which Western Connecticut State University professor Marsha Daria is examining the identity and social relationships of multiracial children.

Daria is interviewing elementary, middle and high school students to help educators and teacher training programs consider multiracial students in the curriculum and school issues…

Read the entire article here.

Beyond the Rainbow: Mixed Race and Mixed Culture in the 21st Century Work Place

Society for Intercultural Education Training and Research
2010 Conference: Living and Working in a Intercultural World
2010-04-14 through 2010-04-17
Spokane, Washington
Session Date: 2010-04-15

Harriet Cannon, M.C.

Rhoda Berlin, MS

Today on the street, at schools and in the workplace, we can no longer be sure of a person’s ethnicity by their surname or appearance. Walk the streets of any larger city, most university campuses, and the majority of businesses in the United States and if you are looking for it, you will be amazed at the number of mixed race people under the age of 40. This quiet revolution is rapidly changing the face of the US, Canada, Europe, and has a presence in Asia.

The goal of this workshop is to discuss how multicultural and mixed race population growth is pushing the boundaries of our thinking about diversity and cross cultural training. We will discuss appearance and identity and address the breadth and depth of mixed race experience. We will share our research on mixed race adult identity. We will describe strengths and challenges educators and trainers increasingly encounter with this mushrooming diverse mixed race population at university and in the workplace. There will be group participation on brainstorming creative changes in delivery of diversity/intercultural training in the 21st century.

View the session handout (a few reading resources on biracial and multiethnic identity)  here.

Teaching Race as a Social Construction: Two Interactive Class Exercises

Teaching Sociology
Volume 37, Number 4 (October 2009)
Pages 369-378

Nikki Khanna, Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of Vermont

Cherise A. Harris, Assistant Professor of Sociology
Connecticut College

This paper offers two interactive exercises to teach students about race as a social construction. In the first exercise, “What’s My Race?”, we ask students to sort various celebrities and historical figures into racial categories, giving them the opportunity to see the difficulty of the task first-hand. More importantly, through the process of sorting individuals into various categories, they are introduced to flaws within the current racial classification scheme in the U.S. In the second exercise, “Black or White?”, students are asked to classify photographs of legendary celebrities and historical figures as either black or white. This exercise is used to introduce the concept of the one drop rule; the majority of individuals in the exercise appear racially ambiguous or white, yet all were historically classified as “black” based on the one drop rule. Both exercises, when used together, are designed to visually illustrate to students the ambiguity and arbitrariness of American racial classifications.

Read or purchase the article here.

The Aftermath of “You’re Only Half”: Multiracial Identities in the Literacy Classroom

Language Arts
Volume 83 Number 2 (November 2005)
pages 96-106

Elizabeth Dutro, Assistant professor of Literacy
University of Colorado

Elham Kazemi, Associate Professor of Mathematics Education
University of Washington

Ruth Balf, Fourth/Fifth-Grade Teacher
Seattle Public Schools

Children grapple with the complexities of race and what it means to claim membership in racial categories.

The children in Ruth’s fourth/fifth grade classroom had been engaged for weeks in a literacy project in which they researched and shared an aspect of their cultural background. The children interviewed their parents, consulted books and the Internet, wrote reports, gathered artifacts, created art projects, and, finally, put together a poster presentation to share with peers from other classrooms. The project seemed to be an important curricular move in this highly diverse urban classroom. Ruth wanted to demonstrate that knowledge from home cultures is valued, allow children time to share that knowledge with one another, and make visible the rich array of life experiences represented by children in this classroom.

For the public presentations of their projects, the students stood beside their posters and answered questions as children visiting from other classrooms walked around the room. It seemed to have gone well—an observer would have seen students speaking knowledgeably and comfortably about their work as guests wound their way through the room, pausing to ask questions of individual children. It was only after the visitors left that Ruth discovered that the afternoon had not been a positive celebration for some students. Zack lingered in the classroom after school, looking upset. He shared that two girls from another class had said, “He’s only half. He’s not really from South Africa,” when they viewed his project. He said, “Why would they say that? That makes me mad. Just because I’m not all African.” While they were talking, Stephanie walked over and said that people had said the same thing to her. She said that sometimes people think she’s Indian, but she’s black and white. Ruth asked Zack and Stephanie what they would like to do. She offered to call a class meeting the next day if they wanted to discuss these issues with their classmates. They agreed that they would like to share their experiences. The next morning, Zack, Stephanie, and their classmate Jeff (who identified as Filipino/white) led their peers in a discussion that engaged complex issues of race and identity.

The public presentations of the project resulted in feelings of hurt and frustration for these three biracial students as other children questioned their claims to their own racial identities. However, it was also the public presentations of the projects—specifically the issues of multiracial identity that the presentations raised—that transformed the culture project from a rather straightforward attempt to acknowledge and celebrate diversity into a critical literacy project in which children grappled with the complexities of race and what it means to claim membership in racial categories. In this article, we share these children’s experiences and reflect on what it takes to value multiracial identities and support children as they tackle important issues of race that those identities raise…

…When the children met on the rug the morning after the poster presentations, the biracial children launched a discussion that raised critical and complex issues of race, racial identity, and racial categories.  Excerpts from that debrief discussion represent how the children and Ruth grappled with these issues and illustrate the role that multiracial identities played in shaping the nature of their talk about race. These children’s words and experiences provide the basis for our implications regarding the role that multiraciality might play in engaging issues of race in elementary classrooms…

Read the entire article here.

Identity problems in biracial youth

The Leader
University of Minnesota College of Education & Human Development
Fall 2004

Charlote M. Nitardy, Early Childhood Assessment Program Coordinator
Metropolitan State University, St. Paul, Minnesota

While there is little data on the number of biracial children in the US, there is a consensus among demographers that we are experiencing a “biracial baby boom.” According to the 1990 U.S. Census, there were approximately 800,000 interracial families with about one million biracial children in the country (Herring, 1995). Biracial youth have a very unique problem that most of their peers never experience: racial identity. These biracial youth have difficulties identifying who they are in our society.

Historically, children of mixed parentage were identified with the parent of color; if one parent was black, then the child was considered black. While such simplification may have been adequate in the past, studies are showing that more and more biracial children in today’s society are experiencing identity problems…

Read the entire article here.

Breaking Barriers for Multiracial Students

National Forum of Multicultural Issues Journal
Sponsored by The Texas Chapter of the National Association for Multicultural Education
Volume 7, Number 1 (2010)
Pages 1-6

Adriana Jones
Prairie View A&M University
Prairie View, Texas

Jeremy Jones
Prairie View A&M University
Prairie View, Texas

The number of multiracial college students has increased and will continue to increase rapidly over the years thus it is important for Student Affairs educators and administrators, and mental health providers to understand this population.  This essay will provide an overview of barriers often faced by multiracial students and will discuss strategies that can be used to help break these barriers for this population.

Read the entire article here.