Mixed Race Studies

Multiracial Experiences in Higher Education: Contesting Knowledge, Honoring Voice, and Innovating Practice

Stylus Publishing
2021-02-17
Paperback ISBN: 9781642670691
E-Book (ePub) ISBN: 9781642670714
Hardback ISBN: 9781642670684
Lib E-Book ISBN: 9781642670707

Edited by:

Marc P. Johnston-Guerrero, Associate Professor
Department of Educational Studies
Ohio State University

Charmaine L. Wijeyesinghe, Ed.D., Consultant and Author in Organizational Development and Social Justice Education

Foreword by:

G. Reginald Daniel, Professor of Sociology
University of California, Santa Barbara

Recipient of the 2021 Innovation Award of The Multiracial Network (MRN)

In the last Census, over 9 million people – nearly 3% of the population – identified themselves as of two or more races. The proportion of college students who identify as Multiracial is somewhat higher, and growing. Although increasing at a slightly slower rate, Multiracial faculty and staff are also teaching and working on campuses in greater numbers. Together, Multiracial people from diverse backgrounds and in various roles are influencing college and university culture, practices, and climate.

This book centers the experiences of Multiracial people, those individuals claiming heritage and membership in two or more (mono)racial groups and/or identifies with a Multiracial term. These terms include the broader biracial, multiethnic, and mixed, or more specific terms like Blasian and Mexipino.

In addressing the recurring experiences of inclusion, exclusion, affirmation, and challenges that they encounter, the contributors identify the multiple sites in higher education that affect personal perceptions of self, belonging, rejection, and resilience; describe strategies they utilized to support themselves or other Multiracial people at their institutions; and to advocate for greater awareness of Multiracial issues and a commitment to institutional change.

In covering an array of Multiracial experiences, the book brings together a range of voices, social identities (including race), ages, perspectives, and approaches. The chapter authors present a multiplicity of views because, as the book exemplifies, multiracial people are not a monolithic group, nor are their issues and needs universal to all.

The book opens by outlining the literature and theoretical frameworks that provide context and foundations for the chapters that follow. It then presents a range of first person narratives – reflecting the experiences of students, faculty, and staff – that highlight navigating to and through higher education from diverse standpoints and positionalities. The final section offers multiple strategies and applied methods that can be used to enhance Multiracial inclusion through research, curriculum, and practice. The editors conclude with recommendations for future scholarship and practice.

This book invites Multiracial readers, their allies, and those people who interact with and influence the daily lives of Multiracial people to explore issues of identity and self-care, build coalitions on campus, and advocate for change. For administrators, student affairs personnel, and anyone concerned with diversity on campus, it opens a window on a growing population with whom they may be unfamiliar, mis-categorize, or overlook, and on the need to change systems and structures to address their full inclusion and unveil their full impact.

Table of Contents

• Foreword —G. Reginald Daniel
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Part One: Framing Multiracial Experiences in Higher Education
  • 1) Insights on Multiracial Knowledge, Voices, and Practices: Lessons From Our Lives and Work—Charmaine L. Wijeyesinghe and Marc P. Johnston-Guerrero
  • 2) Multiracial Identity on Campus: Identities and Experiences of Multiracial People in Higher Education—Kristen A. Renn
  • 3) The Naming and Framing of Identity: Reflecting on Core Concepts Through the Experiences of Multiracial People—Charmaine L. Wijeyesinghe
  • 4) Monoracism: Identifying and Addressing Structural Oppression of Multiracial People in Higher Education—Jessica C. Harris, Marc P. Johnston-Guerrero, and Maxwell Pereyra
• Part Two: Multiracial Narratives Across the Higher Education Landscape
  • 5) Back to Black—Nick Davis
  • 6) On the Path to Multiracial Consciousness: Reflections on My Scholar-Practitioner Journey in Higher Education—Victoria K. Malaney Brown
  • 7) Being Mexipina in Higher Education—Rebecca Cepeda
  • 8) Remembering to Resist Racist Colonial Forgetting on Campus—e alexander
  • 9) Existing In-Between: Embodying the Synergy of My Ancestors—Naliyah Kaya
  • 10) Reflections of a Creole, Indigenous, Afro-Latin Scholar: From Community to the Classroom—Andrew Jolivétte
• Part Three: Strategies and Tools for Enhancing Multiracial Inclusion
  • 11) Contextualizing Multiraciality in Campus Climate: Key Considerations for Transformative Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion—Chelsea Guillermo-Wann and Marc P. Johnston-Guerrero
  • 12) Building Multiracial Aikido: A Student Social Justice Retreat—Charlene C. Martinez and Stephanie N. Shippen
  • 13) Mixed and Multiracial Student Organizations on Campus: The Necessity of Weaving Together Art and Critique—Orkideh Mohajeri and Heather C. Lou
  • 14) Critical Mixed Race Studies: Rooted in Love and Fire—Nicole Leopardo, Kira Donnell, and Wei Ming Dariotis
• Part Four: Future Directions
  • 15) Intergenerational Reflections and Future Directions—Marc P. Johnston-Guerrero, Charmaine L. Wijeyesinghe, and Lisa Combs
• Editors and Contributors
• Index

Race Policy and Multiracial Americans

Policy Press (Available in North America from University of Chicago Press)
2016-01-13
226 pages
234 x 156 mm
Hardback ISBN: 9781447316459
Paperback ISBN: 9781447316503

Edited by:

Kathleen Odell Korgen, Professor of Sociology
William Paterson University, Wayne, New Jersey

Race Policy and Multiracial Americans is the first book to look at the impact of multiracial people on race policies—where they lag behind the growing numbers of multiracial people in the U.S. and how they can be used to promote racial justice for multiracial Americans. Using a critical mixed race perspective, it covers such questions as: Which policies aimed at combating racial discrimination should cover multiracial Americans? Should all (or some) multiracial Americans benefit from affirmative action programmes? How can we better understand the education and health needs of multiracial Americans? This much-needed book is essential reading for sociology, political science and public policy students, policy makers, and anyone interested in race relations and social justice.

Contents

• Introduction ~ Kathleen Odell Korgen
• Multiracial Americans throughout the History of the U.S. ~ Tyrone Nagai
• National and Local Structures of Inequality: Multiracial Groups’ Profiles Across the United States ~ Mary E. Campbell and Jessica M. Barron
• Latinos and Multiracial America ~ Raúl Quiñones Rosado
• The Connections among Racial Identity, Social Class, and Public Policy? ~ Nikki Khanna
• Multiracial Americans and Racial Discrimination ~ Tina Fernandes Botts
• “Should All (or Some) Multiracial Americans Benefit from Affirmative Action Programs?”~ Daniel N. Lipson
• Multiracial Students and Educational Policy ~ Rhina Fernandes Williams and E. Namisi Chilungu
• Multiracial Americans in College ~ Marc P. Johnston and Kristen A. Renn
• Multiracial Americans, Health Patterns, and Health Policy: Assessment and Recommendations for Ways Forward ~ Jenifer L. Bratter and Chirsta Mason
• Racial Identity Among Multiracial Prisoners in the Color-Blind Era ~ Gennifer Furst and Kathleen Odell Korgen
• “Multiraciality and the Racial Order: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”~ Hephzibah V. Strmic-Pawl and David L. Brunsma
• Multiracial Identity and Monoracial Conflict: Toward a New Social Justice framework ~ Andrew Jolivette
• Conclusion: Policies for a Racially Just Society ~ Kathleen Odell Korgen

Diverse Millennial Students in College: Implications for Faculty and Student Affairs

Stylus Publishing, LLC.
October 2011
320 pages
6″ x 9″
Cloth ISBN: 978 1 57922 446 2
Paper ISBN: 978 1 57922 447 9
Ebook ISBN: 978 1 57922 712 8
Library Ebook ISBN: 978 1 57922 711 1

Edited by:

Fred A. Bonner II

Aretha F. Marbley

Mary F. Howard-Hamilton

While many institutions have developed policies to address the myriad needs of Millennial college students and their parents, inherent in many of these initiatives is the underlying assumption that this student population is a homogeneous group. This book is significant because it addresses and explores the characteristics and experiences of Millennials from an array of perspectives, taking into account not only racial and ethnic identity but also cultural background, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status differences—all factors contributing to how these students interface with academe.

In providing a “voice” to “voiceless” populations of African American, Asian American, Bi/Multi-Racial, Latino, Native American, and LGBT millennial college students, this book engages with such questions as: Does the term “Millennial” apply to these under-represented students? What role does technology, pop culture, sexual orientation, and race politics play in the identity development for these populations? Do our current minority development theories apply to these groups? And, ultimately, are higher education institutions prepared to meet both the cultural and developmental needs of diverse minority groups of Millennial college students?”

This book is addressed primarily to college and university administrators and faculty members who seek greater depth and understanding of the issues associated with diverse Millennial college student populations. This book informs readers about the ways in which this cohort differs from their majority counterparts to open a dialogue about how faculty members and administrators can meet their needs effectively both inside and outside the classroom. It will also be of value to student affairs personnel, students enrolled in graduate level courses in higher education and other social science courses that explore issues of college student development and diversity, particularly students planning to work with diverse Millennial college students in both clinical or practical work settings.

Contributors: Rosie Maria Banda; Fred Bonner, II; Lonnie Booker, Jr.; Brian Brayboy; Mitchell Chang; Andrea Domingue; Tonya Driver; Alonzo M. Flowers; Gwen Dungy; Jami Grosser; Kandace Hinton; Mary Howard-Hamilton; Tom Jackson, Jr.; Aretha F. Marbley; Samuel Museus; Anna Ortiz; Tammie Preston-Cunningham; Nana Osei-Kofi; Kristen Renn; Petra Robinson; Genyne Royal; Victor Saenz; Rose Anna Santos; Mattyna Stephens; Terrell Strayhorn; Theresa Survillion; Nancy Jean Tubbs; Malia Villegas; Stephanie J. Waterman; Nick Zuniga.

Table of Contents

• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• INTRODUCTION / Fred A. Bonner, II
• PART ONE: DIVERSE MILLENNIALS IN COLLEGE: A National Perspective
  • 1. A NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE: Testing Our Assumptions About Generational Cohorts / Gwendolyn Jordan Dungy
• PART TWO: AFRICAN AMERICAN MILLENNIALS IN COLLEGE
  • 2. AFRICAN AMERICAN MILLENNIALS IN COLLEGE / Terrell L. Strayhorn
  • 3. THE PERSON, ENVIRONMENT, AND GENERATIONAL INTERACTION: An African American Rural Millennial Story / Corey Guyton and Mary F. Howard-Hamilton
• PART THREE: ASIAN AMERICAN MILLENNIALS IN COLLEGE
  • 4. ASIAN AMERICAN AND PACIFIC ISLANDER MILLENNIAL STUDENTS AT A TIPPING POINT / Mitchell James Chang
  • 5. ASIAN AMERICAN MILLENNIAL COLLEGE STUDENTS IN CONTEXT : Living at the Intersection of Diversification, Digitization, and Globalization / Samuel D. Museus
• PART FOUR: LATINA/O MILLENNIALS IN COLLEGE
  • 6. LA NUEVA GENERACIÓN: Latina/o Millennial College Students at Four-Year Institutions / Victor B. Saenz, Manuel Gonzalez, and Sylvia Hurtado
  • 7. MILLENNIAL CHARACTERISTICS AND LATINO/A STUDENTS / Anna M. Ortiz and Dorali Pichardo-Diaz
• PART FIVE: NATIVE AMERICAN MILLENNIALS IN COLLEGE
  • 8. INDIGENOUS MILLENNIAL STUDENTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION / Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy and Angelina E. Castagno
  • 9. NATIVE AMERICAN MILLENNIAL COLLEGE STUDENTS / Stephanie J. Waterman
• PART SIX: LGBTQ MILLENNIALS IN COLLEGE
  • 10. LGBTQ MILLENNIALS IN COLLEGE / Lori D. Patton, Carrie Kortegast, and Gabriel Javier
  • 11. IDENTITY MAKEOVER MILLENNIAL EDITION / Using Contemporary Theoretical Frameworks to Explore Identity Intersections Among LGBTQ Millennial Populations / Lori D. Patton and Stephanie Chang
• PART SEVEN: BI- AND MULTIRACIAL MILLENNIALS IN COLLEGE
  • 12. MULTIRACIALIZATION, ‘‘MIXING,’’ AND MEDIA PEDAGOGY / Nana Osei-Kofi
  • 13. MIXED RACE MILLENNIALS IN COLLEGE: Multiracial Students in the Age of Obama / Kristen A. Renn
• PART EIGHT: VOICES OF MILLENNIALS IN COLLEGE: A Diversity of Perspectives
  • 14. MOVING UP AND OUT: Students of Color Transitioning From College to the Workforce / Lonnie Booker, Jr., Tonya Turner-Driver, Tammie Preston- Cunningham, Theresa Survillion, and Mattyna L. Stephens
  • 15. CURRICULUM DESIGN FOR MILLENNIAL STUDENTS OF COLOR / Rosa Maria Banda, Alonzo M. Flowers, III, Petra Robinson, Genyne Royal, Rose Anna Santos, and Nicholas Zuniga
• CONCLUSION: FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER GENERATION: New Realities, New Possibilities, and a Reason for Hope / Aretha F. Marbley
• ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
• INDEX

The JCMRS inaugural issue will be released on Summer, 2013

Journal of Critical Mixed Race Studies
c/o Department of Sociology
SSMS Room 3005
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California  93106-9430
E-Mail: socjcmrs@soc.ucsb.edu
2012-10-10

The Journal of Critical Mixed Race Studies (JCMRS) is a peer-reviewed online journal dedicated to developing the field of Critical Mixed Race Studies (CMRS) through rigorous scholarship. Launched in 2011, it is the first academic journal explicitly focused on Critical Mixed Race Studies.

JCMRS is transracial, transdisciplinary, and transnational in focus and emphasizes the critical analysis of the institutionalization of social, cultural, and political orders based on dominant conceptions and constructions of ‘race.’ JCMRS emphasizes the constructed nature and thus mutability of race and the porosity of racial boundaries in order to critique processes of racialization and social stratification based on race. JCMRS addresses local and global systemic injustices rooted in systems of racialization.

Sponsored by University of California, Santa Barbara’s Sociology Department, JCMRS is hosted on the eScholarship Repository, which is part of the eScholarship initiative of the California Digital Library. JCMRS functions as an open-access forum for critical mixed race studies scholars and will be available without cost to anyone with access to the Internet.

Volume 1, Issue 1, Spring 2013 will include:

• “Editor’s Note”—G. Reginald Daniel
• “Emerging Paradigms in Critical Mixed Race Studies”—Laura Kina, Wei Ming Dariotis, G. Reginald Daniel, and Camilla Fojas

Articles

1. “Historical Origins of the One-Drop Racial Rule in the United States”—Winthrop Jordan edited by Paul Spickard
2. “Retheorizing the Relationship Between New Mestizaje and New Multiraciality as Mixed Race Identity Models”—Jessie Turner
3. “Critical Mixed Race Studies: New Directions in the Politics of Race and Representation,” Keynote Address presented at the Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference, November 5, 2010, DePaul University—Andrew Jolivétte
4. “Only the News We Want to Print”—Rainier Spencer
5. “The Current State of Multiracial Discourse”—Molly McKibbin
6. “Slimy Subjects and Neoliberal Goods”—Daniel McNeil

Editorial Board

Founding Editors: G. Reginald Daniel, Wei Ming Dariotis, Laura Kina, Maria P. P. Root, and Paul Spickard

Editor-in-Chief: G. Reginald Daniel

Managing Editors: Wei Ming Dariotis and Laura Kina

Editorial Review Board: Stanley R. Bailey, Mary C. Beltrán, David Brunsma, Greg Carter, Kimberly McClain DaCosta, Michele Elam, Camilla Fojas, Peter Fry, Kip Fulbeck, Rudy Guevarra, Velina Hasu Houston, Kevin R. Johnson, Andrew Jolivette, Rebecca Chiyoko King-O’Riain, Laura A. Lewis, Kristen A. Renn, Maria P. P. Root, Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu, Gary B. Nash, Kent A. Ono, Rita Simon, Miri Song, Rainier Spencer, Michael Thornton, Peter Wade, France Winddance Twine, Teresa Williams-León, and Naomi Zack

For more information, click here.

Lansing has highest percentage of people who identify as multiple-race black

Lansing State Journal
2011-11-18

Matthew Miller

Gianni Risper has a black mother, a white biological father (as opposed to the father who raised him, his mother’s husband) and a way of describing himself that isn’t found on any Census form: Italian-Caribbean-American.

“Race is becoming more muddled,” he said, and, at 19, he is part of a generation that is muddling it, more likely to be mixed race than their elders, more likely to reject the rigidity of prevailing racial categories in favor of more fluid identities.

“I try not to put myself into a category of being either black or white or just one thing,” Risper said, “because I’m not.”

And, living in Lansing, he has plenty of company.

Lansing has the highest percentage of people who identify as black and some other race of any place in the country, at least any place with a population of 100,000 or more.

According to the 2010 Census, it’s 4.1 percent, more than one out of every 25 people in the city…

…Kristen Renn, a professor of education at Michigan State University who has studied mixed-race identity in college students, said space began to open up for more complicated racial identities in the latter part of the 1990s.

“Part of this is liberal baby boomers marrying outside their race or having kids with people of other races and liberal baby boomers being very vested in raising happy children,” she said.

But the shift also coincided with the growth of the Internet, which made it easier to create communities around mixed-race identities or even specific racial combinations.

It coincided with celebrities – Renn mentioned Tiger Woods – beginning to speak publicly about their blended ancestries.

As a result, among the younger generation in particular, “it has become more OK,” she said. “There is a youth movement around mixed race.”

And if that’s more true in Lansing than other places, she sees it as a good sign.

“When people are less comfortable, they have to draw the boundaries much more clearly, ‘You’re one of them. You’re one of us. You’ve got to be one or the other,’ ” she said.

“People in more cosmopolitan areas are just used to a more diverse, global kind of population.”…

…Self-definition

Nikki O’Brien was raised by her white mother. She didn’t know her black father until she was an adult. She identifies herself as black.

“You’d think I would be more malleable in my racial identity,” she said, “but really the experience of being other or different was enough that I constantly knew that I was black and the strength and community that I pulled from that identity just pushed me.”

But O’Brien, a program adviser at MSU who spent years working with minority students, sees the conversation about mixed-race identity more as one about self-definition, including the right to identify as one race or another…

Read the entire article here.

US, MSU see increase in multiracial students

The State News
East Lansing, Michigan
2011-02-02

Emily Wilkins

They call her “blackbean” – half black, half Mexican.

It’s a nickname embraced by Lynette Davidson, a political theory and constitutional democracy and communication sophomore and one of the 710 students at MSU who identifies with two or more races. Davidson’s mother is Mexican, her father is black.

Davidson is part of a growing number of college students who identify as biracial or multiracial.

MSU [Michigan State University] did not offer two or more races as a choice for students on university documents until fall 2010, so it is unknown how this number has changed during the past several years. However, the number of people in the U.S. who identify with two or more races is growing. Data from the U.S. Census shows between 2004-09, 838,000 babies were born with two or more races, an increase of more than 100,000 from the number born between 2000-04, which also increased from the five-year period prior.

Davidson said she does not fully feel like she belongs in black or Mexican student organizations.

“I never really identify with either of them,” Davidson said. “I grew up in a predominately white area.”

Students such as Davidson are not alone, but they do not represent the feeling of all multiracial students…

…Kristen Renn is an associate professor of higher, adult and lifelong education who has written a book about multiracial college students. Renn said not all racial groups are open to multiracial members, and a person’s acceptance and comfort level within a group is based on multiple things.

“Sometimes it has to do (with) a way a student looks,” Renn said. “(For example) it looks to the outside world that they are Asian, but they might have grown up in a household that didn’t celebrate a lot of Asian holidays or have a lot of Asian food. (They) come to campus and find themselves outside (Asian) student culture.”…

Read the entire article here.

Patterns of Situational Identity Among Biracial and Multiracial College Students

The Review of Higher Education
Volume 23, Number 4 (Summer 2000)
pages 399–420
E-ISSN: 1090-7009, Print ISSN: 0162-5748
DOI: 10.1353/rhe.2000.0019

Kristen A. Renn, Associate Professor of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education
Michigan State University

Using qualitative grounded theory framed by postmodern racial identity theory, the author explored the experience of 24 bi- and multiracial students at three postsecondary institutions. Five patterns of racial identification emerged, with peer culture and campus demographics as the major determinants of students’ identity. These findings, with insights into multiracial students’s experiences, can model how to explore other areas of socially constructed identity. It also introduces a conditional model for how students create new identity-based space on campus.

Despite significant and increasing numbers of biracial and multiracial students, almost nothing is known about their development and interactions in the college environment. This topic has special relevance to higher education at a time when multiraciality has become a matter of political and popular interest. A political movement of mixed-race people emerged in the last decade, demanding attention to mixed-race students in K-12 education and changes in data collection by racial group membership on the U.S. 2000 census (Schnaiberg, 1997; Yemma, 1997). For the first time, census respondents will be offered the option of selecting one or more racial categories (Baron, 1998; U.S. Office, 1997).

Prior to the October 1997 change in the census guidelines, studies showed that less than 2% of the population claimed to belong to more than one of the government’s existing racial categories (Schmidt, 1997). While this number is not very large compared to the general population, a change in how these individuals indicated their racial group categorization on the census could significantly influence racial group statistics used to enforce various civil rights laws (Baron, 1998). In the ongoing battle over access, equity, and affirmative action policy in higher education, racial statistics matter. At present there is no accurate count of multiracial students and no systems in place to deal with the new check-as-many-as-apply option.

This study does not attempt to develop such a system, but it begins to explore how multiracial students might see themselves in the context of higher education. While raising larger questions about the use of racial categories in higher education, this study focused on how campus peer culture influenced the ways in which multiracial students made meaning of their racial identity in college. Using qualitative grounded theory framed by postmodern racial identity theory, I explored how multiracial students’ interactions with peers, involvement in activities, and academic work influenced the kinds of identity-based spaces they chose to occupy and what caused them to create new, multiracial spaces on the monoracially defined campus landscape. Among 24 students at three institutions who identified themselves as biracial or multiracial, five patterns emerged in how students occupied existing identity-based spaces on campus or created new, multiracial spaces. The major determinants of students’ identity choices were campus racial demographics and peer culture. I developed a conditional model to explain the construction of public multiracial space on campus and ask how it might be applied in other situations.

The results of this study provide insight into the experience of multiracial students and can be used as a model to explore multiracial students’ lives at other institutions, as well as to explore other areas of socially constructed identity (gender, sexuality, class) on campus. The study builds on the multiracial identity development literature and fills a gap in college student development literature. It does not claim to represent the lives of all multiracial students, but it raises issues and questions that transcend institutional boundaries: How do students choose, create, and occupy public space on campus? How does peer culture mediate these choices? How might higher education address the needs of a growing population of multiracial people through programs, services, and policies?…

Read the entire article here.

Because the Numbers Matter: Transforming Postsecondary Education Data on Student Race and Ethnicity to Meet the Challenges of a Changing Nation

Educational Policy
Volume 18, Number 5 (November 2004)
pages 752-783
DOI: 10.1177/0895904804269941

Kristen A. Renn, Associate Professor of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education
Michigan State University

Christina J. Lunceford, Professor of Education
California State University, Fullerton

In 1997, the Office of Management and Budget revised guidelines for treatment of racial and ethnic data, adding a requirement to allow respondents to indicate more than one race and mandating a change in all federal data collection and reporting by January 1, 2003. Nearly 2 years after the deadline for implementation, however, higher education institutions had not yet been required by the National Center for Education Statistics to make the change. This article discusses the policy context for collecting and reporting data on student race and ethnicity in higher education and challenges created by the addition of the multiple race option. This article describes the current status of postsecondary racial/ethnic data collection, predicts challenges in aggregating and bridging data, and makes recommendations for policy and practice.

Read the entire article here.

Biracial and Multiracial Students: New Directions for Student Services, Number 123

Jossey-Bass an imprint of John Wiley & Sons
October 2008
88 pages
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-470-42219-9

Edited by

Kristen A. Renn, Associate Professor of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education
Michigan State University

Paul Shang, Assistant Vice President and Dean of Students
University of Oregon

Editors and contributors of this important work have designed it to meet the needs of student affairs professionals who have previously had few resources on which to draw in understanding the experiences and identities of mixed race students.

Within a multiracial framework, the authors address the contemporary context for understanding racial issues on campus; several approaches to identity developments; experiences of students and faculty; and student services, programs, and policy, including a Canadian perspective.

A substantial amount of literature addresses developmental and service needs of monoracial students of color (Asian and Pacific Islander, Black, Latino, Native American), Student affairs educators have observed an increase in the number of biracial and multiracial college students: students who have parents from more than one federally defined racial or ethnic background such as Asian-White, Latino-Black, or Native-White-Latino. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, this population is only going to increase. This volume is sure to become an indispensable resource for student affairs professionals serving the needs of this increasing student population.

This is the 123nd volume of the Jossey-Bass quarterly report series New Directions for Student Services, an indispensable resource for vice presidents of student affairs, deans of students, student counselors, and other student services professionals.

Each issue of New Directions for Student Services offers guidelines and programs for aiding students in their total development: emotional, social, physical, and intellectual.

Table of Contents

Editor’s Notes

1. An Introduction to Social and Historical Factors Affecting Multiracial College Students (Paul Shang)
   This chapter introduces the volume by describing social and higher education challenges that impact the identities and experiences of traditional age biracial and multiracial college students.
2. Research on Biracial and Multiracial Identity Development: Overview and Synthesis (Kristen A. Renn)
   This chapter presents three main bodies of research on identity development of biracial and multiracial college students: foundational theories, ecological models, and psychological studies of the impact of multiracial identity.
3. Exploring the Experiences and Self-Labeling of Mixed-Race Individuals with Two Minority Parents (Donna M. Talbot)
   A student development researcher describes a qualitative study of ten mixed-race young adults whose parents are from different minority monoracial groups (Black, Latino/Hispanic, Asian, or Native American).
4. Student Perspectives on Multiracial Identity (Alissa R. King)
   In the context of research on multiracial student experiences, this chapter provides personal reflections of a multiracial individual on campus at a time when Who am I? and What are you? questions prevail.
5. Multiracial Student Services Come of Age: The State of Multiracial Student Services in Higher Education in the United States (Michael Paul A. Wong, Joshua Buckner)
   The authors describe emerging services to serve multiracial students, the service traditions from which these services evolve, how they are staffed, and their relationships with student organizations.
6. The Space in Between: Issues for Multiracial Student Organizations and Advising (C. Casey Ozaki, Marc Johnston)
   Based on research and experience working with multiracial student organizations and leaders, the authors describe the functions and challenges of these student groups and provide suggestions for student affairs educators who work with them.
7. Being Multiracial in a Wired Society: Using the Internet to Define Identity and Community on Campus (Heather Shea Gasser)
   This chapter describes established and emerging technologies, including online social networking, blogs, and wikis, that affect how multiracial students form communities and express their identities.
8. Bicultural Faculty and Their Professional Adaptation (Michael J. Cuyjet)
   An associate professor and graduate school dean describes the ways that minority faculty members, monoracial and biracial, must learn to be bicultural to thrive in the dominant culture of higher education at predominantly White institutions.
9. Looking North: Exploring Multiracial Experiences in a Canadian Context (Leanne Taylor)
   A Canadian scholar describes a particular context for understanding mixed-race college student experiences outside the United States and raises questions for higher education policy and student services practice.
10. Student Affairs and Higher Education Policy Issues Related to Multiracial Students (Angela Kellogg, Amanda Suniti Niskodé)
    This chapter describes student affairs policy issues that have particular impact on multiracial students, such as collecting and reporting data on student race/ethnicity, implementing campus programs and services, and enacting affirmative action.

Notes

Mixed Race Students in College: The Ecology of Race, Identity, and Community on Campus

SUNY Press
July 2004
308 pages
Hardback ISBN10: 0-7914-6163-7; ISBN13: 978-0-7914-6163-1
Paperback ISBN10: 0-7914-6164-5; ISBN13: 978-0-7914-6164-8

Kristen A. Renn, Associate Professor
Michigan State University

Portrays the diverse experiences and identities of mixed race college students.

Kristen A. Renn offers a new perspective on racial identity in the United States, that of mixed race college students making sense of the paradox of deconstructing racial categories while living on campuses sharply divided by race and ethnicity. Focusing on how peer culture shapes identity in public and private spaces, the book presents the findings of a qualitative research study involving fifty-six undergraduates from a variety of institutions. Renn uses an innovative ecology model to examine campus peer cultures and documents five patterns of multiracial identity that illustrate possibilities for integrating notions of identity construction (and deconstruction) with the highly salient nature of race in higher education. One of the most ambitious scholarly attempts to date to portray the diverse experiences and identities of mixed race college students, the book also discusses implications for higher education practice, policy, theory, and research.

Table Of Contents

• Preface
• 1. The Context of Mixed Race Students in American Higher Education
• 2. The Ecology of Multiracial Identity on Campus—An Analytic Framework and Research Design
• 3. Patterns of Multiracial Identity among College Students
• 4. I’m Black—Monoracial Identity
• 5. I’m Asian and Latina—Multiple Monoracial Identities
• 6. I’m Mixed—Multiracial Identity
• 7. I Don’t Check Any Boxes—Extraracial Identity
• 8. It Depends—Situational Identity
• 9. From Patterns to Practice—What Mixed Race Identity Patterns Mean for Educational Practice
• Appendix A: Revisions to the Standards for the Classification of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity
• Appendix B: Summary of Study Participants
• Appendix C: Interview and Focus Group Protocols
• Notes