“Your Blackness Is Your Own Thing”: Examining Peer-Based Campus Racial-Ethnic Socialization Within Black Spaces

Abstract

Studies in higher education have shown cultural student groups to be critical spaces for college students’ ongoing learning and development. Guided by research on Black spaces, this qualitative case study examined campus racial socialization, or the ways information about membership in the Black race is transmitted in educational settings, occurs within Black student groups at a small liberal arts college. We also foreground the ethnic diversity in the Black student body on the focal college campus in order to examine differences in socialization across groups. In this study, we use interviews with 13 Black American, African, and Caribbean students at a small liberal arts campus, analyzed the student groups’ event flyers, and conducted fieldnotes in the campus’ Black cultural center. Our findings indicate that within these groups, Black students transmitted messages about their cultures as well as gained an awareness about pressing critical issues affecting Black people. Through this study, we contribute to the research on racial socialization occurring on college campuses by a close examination of the diversity of approaches Black students take to engage with their own and others’ Black cultures.