How the Visibility of “Whiteness as a Credential” Creates Trade-offs for the Fit and Belonging of Minoritized Students at College

Abstract

Based on 57 interviews with minoritized students at one highly selective PWI, this project examines how nonwhite students feel judged against two separate standards of hegemonic whiteness, where whiteness is openly valued socially but is invisible academically. This article theorizes how the explicit visibility of whiteness as a community standard of fit influences the degree to which students recognize that valued (white) standards are (1) unattainable and (2) unfair, arbitrary, and linked to a larger system of racialized oppression. The data suggest that while all forms of hegemonic whiteness are costly, visibility creates different trade-offs for fit and belonging. When whiteness is explicitly acknowledged as a valued social credential, minoritized students feel low social fit and belonging because of their inability to fully embody whiteness, but they recognize their racial devaluation is illegitimate and those alternative social standards can exist. When minoritized students do not perceive whiteness as a salient academic credential, they experience academic fit and belonging as they feel that they share individual merit with other matriculated students who have been accepted into an “elite” school. However, they also accept the meritocratic ideals that stereotype them as less academically competent and frame their academic success as racial exceptionalism. Under colorblindness, they accept the racialized status quo, even though it perpetuates their exposure to microaggressions, stereotype threat and imposter syndrome.