Racial Arrested Development: A Critical Whiteness Analysis of the Campus Ecology

This paper analyzes the campus ecology (Renn, 2003, 2004) literature from the perspective of Critical Whiteness specifically problematizing perceptions of safety and inclusion on the college campus. Relying upon Sullivan's (2006) ontological expansiveness, Mills's (1997) epistemology of ig...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of college student development Vol. 57; no. 2; pp. 119 - 134
Main Authors Cabrera, Nolan L, Watson, Jesse S, Franklin, Jeremy D
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 01.03.2016
Subjects
Arrests
Campuses
College campuses
College Environment
College Students
Ecology
Educational Change
Epistemology
Higher Education
Learning
Literature Reviews
Ontology
Physical Environment
Predominantly White Institutions
Race
Racial Attitudes
Racial Differences
Racial Factors
Racial Identification
Racism
Reverse discrimination
School Safety
Society
Student Attitudes
Student Development
Students
Undergraduate Students
White Students
White supremacy
Whites
United States > US
San Francisco California
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Summary:This paper analyzes the campus ecology (Renn, 2003, 2004) literature from the perspective of Critical Whiteness specifically problematizing perceptions of safety and inclusion on the college campus. Relying upon Sullivan's (2006) ontological expansiveness, Mills's (1997) epistemology of ignorance, and Leonardo and Porter's (2010) Fanonian interpretation of racial safety, we argue that there is too high a premium placed on social comfort during the undergraduate experience which actually leaves White students at predominantly White institutions in perpetual states of racial arrested development. We conclude that intentional, targeted racial dissonance is necessary for both White students to develop their racial selves while concurrently being aware of the ugly realities of contemporary racism.
ISSN:0897-5264
1543-3382
1543-3382
DOI:10.1353/csd.2016.0014