Mixed Race Studies

Exploring the lived experience of biracial identity development in males of late adolescence and emerging adulthood

Northern Illinois University
2010
239 pages
Publication Number: AAT 3404842
ISBN: 9781124023625

Amy Kane-Williamson

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE DOCTOR OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF COUNSELING, ADULT AND HIGHER EDUCATION

The study explored the lived experience of Black/White biracial males. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 participants to; understand the experiences that shaped biracial identity development, elucidate strategies employed to facilitate biracial identity development and ascertain the saliency of biraciality in overall self-concept. Key experiences were discovered that shaped biracial identity development. Specific strategies used to facilitate biracial identity development were found. Four themes emerged from the data that made clear the degree to which biraciality was part of the self-concept. Recommendations are proposed for counselors and clinicians, counselor educators, families, teachers and schools.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• LIST OF APPENDICES
• I. INTRODUCTION
  • Past and Present for Biracial Individuals
  • Fluidity of Biracial Identity
  • Self-Concept of Biracial Individuals
  • Challenges in Establishing Identity
  • Ambiguity in the Research
  • Statement of the Problem
  • Purpose of the Study
  • Research Questions
    • Qualitative Research Design
  • Significance of the Study
  • Limitations of the Study
  • Definitions of Terms
• II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
  • Historical Background
  • Identity Development
    • Racial Identity Development Models
    • Rethinking Biracial Identity Development as Problematic
  • Choosing Among Identity Options
    • Identity and Self-Concept
  • How Does Society Facilitate or Impede Development?
  • How Does Schooling Facilitate or Impeded Development?
  • How the Family Can Facilitate or Impede Development
  • How Gender and Sex Differences Impact Identity Development
  • Summary
• III. METHODOLOGY
  • Design of the Study
  • Research Questions
  • Research Participants
  • Procedure for Participant Selection
  • Data Collection Procedure
    • Data Collection Methods
  • The Research Instrument
    • Validity and Reliability
  • Role of the Researcher
  • Analysis of the Data
  • Theme Analysis
    • Henriksen Model analysis
    • Epoche
• IV. FINDINGS
  • Introduction
  • Overview of Findings
  • Understanding Lived Experiences
    • The Experience of First Noticing
    • Giving Differences a Label
    • Experiencing the Social/Political Meaning of Difference
    • Experiences of Disconnection from Fathers and African American Culture
    • Experiencing Racial Slights or Prejudice
  • Strategies Used to Facilitate Biracial Identity Development
    • Making Concessions to Black and White Worlds
  • Living with Unknowable Conundrums
  • Managing Self in a World of Differences
    • Active Strategies
    • Passive Strategies
  • Saliency of Biracial Identity in Overall Self-Concept
  • Biracial Identity Expressed Through Multiple Channels
    • Physical Expression of Identity
    • Behavioral Expression of Identity
    • Social Expression of Biracial Identity
    • Identity Expression Within Romantic Relationships
    • Ways to Racially Self-Identify
    • Self-Concept and Biracial Identity
  • Summary
  • BRID Model Analysis
    • Henriksen Model
    • Neutrality
    • Acceptance
    • Awareness
    • Experimentation
    • Transition
    • Recognition
    • Observations
• V. DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
  • Summary of Results
    • Understanding and Elucidating Identity-Shaping Experiences
    • Strategies Used to Facilitate Biracial Identity Development
    • Saliency of Biraciality in Overall Self-Concept
  • Comparisons to Current Literature
    • Fluidity in Identity
    • Self-Concept and RGO
    • Problems Biracial Youth Are Assumed to Encounter
    • Differential Findings Based on Gender
    • Points of Agreement or Disagreement with Identity Development Models
    • Concessions Made to the Black and White Worlds
    • Implications for Counselors, Clinicians, Educators and Parents
  • Suggestions for Future Research
• REFERENCES
• APPENDICES

LIST OF APPENDICES

• A. CONSENT TO PARTICIPATE
• B. INTERVIEW PROTOCOL
• C. STUDY PARTICIPANTS WANTED
• D. APPLICATION LETTER

Purchase the dissertation here.

Color and Cultural Identity

BlogTalkRadio
Bruce Hurwitz Presents
2012-01-12, 18:00Z (13:00 EST, 10:00 PST)

Bruce Hurwitz, Host

Marcia Alesan Dawkins, Visiting Scholar
Brown University

Ph.D. Forum introduces listeners to doctoral and post-doctoral students and their cutting-edge research in the arts, sciences, or humanities.

As part of our Ph.D. Forum, I will be joined by Marcia Dawkins.  Marcia received her doctorate from the University of Southern California, Annenberg.  We will be discussing her dissertation which focused on racial passing—pretending to be a member of a race different from the one to which you actually belong—and multi-racial identity.

Listen to the episode here.

What Does the Brazilian Census Tell Us About Race?

Psychology Today
2011-12-06

Jefferson Fish, Ph.D.

Problems with Brazilian and U.S. census data on race.

In 2010 I posted a six-part series on the U. S. census and race (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). In it I pointed out numerous changes in race categories and sub-categories over the 23 censuses, and multiple contradictions between scientific knowledge about human variation and the census race categories. I also offered a simple solution that would allow the government to collect the information it needs without contradicting science and offending or perplexing many citizens.

Because race is a cultural concept, beliefs about race vary dramatically from one culture to another. In this regard, America and Brazil are amazingly different in the categories they use. The United States has a small number of racial categories, based overwhelmingly on ancestry. Thus, it is possible for an American who “looks white” to “really be black” because he or she has “black blood.”

In contrast, Brazilians classify people according to what they look like, using a large number of different terms. For example, one study in the Brazilian northeast conducted by the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE)—the entity responsible for the census—asked people what color (cor) they were, and received 134 different answers! (Other studies have found even larger numbers; and the results vary regionally, with much fewer categories used in the south of the country.) In many Brazilian families different racial terms are used to refer to different children, while such distinctions are not possible in the United States because all the children—no matter what they look like—have the same ancestry.

Thus, I was fascinated to read that “For the first time, non-white people make up the majority of Brazil’s population, according to preliminary results of the 2010 census.”…

Read the entire article here.

It’s dual-race for 1 in 6 babies of mixed parentage

The Straits Times
Singapore
2012-01-11

Amanda Tan

One in six newborn babies of mixed parentage was registered as having a double-barrelled race last year after a new policy kicked in allowing parents to do so.

This full-year figure, released for the first time to The Straits Times, comes a year after the policy was implemented in January last year.

The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) said 16 per cent of mixed-race babies born last year were recorded as being of dual race…

Read the entire article here.

On the Commixture of the Races of Man as Affecting the Progress of Civilisation

Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London
Volume 3 (1865)
pages 98-122

John Crawfurd (1783-1868)

AFRICA

I continue in this paper the subject of the Commixture of Races, beginning my illustrations with the continent of Africa. The narrow strip of land which lies between the Mediterranean and the Great Desert, and which is irrigated from the range of the Atlas, has a fertile soil, with a climate nearly the same as that of Southern Europe. Its aboriginal inhabitants, fair men compared with other African races, speak a language differing from all other known tongues. These people, still numerous in the mountains, are the Berbers or Kabyles. Their race is clearly a peculiar and distinct one, perhaps more European than African or Asiatic.

Notwithstanding the possession of a fine climate and fertile soil, the Berber race, whether under the name of Lybians, Numidians, or Mauritanians, has never, within the bounds of authentic history, attained such a measure of civilisation and power as to have established a powerful united state, capable of maintaining its own independence, of repelling foreign settlement, and of re- sisting foreign invasion and conquest. A commixture with foreign races has, therefore, been in progress for at least thirty centuries. In this long time the native blood has been intermixed with Greek and Phenician through colonisation; with Italian blood through the Roman conquests and an occupation of six hundred years ; with Teutonic blood through the dominion of the Vandals, which was of a century’s duration; with Greek blood again for one hundred and thirty-six years; and, finally, by the con? quest of the Arabs, which may be said to have now lasted for close on seven centuries. To this may be added the Turkish con? quest, without occupation, and the French conquest, which em- braces a large portion of the country, and is likely enough in due time to embrace the whole of it…

Read the entire article here.