Who We Are Is How We Win: Ethnic-Racial Identity as a Universal Developmental Asset for the Culture, the Credits, & College Student Success

Abstract

Completing college is an educational milestone that has meaningful longer-term implications for students in the U.S. (e.g., economic mobility) and their children (Chetty et al., 2017; Reeves & Krause, 2018). Despite the prevalence of ethnoracially minoritized students in the K-12 and overall U.S. populations, Black and Latine students complete college at lower rates than their peers (Department of Education, 2020; U.S. Census, 2020), thus making economic opportunity harder to attain. College completion and healthy progression into adulthood require similar developmental tasks, e.g., defining one’s career, academic goals, and personal identities (Carnevale et al., 2010, 2013; Chickering & Reisser, 1997; Magolda, 2007). Thus, it is possible that a richer, more complex understanding of personal identity development as it relates to college success, career development, and race/ethnicity (i.e., ethnic-racial identity; Umaña-Taylor et al., 2014) would help close college success gaps. Ethnic-racial identity processes are linked with myriad positive developmental outcomes (e.g., Umaña-Taylor, 2023) and have been leveraged, along with concepts such as campus racial climate (e.g., Hurtado & Carter, 1997; Paris & Alim, 2014), to ground various K-12 reform efforts, collegiate cultural/affinity supports, and culturally relevant/sustaining educator programs. However, less work has explored systematically incorporating ethnic-racial identity, with its multi-dimensional, psychological construction, into models or the practice of college student success. I address this gap in my dissertation by first reviewing leading models for young adult development and college success and presenting a new model of postsecondary success that incorporates ethnic-racial identity. Then, I explored preliminary evidence of the model’s theoretical notions using a nationwide survey of 755 U.S. undergraduate college students—a convenience sample recruited online from multiple U.S. regions. Finally, I assessed the feasibility of bringing an ethnic-racial identity curriculum (i.e., The Identity Project) to college campuses using qualitative interview and survey data gathered during a campus-based pilot study with 48 undergraduate students enrolled at one private college. In doing so, I illuminate possible ways for colleges to leverage student ethnic-racial identity—the fuller, contextualized psychological understanding of race/ethnicity—as an asset on campus and, in turn, increase the probability of all college students attaining educational success and economic opportunity.