The social adjustment of African American females at a predominantly white midwestern university

The Social Adjustment of African American Females at a Predominantly White Midwestern University

Ray Von Robertson, Aditi Mitra, and Jean Van Delinder

This study examines the social adjustment of African American female students at a predominantly white university in the Midwest. Johnson's (2001) Afrocentric development theory encourages student administrators to examine what African American females say about themselves psychologically and socially. Respondents were chosen via non-probability sampling and answered open-ended questions centering on social adjustment factors. Using content-analysis, the interviews revealed three themes: 1) racial prejudice; 2) social alienation; and 3) faculty-student relations. Hence, our present study reveals promise for Afrocentric development theory in understanding African American student adjustment at predominantly white universities.

During the 1980s and the 1990s, racial differentials in both the enrollment and completion rates between black and white college students increased (Eitzen and Baca-Zinn, 2000; Feagin, Vera, and Imani, 1996). This trend follows a brief reprieve in such inequities during the period between 1969-79 wherein black secondary educational matriculation increased considerably at least partly as a result of civil fights centered legislation (e.g., affirmative action) and the black power/protest movements of the 1960s and early 1970s (Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 1999; Marable, 1997; Smedley, Myers, & Harrell, 1993).

Additionally, of those African Americans who attend college, the majority are females who attend white colleges and universities (Ginter & Glauser, 1997; Schwitzer et al., 1999). For instance, during the nine years between 1990 and 1999 graduation rates of black women rose from 34% to 43% while the rates for black males decreased from 34% to 33% percent (Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 1999). The concern with African American female social adjustment, i.e., the female's normative fit within the total campus environment, at predominantly white colleges can teach us something (Sedlacek, 1996).

Ray Von Robertson is an assistant professor of sociology at Lamar University. Aditi Mitra is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at Oklahoma State University. Jean Van Delinder is an associate professor of sociology at Oklahoma State University.

Journal of African American Studies, Spring 2005, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 31-46.

32 Journal of African American Studies ] Spring 2005

Review of Literature

Social adjustment of African American female college students is commonly measured by individual...