…I learned from my Fraternity.
Okay. Maybe everything is an exaggeration, but it certainly laid a solid foundation.
Recruitment… equates to being the hiring manager.
I love when people ask how I remember names. I always want to tell them that the names are the easy part! 1200 PNMs coming…
Notes 11-1-11
Current Question:
How are white male undergraduate students that are members of predominantly white greek social organizations talking about race?
As Americans we encounter and navigate issues of race each day. The choices we make (i.e. what we select as reading material, who we choose to sit next to on the bus) can be influenced with constructs of race in mind.
The discourse on race in the United States is complex, with many voices and many differences of viewpoint. Institutions of higher education have established an interest in promoting discourse on diversity, including race. Institutions base their programmatic, policy, and curricular diversity interventions on the literature of many disciplines. Education literature…business literature…multicultural literature…(cite) The discourse is woven into institutional mission statements (cite), programming (cite), and curriculum (cite). These communities of higher education allocate resources to programs to teach appreciation, tolerance, and understanding around issues of difference.
The public communication coming from the institutions of higher education seems to squarely root the public discourse in diversity and multicultural appreciation. The way in which that message is received and continues on as a private discourse by and between students, particularly at the group level, is of interest. In some cases there are interventions at the level of individual student organizations.
Despite these programmatic and curricular interventions, pockets of communities within higher education remain racially homogeneous. One example is the community of greek social organizations, also known as fraternities. These organizations formed at a time when institutions of higher education were segregated (cite) and later even after higher education institutions integrated, the greek groups kept formal written rules restricting race and religion for membership (cite). These organizations are student groups, governed internally by student members. The student members seemingly graduate and cycle out of active group participation in the average amount of time spent as an undergraduate. Therefore, the institutional knowledge of past practices and policy interpretation is passed from student to student repeatedly. Without outside intervention from the international organization or institution the group may persist in perpetuating an image. In the case of a racially homogeneous group there may be additional resistance of changing an image of one selectively chose. A peripheral or passive intervention strategy may go unacknowledged or just tolerated without having an effect if the core reason a group is homogeneous is not addressed. One way of addressing is to get inside the discourse of a group to seek a source or motivation for perpetuating the group’s homogeneous image.
If we are to modify or create effective interventions for the homogeneous groups, those creating the policies and intervention strategies must understand the resistance in order to find the point of neutrality (cite) where an intervention has the chance of being successful. One way of seeking to understand is to listen to how the student members of greek organizations that are predominantly white talk about race with one another.
The intent of this study is to listen and use critical discourse analysis to describe the ways in which these students talk about race with one another.
Conduct a focus group after a diversity program then follow up with some participants in semi-structured interviews.
Phrases in literature that resonated with my interest:
- …the ways students discursively construct their experiences. (Tusting, Crawshaw, and Callen, I know cos I was there, pg. 652).
- …White college students’ interpretive repertoires on racial matters as expressed during…(Bonilla-Silva & Forman, I’m not a racist but. pg. 52).
- …describe our exploration as a strategic focus on whiteness with the aim to challenge and unselttle it, rather than…(Solomon, Portelli, Daniel, Campbell, The discourse of denial: how white teacher candidates construct race, racism and white privilege. Pg. 148).
- There is this continued belief that we all have the same opportunities, or at the very least, access to the opportunities. The failure or success of a particular individual or group is inexorably linked to individual effort and agency. (Solomon et. Al, pg. 160).
Search for These:
Plath, LJ. (2011). The company he keeps: A history of white college fraternities. American nineteenth century history, 12(1), 123.
Item requested: Company he keeps : a history of white college fraternities / Call No: LJ31 .S97 2009
Article Title: A Paradox of Participation: Nonwhites in White Sororities and Fraternities Journal Information: Social Problems [0037-7791] yr.2010 vol.57 iss.4 pg.653 -679
Questions for Jason:
-Should I start over with the Lit Review, incorporating DA and the specifics I’ve identified since the summer?
-How and when will I identify the (42?) DA questions to ask?
-
The state of Alabama—and, indeed, the southern region of America as a whole—is reeling in shock and disbelief this week after reports that a white frat boy at the University of Alabama yelled “nigger” at a black student walking by his frat house.
