My Physical Identity

There are no two exact physical identities; every individual has their own unique, physical appearance. My physical identity includes everything that other people can see when they look at me. People can see that I have brown hair but my family and close friends know I have lighter, hazelnut colored hair. My eyes seem different colors depending on the lighting but sometimes they are brown and sometimes they are hazel. I am also constantly told by friends that I have huge eyes and from looking at my old baby pictures I completely agree. My face is pretty round compared to the rest of family that has longer faces. Although I get haircuts, my hair is usually falls around my shoulders. Compared to a lot of other girls my age, I am pretty

Schools systematically subjugate minority and black students when a school’s enrollment contains a huge racial majority. If students have no exposure to persons of different ethnicities, cultures, races, and religions, then these students will experience culture shock when they confront “other” people. Even in our class, we talk about black and minority students as another group, one that differs from “us.” We think about the inequalities in school systems as problems we need to fix, not as problems that have influenced our thinking and affect us as prospective teachers. For example, a white graduate student with

Another major predicament that plays a large role in the amount of African Americans that do not receive a higher education is once they get to college, they do not have a typical or enjoyable experience once there. In today’s society, it is hard to imagine that there is still racism and segregation in schools and colleges today but the reality is, it still does very much exist. This is especially true when black students attend predominantly white universities. Even though most colleges promote themselves by talking about how diverse their

A substantial amount of educational and psychological research has consistently demonstrated that African American students underperform academically relative to White students. For example, they tend to receive lower grades in school (e.g., Demo & Parker, 1987; Simmons, Brown, Bush, & Blyth, 1978), score lower on standardized tests of intellectual ability (e.g., Bachman, 1970; Herring, 1989; Reyes & Stanic, 1988; Simmons et al., 1978), drop out at higher rates (e.g., American Council on Education, 1990; Steele, 1992), and graduate from college with substantially lower grades than White students (e.g., Nettles, 1988). Such performance gaps can be attributed to

Throughout my lifetime I will cross paths with many different people. These people could be friends, colleagues, teachers, professors, or significant others, all of any race or cultural background. When meeting someone for the first time, it is very easy to make assumptions about that person without knowing anything about them at all. We’re all human, we all do this. In her essay, “A Prostitute, a Servant, and a Customer-service Representative: A Latina in Academia,” Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies, Carmen Lugo-Lugo claims that what students assume about their professors advocates their attitude toward their education. Racial stereotypes challenge us to consider our own expectations of what we should get out of a college education, and who or what constitutes a college professor. She vigorously uses emotional appeals and establishes her tone of voice using style and word choice in a concerned, direct manner to argue that students make personal or racially-biased assumptions about their teachers/professors, resulting in a lousy attitude towards education.

Due to the mismatch of race from teachers to students in schools, the minority students have a harder time receiving a higher education.“When minority students see someone at the blackboard that looks like you, it helps you reconceive what’s possible for you,” said Thomas S. Dee, a professor of education at Stanford University. By having a teacher with the same race as the student, creates a bond in knowledge of the barriers that minorities have to jump through. It also lets students see that even though they might be in a tough situation, they are able to receive a high level of education and may be able to reach their dreams. In an article in the Nea Today titled When Implicit Bias Shapes Teacher Expectations, they explain that the opinion

Students of color often confront overt and covert “Racial Microaggressions” in higher education settings and these racial experiences develop negative notions about the institution and academic aspirations.

In addition to the psychological impact they face, African Americans are showing that they feel disconnected from their respective schools. At schools across the country, from the University of Missouri to Ithaca College to Stanford, minorities are conveying that implicit yet institutionalized racism creates an emotional distance between them and their white peers and staff. Many black students not only have to deal with institutional racism, but they also have to engage in academic and social environments that fail to recognize microaggressions (Green). Discrimination can make it difficult for students of color to engage with their campus in the way that their white classmates do. In addition, black students are tired of having white administrators

Steele focuses her argument around high achieving, motivated black student’s underachievement rooted in stereotype threat. She argues that students that are of equal intelligent level underperform due to subtle but powerful impacts of stereotypes, and that colleges can lessen these impacts by addressing the issue through creation of identity safety and diminishing of racial divides. This point is strongly proven through the study conducted by Woolf et al. (2008) where minority students underachieve in medical school due to decreased teacher interactions rooted in student classifications. If a safe identity space were created in this institution the classifications and ultimately racial divide would be nullified, leading to equal relationships amongst all students and teachers and ultimately opportunity for equal performance. Upon examination of Steele’s essay and other case studies, stereotype threats biggest disadvantage lies in ultimate creation of unequal opportunities and testing environment

Besides the struggle that come with being able to fund their college education, the racial cognitions associated with the black race have led to ongoing racism and racial microaggressions that more so affects black women’s college experience at predominantly white institutions than historical black colleges and universities. D’Augelli and Hershberger conducted a survey of a pool of black students that resulted in “the majority (89%) of black students indicated having experience some sort of negative racial experience (harassment, racial remark, feelings of mistreatment, etc.) (Shabazz 2015).” Racial microaggressions (RMAs) refer to subtle, yet derogatory communications toward individuals of color (Chambers 2012). These racial microagressions are commonly seen in the academic settings at predominantly white institutions, which tend to perpetuate negative stereotypes. Studies suggest that RMAs remain commonly experienced by many non-White students. For blacks, an example stereotype that is typically expressed is the perception that black students are not intelligent by their classmates and professors. Within the study, a recurring experience for black women was that they were perceived as not being smart enough. Black students tend to form fraternities, sororities, and organizations within themselves to feel more valued whether that may be academically, personally, socially, or culturally. Within the classrooms, dorms, parties, or dining hall are example of places that

I am half-Chinese, half-Swedish, and both a Swedish and an American citizen.  Throughout my life, my parents have always stressed the importance of celebrating all three of my nationalities; however, growing up, my peers were not able to accept me for being anything but “some sort of Asian.”  In spite of my Swedish heritage and our shared upbringing in the homogeneously white town of Rye, I was always treated differently because of my appearance.  Constantly having

Teachers must have a full understanding of their student’s cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds in order to become socially conscious of the power relations among their students. In order for teachers to learn to lose their own biases, I will host after school teacher trainings where I will facilitate discussions about race and class. This is important because according to author Gilda Ochoa, if teachers hold on to cultural assumptions they run the risk of sending racialized messages to their students, who then internalize them (Ochoa 165). In her book, Academic Profiling, she provides examples of how students pick up on such messages. For instance April Lee, reveals how she is aware of her teachers’ expectations of Asian Americans when she states, “When a teacher looks at you and your face, [they think,] “oh, you’re Asian.” She must be really smart, or she must be really good at math” (Ochoa 165). These stereotyped messages or “ideological assaults” often translate into the differential ways teachers treat their students and is known to create resentment in the students treated inferiorly (Ochoa 172). Clearly, in order for

The other biological aspect of my identity is that I am a cisgendered female. What this means is that I identify with the sex I was assigned at birth. I am a female, because of my biology. Cisgender is dominant over transgender, and I feel like this put me at an advantage. People who are transgendered have to struggle with issues that I’ve never had to think about, like being born into the wrong sex. As a cisgender person, people always use to correct pronouns when addressing me. I’ve never had to think about my sex or even be confused about it; I’ve just always known it. I know what is the proper bathroom to use and never get questioned for it. I’ve never had to make an effort to appear female. An article on gender presentation from Sjwiki, explains that: “because most people do indeed diagnose gender based on external appearance, many people, especially those who are misgendered often, make a conscious or subconscious effort to align their external appearance with that which will allow them to pass as the gender they identify as” (‘Gender Presentation, Sjwiki). I as a cisgender female have never had to worry about displaying myself as female.

White privilege and acts of racism are just as pervasive on a college campus as in any other environment. Students of color may be treated differently in a classroom setting from their white counterparts, not because of who they are or how they behave but simply because of the color of their skin. Racism can be the assumption that of the two people in the classroom, the white one is the professor. It is the split-second conclusion that a Latino student with a tattoo is in a gang, but a white student with a tattoo is military. Because these are unintended slights, they are not considered to be a problem because “…unconscious racism and the invisibility of whiteness allow the separation of intention to harm from actual harm…” (Case, 2012, p.

Females are not the only ones who can suffer enormous consequences due to unconscious teacher biases that subtly perpetuate stereotypes and the status quo. Wood, Kurtz-Costes, Rowley & Adeyanju (2010) have found that adults have a tendency toward lower academic expectations when it comes to African American male students as opposed to African American female students. This belief held even when African American mother were asked to evaluate the academic potential of their own children. The results of this study