This qualitative study explored how critical incidents shape multiracial students' understanding of race and identity at predominantly White institutions. Participants included 14 multiracial undergraduate students from two institutions in the Midwest. Four categories of critical incidents were identified from the data: (a) confronting race and…

This study examined relations between perceived racial discrimination, multiracial identity integration (i.e., racial distance and racial conflict), and psychological adjustment (i.e., distress symptoms, positive affect, and negative affect) of 263 multiracial adults, using an online cross-sectional survey design. As hypothesized, higher levels of…

As the number of biracial individuals in the US continues to grow, so does research focused on them. While some of this literature examines how biracials fare on a host of social outcomes, little research examines whether part-white biracials are able to use their whiteness as a resource to gain additional resources or rewards. This research seeks…

The mixed heritage population is one of the fastest growing in the United States. With mixed heritage youth doubling in the past ten years, higher education institutions can expect an increase of this minority group. Historically higher education has responded to underrepresented student needs and designed student services for monoracial students…

In this article, I reflect on my personal experiences of racial queerness. In an effort to speak my secrets, I explore my identity production as a Multiracial person by critically examining my positionality throughout various key stages in my life. I present Multiracial microaggressions--those accumulated moments that underscore my racial…

Multiracial Americans represent a rapidly growing population (Shih & Sanchez, 2009); however, very little is known about the types of challenges and resilience experienced by these individuals. To date, few psychological measures have been created specifically to investigate the experiences of multiracial people. This article describes 2…

A body of literature has increased our understanding of ethnic identity formation among ethnic minorities, but there remains a dearth of research focused on the ethnic identity formation of biethnic adolescents. Biethnic adolescents are likely to have unique experiences related to ethnicity that significantly alter the course of their ethnic…

Drawing on interview data with black-white biracial adults, we examine the considerable agency most have in asserting their racial identities to others. Extending research on "identity work" (Snow and Anderson 1987), we explore the strategies biracial people use to conceal (i.e., pass), cover, and/or accent aspects of their racial ancestries, and…

With Barack Obama making history by becoming the United States' first mixed-race president, his inauguration is calling attention to the nation's growing multiracial population, whose youngest members are showing up with increasing frequency at schoolhouse doors. Yet while the growth of the U.S. population of children with mixed-race backgrounds…

Minority-race children in North America and Europe often show less own-race favoritism than children of the majority (White) race, but the reasons for this asymmetry are unresolved. The present research tested South African children in order to probe the influences of group size, familiarity, and social status on children's race-based social…

What pedagogies and inter-/intragroup dynamics facilitate increased understanding of issues of race, white racial identity development, and racism in the U.S.? Can white students effectively learn about whiteness by themselves as well as in collaboration with students of diverse racial backgrounds? This project examines white student learning in…

The practical problem of how to utilize multiple race data in quantitative higher education research collides with neo-conservative and liberal assumptions that a perceived growth in a post-civil rights multiracial population suggests racism no longer exists, and with concerns that multiracial data will undermine civil rights progress. Given that…

This research investigates the relationship between biracial college students and race-oriented student services (e.g., Office of Black Student Services). These services are organized around conventional understandings of race that assume there are five, discrete racial categories, namely, Black/African American, Latino/a, White, Asian American,…

Although recent research on multiraciality exposes mixed race experiences in the post-Civil Rights era, higher education scholarship still seems to lack a framework that connects two racial systems of oppression that inform and reinforce each other: traditional racisms targeting monoracially-constructed groups, and monoracism targeting…

How do students of color and multiracial students learn to make sense of and navigate race within historically white institutions (HWIs)? And, what pedagogies and inter-/intragroup dynamics facilitate increased understanding of issues of race, racial identity development, and racism in the U.S.? This project examines students' of color (SOC) and…