The Intersection of Race, Class, and Gender in Higher Education: Implications for Discrimination and Policy

Abstract

This dissertation examined how discrimination perpetration, operationalized as systematic biases against low power targets in affirmative action endorsement, influenced access to higher education within and between groups. The dissertation provided a description and review of discrimination perpetration. In this review, discrimination perpetration was distinguished from the experience of discrimination; the psychological components of institutional discrimination, the role of intersectionality, and the importance of considering context were also discussed. The review served as a foundation for two subsequent empirical studies. The first empirical study examined gender-based affirmative action endorsements for targets when their race and gender were simultaneously made salient. This study found that White female participants endorsed gender-based affirmative action equally for all targets. White male participants were more likely to endorse gender-based affirmative action for White female and Black male targets, than for Black female targets. The final study investigated social class-based affirmative action when targets’ race, class, and gender were simultaneously salient, and when ambiguity was manipulated via the targets’ preparedness. There were no differences in the likelihood that White female participants endorsed affirmative action for White and Black female targets from low or high social class backgrounds or for White and Black male targets from low social class backgrounds. There was a higher likelihood that female participants endorsed affirmative action for White male targets from higher social class backgrounds than for Black male targets from higher social class backgrounds. There was no difference in the likelihood that White male participants endorsed affirmative action for Black and White highly prepared targets from low or high social class backgrounds, or to Black and White targets from low social class backgrounds who were moderately prepared. Yet, there was a higher likelihood that White male participants endorsed affirmative action for moderately prepared White targets from high social class backgrounds, than for moderately prepared Black targets from high social class backgrounds. Together, the results suggest that policy endorsements vary according to targets’ multiple group memberships simultaneously. The results have implications for policies designed to bolster equal access to higher education and for the psychological study of discrimination perpetration in higher education.