Racial discrimination and well -being among African American university students.

Abstract

For most college students, academic achievement is not only a goal but it is likely their primary purpose for attending the university. While any form of stress may be problematic, some suggest that in order for a stressor to be harmful, it would need to be an important factor in an individual's life (Steele, 1998). Because of its significance to the lives of African American college students, experiencing discrimination that is specifically targeted toward African Americans' competence may be harmful to their personal well-being. Specifically, this study attempted to understand the relationship between competence-focused daily hassles discrimination and students' global self-esteem and academic performance. This survey study assessed 268 African American college students' experiences with daily racist hassles (Harrell, 1998) that target their intelligence and academic competence. Discrimination was measured by asking how frequently students' experienced these events, and how bothered they were by the experience. Hierarchical regressions were conducted predicting global self-esteem and students' academic performance (as measured by GPA's) from students' experiences with competence related racial discrimination. Racial Centrality and students' experiences with other African Americans were entered as moderating variables. The overall findings in this study suggest that African Americans students show a great deal resilience to the possible negative consequences of experiencing racial discrimination. While the vast majority of students had experienced racial discrimination, there were very few relationships between experiencing more frequent or more bothersome discrimination and the well being outcomes of self-esteem and academic performance. In fact, where there was a direct relationship, it was in the direction of being more resilient, rather than more harmed. Further, the relationships that did exist differed for males and females. For instance, women had higher GPA's when they were more bothered by discrimination, yet no relationship existed for men. These findings indicate a need to problematize the ways that racial discrimination relate specifically to different types of well being outcomes, among different students. Further, the findings suggest that African American women and men may respond to racial discrimination in different manners. Further research is needed better understand these phenomena.