UCLA

Black women have a unique process in forming their identities, because of the subordinated status of both their racial and gender identity. Black women in America have urged American society at large to understand the complexity and multidimensionality of the Black woman identity, due to issues of inequality being addressed through a single axis lens (Crenshaw, 1989). This research study focuses racial identity development for Black women college students attending an HBCU. Scholarship on Black women’s multidimensional experiences in higher education continues to grow, but little is known about Black women’s racial identity development in the HBCU environment and their intragroup differences. In building a knowledge project of racial identity development, this study is theorized and guided by a Black feminist and intersectional conceptual framework to understand the distinct process of identity development in the lives of Black women attending an HBCU. To capture the deeply intersectional nature of the Black woman experience, this research introduces an intrasectional methodological approach highlight the intragroup differences among the participant’s experiences. The research questions that this study asks include: (1) What are the racialized experiences of Black women college students who are attending an HBCU; (2) How does the HBCU environment (norms, people, expectations, structures) impact the racial identity development of Black women? (3) How does intersectionality help us understand student development for Black women college students attending an HBCU? The findings of this study reveal critical ways that the three dimensions of intersectionality function in student development for Black women at HBCUs.