UC Berkeley

Educating enslaved Africans was illegal in antebellum America. However, in the mid-1800s philanthropists and the U.S. Congress established higher education institutions for newly freed people. From then until present, inequitable economic policy and the lower status of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), vs. Historically White Institutions (HWIs), have reified a hierarchical ordering of Black and White schools — consistent with Social Dominance Theory (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). In four studies (n=1059), endorsement of negative HBCU stereotypes via the HBCU Stereotype Scale (HBCU-SS) captured individuals' mental representations of this hierarchical ordering in ways that illuminate connections between racialized educational spaces and intergroup attitudes more broadly. Studies 1 & 2 demonstrate a unifactor structure across all four samples and establish construct validity for both Black and White participants. For all participants, the HBCU-SS was predicted by preference for group inequality — via the Social Dominance Orientation scale. For Blacks, the HBCU-SS was uniquely related to measures of racial identity. For White individuals the HBCU-SS was related to political attitudes, measures of generalized prejudice, as well as motivations to control prejudice. Study three shows that when White participants read about governmental in HBCUs (vs. HWIs), they were more likely to negatively stereotype HBCUs, suggesting hierarchy-maintaining motivations may drive these perceptions. Lastly, study four shows that when White participants are primed with threat to their majority status in society, they increase their stereotyping of HBCUs and increase their endorsement of inequitable resource allocations toward HBCUs.