AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN AT HIGHLY SELECTIVE COLLEGES: How African American Campus Communities Shape Experiences

African Americans attending highly selective institutions persist in higher percentages than do African Americans attending less-selective institutions, and most of those highly selective colleges and universities are residential with a liberal arts focus in the undergraduate curriculum. In an effort to examine more closely the impact of predominately White, highly selective institutions on African American women, this study qualitatively investigated the experiences of 19 female African American college students at 2 highly selective, predominately White institutions. However, several important points from the existing literature on African American women have emerged to inform this study. However, Jackson found that African American women at co-educational PWIs focused on their racial identities and did not develop their gender identities as fully as women at HBCUs. However, on both campuses the African American women in this study felt different from their fellow students, felt marked by their class and racial differences.