Social identities and racial integration in historically white universities: A literature review of the experiences of black students

Transformation in Higher Education

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Social identities and racial integration in historically white universities: A literature review of the experiences of black students
 
Creator Bazana, Sandiso Mogotsi, Opelo P.
 
Subject PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY institutional culture; artificial integration; social identity; black students; Steve Biko
Description South African government has been promulgating pieces of legislation aimed at ensuring racial integration, especially in higher education, and indirectly enforcing acculturation in historically white universities. Studies have proven that institutional cultures in historically white universities alienate and exclude black students’ identities. These students’ sense of social identity, which includes culture, heritage, language and traditions, and consequently self-esteem and self-concept, is altered in these institutions. Research has been scant regarding the shape and form that black students’ identity assumes when they get to these spaces. Using Tajfel and Turner’s (1979) social identity theory and Berry’s (2005) theory of acculturation, this article explores the experiences of black students in negotiating their social identities in historically white universities. Evoking Steve Biko’s analysis of ‘artificial integration’ (1986), we hope to illustrate how the ‘integration’ narrative sought to discard the identity of black students and psychologically enforce a simulation of black students into white-established identities. The study has implications for policy development as we hope to sensitise theoretically the historically white universities to, apart from mere opening of spaces of learning, understand the social identity challenges of black students in these institutions.
 
Publisher AOSIS Publishing
 
Contributor
Date 2017-11-17
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — LITERATURE REVIEW
Format text/html application/epub+zip application/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/the.v2i0.25
 
Source Transformation in Higher Education; Vol 2 (2017); 13 pages 2519-5638 2415-0991
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://thejournal.org.za/index.php/thejournal/article/view/25/88 https://thejournal.org.za/index.php/thejournal/article/view/25/87 https://thejournal.org.za/index.php/thejournal/article/view/25/89 https://thejournal.org.za/index.php/thejournal/article/view/25/86
 
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Rights Copyright (c) 2017 Sandiso Bazana, Opelo P. Mogotsi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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