Racial Identity, Racial Solidarity, and Academic Achievement across the African Diaspora

Abstract

The current investigation takes an intersectional within-group (ethnicity and gender) approach to examine the role of racial identity and the moderating influence of racial solidarity in shaping Black college students’ academic achievement. Within the field of psychology, intra-Black identity development and racial solidarity is an emerging area of research. Hunter et al. (2017) found that racial solidarity was linked to decreased rates of depression in Black immigrant college students. Despite the importance of this finding, empirical research in this area is quite underdeveloped and its potential benefits to Black college students’ academic achievement has not been explored. This paper extends this work by examining racial solidarity as a form of social support for Black students at Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs). Racial solidarity may aid in explaining how and in what ways Black students engage with their campus community, which in turn helps Black students feel like they belong on campus and may positively affect their scholastic achievements. We sampled 216 Black college students (n = 88 Black-American and n = 128 Black immigrant) to deploy an intra-categorical intersectional descriptive-analytic approach, using ANOVA and multivariate linear regression techniques. Results suggest ethnic group and gender variation in racial identity, racial solidarity, and grades. Implications for assessing racial identity development across the African diaspora and the model minority myth are discussed.