Love, School, and Money: Stress and Cultural Coping among Ethnically Diverse Black College Women: A Mixed-Method Analysis

Abstract

There are 2.5 million Black college students in the United States. Sixty-two percent are women (U.S. Census Bureau, 2006). As a group, Black college students are vulnerable to normal developmental stress as are other college students in their experiences with academic pressure, relationship stress, and financial difficulties (Misra & McKean, 2000; Negga, Applewhite, & Livingston, 2007). Black college students also contend with the stress of racial discrimination, isolation as a racial minority, sensitive comments at predominantly White institutions (pwis), and more negative financial stress (Neville, Heppner, Ji, & Thye, 2004; Phinney & Hass, 2003). Black students at pwis experience less social support than Black students at Black colleges as well as White students at pwis (Negga, Applewhite, & Livingston, 2007). Low social support amidst high stress may explain the higher attrition rates among Black college students at predominantly White campuses. Despite the stressors facing Black college students at pwis, research on stress is limited. Negga, et. al, (2007) researched stress, self-esteem, and social support with 165 Black students at a pwi. Leading sources of stress were: (1) low grades, (2) time management, (3) death of family, and (4) class load. In an exploratory study on coping that included 130 male and female Black and Latino college students in New York, Chiang, Hunter and Yeh (2004) determined that school grades were the most frequent source of distress, followed by study skills, and relationships with family. Solorzano, Ceja, and Yosso (2000) conducted focus groups with 34 male and female Black students at three elite predominantly White colleges. Microaggressions defined as subtle insults (verbal, nonverbal, and/or visual) directed toward people of color, often automatically or unconsciously negatively impacted students (p. 60). In an earlier study assessing 578 Black, Asian, Latino, and White college students' perceptions and experiences of the campus cultural climate, Ancis, Sedlacek, and Mohr (2000) found that Black students experienced a great deal of pressure to conform to stereotypes and more racial-ethnic hostility. Purpose of the Study Although coping strategies help people to withstand stress, the assessment of coping strategies among Black college students neither focuses traditionally on women nor exclusively incorporates cultural modalities. Exploring stress and coping among Black women at a predominantly White university is significant. First, due to multiple jeopardy, Black women have unique stressors that are under investigated in the research. Multiple jeopardy refers to the several and simultaneous oppressions of racism, sexism, and classism that Black women face and the multiplicative and intersecting relationships among these sources of discrimination (King, 2007). An intersectional perspective on stress and coping position race and gender (as well as class) at the center of analysis and grounds this research study. Understanding Black college women's management of distress could lead to interventions aimed to decrease race, gender, and class, stress and enhance specific coping modalities. Secondly, research tends to group Black people homogenously and treat them as a monolith. Most Black college students are women and include immigrants and children of immigrants from Haiti, the Caribbean, and Africa. Academic, social, and linguistic realities connected to ethnicity need exploration so as not to overemphasize the visibility of race and minimize invisible identities such as ethnicity or first generation college students. Race, Gender, and Class Oppression in Black Women's Lives Within American society, status, normalcy, privilege, and power, are ascribed to Whiteness (light skin color), maleness, and wealth. Racism, patriarchy, and classism are interlocking systems of both oppression and privilege (Landry, 2007). …