Brown Bag Seminar: Say it Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud)?: Understanding the Racial Identities of Upwardly Mobile Black College Students

For more post-event materials, see links below. 

Professor Charles pushes back on traditional thinking on racial identity in Black students, which, her research finds, is far more multidimensional and varied than earlier studies indicated. She will discuss her latest research, which uses the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen (NLSF) and in-depth interviews with students at two Ivy League institutions, to discuss racial identity among Black students. While concluding that racial identity is central to students’ self-concepts, Charles argues that those identities are varied, influenced by such factors as national origin, generational status, and racial heritage. Charles will explore these findings and their impact on student performance in higher education.

Professor Charles is the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor in the Social Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. She researches urban inequality, racial attitudes and intergroup relations, racial residential segregation, minorities in higher education, and racial identity. She is the author of numerous publications, including Taming the River: Negotiating the Academic, Financial, and Social Currents in Selective Colleges and Universities (co-author; forthcoming, Princeton University Press), Won’t You Be My Neighbor: Race, Class and Residence in Los Angeles (Russell Sage, Fall 2006), The Source of the River: The Social Origins of Freshmen at America’s Selective Colleges and Universities (co-author; 2003, Princeton University Press). She also directs the interdisciplinary Center for Africana Studies, which supports the study of African and African Diaspora history, society, and culture. For a full biography, please visit her web page.