Racialization and whiteness in college student leadership education efforts

This dissertation comprises two studies that aim to better understand how racial meanings, or racialization, shape college student leadership education efforts. Colleges shape—and are shaped by—dominant beliefs about race and leadership. Colleges have a longstanding commitment to student leadership development. As such, many colleges rely on leadership education programs (LEPs) to develop students’ leadership abilities.

Research asserts that colleges allocate resources based on their priorities. However, there is little scholarship about how LEPs are resourced and how campus priorities shape LEPs’ resources. Further, scholars have critiqued leadership education’s failure to disrupt racism and whiteness. The frameworks scholars have developed to foster diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice (DEISJ) in LEP practice neglect organizational considerations in favor of individual and local practices.

These studies investigate how different campuses racialize LEPs and their resources. The first study examined how LEPs replicate and/or resist whiteness. Findings demonstrated that LEPs’ integration of DEISJ varied, despite DEISJ commitments across campuses. These varied commitments stemmed from leadership educators’ beliefs about whiteness, social justice, and leadership. Organizational and individual beliefs about leadership and LEP practice shaped how whiteness manifested across LEPs. The second study examined how campus resource allocation shaped LEP practice and considered how access to resources was racialized. Findings demonstrated that DEISJ was a stated priority across campuses while leadership was not. Further, colleges often allocated resources in ways that deviated from their stated DEISJ commitments and furthered inequities