“We’ve Always Been Kind of Kicked to the Curb”: A Mixed-Methods Assessment of Discrimination Experiences among College Students
Abstract
:1. Background
2. Methods
3. Results
“…in a country that wasn’t set up for my people, you know? It was set up for us to fail.”
“Growing up being black you’re gonna, you’re gonna experience [discrimination].”
“They judge us and see us as the same person… we may look the same, but we’re completely different.”
“My dad…likes lowrider cars and we’re like driving … we got pulled over, like we weren’t doing anything, but my dad got slammed like to the hood of the car… ‘cause they said he was gang affiliated, but my dad has never even been in a gang, but just because of like the way he looked”
“My boyfriend is white. He’s like why are you so Mexican? I could find someone better than you.”
“… it sucks to know that someone is undermining a lot of the trainings that I went through and the experience that I got.”
“I think it’s because we are millennials. I’m guessing that’s what it is…that we’re not as competent compared to someone from another generation.”
“I wish I could be seen as a professional and not just as seen as …too young to teach them…”
“Just being a woman when it comes to like… heavy lifting, I kind of see guys tend to not like, pick me because I’m small. For example, I work at the gym, so it’s like lifting treads and all that it’s like let’s send the boys to do it.”
“I work with a lot of doctors, nurses… they [have] higher education. I feel like sometimes I’m looked down upon.”
“Oh, well what are you doing? And I’m like oh, I’m doing public health and they’re like oh, well that’s not interesting.”
“…people with money they see all the other people a lot lower.”
“My Mexican side of the family will be like…You guys are black [referring to skin color and not race] anyways…I’ve kind of felt different in a sense… we’ve always been like kind of kicked to the curb.”
“I have two little cousins and they’re both the same age and one is like blond light-colored eyes and the other one is like darker, you know just a little bit tanner and he [grandfather] like willingly shows like he prefers like the lighter one.”
“Foreign exchange students sometimes they get looked down upon… when they’re speaking.”
“I notice sometimes when I talk to people, they like to point out my accent.”
“Sometimes I feel a little different in class…because my English no good, no one wants to work with me.”
“One time during class we were choosing groups and I heard people say that [redacted ethnic identity] are lazy and only cheat.”
“I can’t do my job without having [the discrimination experiences] in the back of my mind.”
“…now I go to therapy because I talk about all of the stuff that I go through [at work].”
“When I go home… I relink what whatever happened… replay everything in my head.”
“It’s more like a frustration kind of thing… but it also makes me feel like maybe I’m not approaching them the right way… what am I doing that’s wrong?”
“Well, honestly I do get self-conscious about my accent, and I think about it all the time now.”
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Sex | |
Female | 63.0% |
Male | 37.0% |
Age (years) | |
18–20 | 51.7% |
21–23 | 33.8% |
24 or older | 14.6% |
Ethnicity | |
Hispanic/Latino | 82.9% |
Not Hispanic/Latino | 17.1% |
Food Security Status | |
Food secure | 62.6% |
Food insecure | 37.4% |
General Physical Health Status | |
Excellent/very good/good | 51.6% |
Very poor/poor/average | 48.4% |
General Mental Health Status | |
Excellent/very good/good | 54.9% |
Very poor/poor/average | 45.1% |
Psychological distress | |
Serious psychological distress | 21.0% |
Not serious psychological distress | 79.0% |
Mean everyday discrimination score (standard error) | 2.10 (0.12) |
Appearance | 57.9% |
Race/ethnicity | 46.0% |
Skin color | 31.3% |
Gender identity | 21.8% |
Religion | 12.3% |
Sexual orientation | 7.6% |
Immigration status | 5.2% |
Disability | 3.8% |
Other | 5.2% |
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Mahoney, C.; Becerra, B.J.; Arias, D.; Romano, J.E.; Becerra, M.B. “We’ve Always Been Kind of Kicked to the Curb”: A Mixed-Methods Assessment of Discrimination Experiences among College Students. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 9607. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijerph19159607
Mahoney C, Becerra BJ, Arias D, Romano JE, Becerra MB. “We’ve Always Been Kind of Kicked to the Curb”: A Mixed-Methods Assessment of Discrimination Experiences among College Students. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2022; 19(15):9607. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijerph19159607
Chicago/Turabian StyleMahoney, Cindy, Benjamin J. Becerra, Devin Arias, Jacqueline E. Romano, and Monideepa B. Becerra. 2022. "“We’ve Always Been Kind of Kicked to the Curb”: A Mixed-Methods Assessment of Discrimination Experiences among College Students" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19, no. 15: 9607. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijerph19159607