Running head: THE EFFECT OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION ON COLLEGE 1

MAJOR DECISION

The Effect of Racial Discrimination on College Major Decision

TriDereka Hall

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

PSY 2020L-42337

PSY 2020 Lab Instructor: Courtney Cramer

November 25, 2016

The Effect of Racial Discrimination on College Major Decision 2

Abstract

The purpose of this experiment is to see if there is a relationship between the amount of racial

discrimination that African Americans experience and the college major they choose to pursue. It

is hypothesized that increased racial discrimination will increase the probability of students

choosing a major in the College of Arts and Sciences such as Criminal justice or Legal Studies.

100 undergraduate freshman, in the first semester of college, will complete a questionnaire and

interview that involves their experiences with racial discrimination and how it has affected them

long term. The study will evaluate if there is any correlation between the amount of racial

discrimination faced and motivations/reasons for college major.

The Effect of Racial Discrimination on College Major Decision 3

Because racial discrimination is constantly resurfacing, especially in the past few years,

African Americans are now experiencing it more such as through police brutality, and also

discrimination from their own peers because the views from social media, authority figures, etc

(Bonilla, 2015). As young adults go off to college they are exposed to a new sector of life, and

they tend to be effected the most Not only do they decide to go to college, but they choose a

major, and finally start their own lives outside of the home. Beginning with going to college,

young adults are exposed to a new sector of people and are also free to make their own decisions.

African Americans are even more at risk when they leave the home because they are more likely

to experience racial discrimination, especially in the school system (Fisher, 2000). Those

experiences could affect the major they choose or the way they want to live the rest of their lives.

Experiences of racism increase engagement in ethnic behaviors and more exploration into

African American history and tradition (Sherry, 2006). The purpose of the study is to find if

increased racial discrimination could increase the probability a student choosing a major in the

College of Arts and Sciences such as Criminal justice or Legal Studies. This relationship could

possibly be due to motivations to improve the lives of other African Americans brought on by

their own experiences of racial discrimination.

An important part to understanding how racial discrimination negatively affects African

American adolescents, Saleem, English, Busby, Lambert, Harrison, Stock, and Gibbons (2016)

studied the effect of the racial discrimination parents experience and their view on neighborhood

cohesiveness on the messages they relay to their own children. It also shows the differences

between the messages they give to boy children versus the girl children. The data was collected

from The Family and Community Health Study and included adolescents and caregivers that
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self-identified as African American. All caregivers were referred to as parents. The study utilized

the the Schedule of Racist Events, a 18-item scale used to evaluate negative experiences

attributed to being African American and a modified version of the Social Cohesion and Trust

Scale, which contained 15 items used to assess community social cohesion and trust, informal

social ties, and neighborhood social control. The study found that parents in more cohesive

neighborhoods may have less concern about their sons and issues with racial discrimination and

feel that they will have more support by neighbors. There were less findings for girls because the

study assumes that girls spend less time outside the home compared to boys and are less likely to

receive racial discrimination. On the other hand, girls receive more cultural socialization

messages because parents believed they would pass it to future generations. In contrast to girls,

boy will receive less cultural socialization because of fear and the thug stigma placed on them

by parents, particularly mothers, are concerned about.

In another study, it examined the relationship between skin tone and police contact.

White (2015) used in-home surveys of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health

(Add Health), to evaluate the relationshipspecifically the Black and Latino groups. She used

in-home surveys to determine how the individual would be classified based on their skin tone.

Participants were also asked questions to determine their own interactions with police officers.

Whites results showed that darker-skinned Black and Latinos were stopped and arrested more

than their lighter-skinned counterparts by police officers. She found that Blacks were 18% more

likely of being stopped and arrested if they had a darker skin tone. For Latinos, they were also

more likely to be stopped and arrested if they had a darker skin tone. The results concluded that

Blacks and Latinos received the same amount of police contact. Most of participants who were
The Effect of Racial Discrimination on College Major Decision 5

Black were classified as being the three darkest skin tones with none who were seen as white

and the Latinos were classified as being the two lightest skin tones with 4% being in the black

and brown categories. Whites study suggests that stereotyping and racial profiling by police

officers affects their decision to stop, question and arrest these individuals.

Peers and teachers also have an effect on how some students, starting at a young age,

experience racial discrimination. Smith and Fincham (2016) attempted to see whether there were

specific groups of African American youth based upon their experiences with racial

discrimination. The study included African American youth or students who self-identified as

African American or black. The results indicated that the group who felt they experience the

most racial discrimination were from the Teacher-Peer Perceived Racial Discrimination (PRD)

group, and this group experienced more racial discrimination from their teachers than from their

peers. They also determined that in this group the students that would experience the most racial

discrimination would be African American males and believed that the males experienced a lot

of stress based on their race.

With the impact of racial and ethnic discrimination on youth, one study was conducted by

Fisher, Fenton and Wallace (2000) with students from ethnically diverse academically

competitive urban schools. The study wanted to see if there was a difference in which races and

ethnic groups experience distress in racial discrimination. To measure this study, it used a

15-item measure in which students were asked questions to indicate whether they experienced a

type of discrimination based on their race and how much it upset them on a 5 point scale. The

study found that non-hispanic, white students experienced less discriminatory distress than

students that identified as African American, Asian, or Hispanic. In addition, African American
The Effect of Racial Discrimination on College Major Decision 6

and Hispanic students were found to more likely experience racial discrimination than Asian

students. On the other hand, East Asian students were found to have most peer-related distress.

The results were applied to how African American students felt they were disciplined more and

how it negatively affected their academic performance.

The concept of the relationship between perceived discrimination, its effect on a persons

personality, and the changes within the five dimensions of personality also applies to why a

student choose a certain major. Sutin, Stephan, and Terracciano (2016) had a study in which the

measure included the Midlife Development Inventory, and the five factor model (neuroticism,

extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness). They were asked to described

themselves on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 4 (a lot). The same scale was used in the Health and

Retirement Study (HRS), except one additional item was added to the conscientiousness scale.

Both samples were given questions that involved their past experiences with discrimination and

how they felt. They found that social experiences, such as discrimination, and biology lead to

important developments in ones personality.

Focusing more on my topic, Dickson (2016) focuses on the variation of college majors

based on gender, race, and ethnicity. The study attempts to find the relationship between

variation of race, gender, and college major choices by using data from administrative data of

three Texas universities. The findings in the study also factor in the initial major, probability of

switching majors, and the final major choices of the participants. The study found that the initial

major choices of the participants were affected by their academic preparation, gender and race.

The largest estimates were from white and minority women who had a very low probability

(16% decrease) of choosing a major in the engineering and computer sciences, and a higher
The Effect of Racial Discrimination on College Major Decision 7

probability in choosing a major in the humanities or social sciences. It also found that women

were more likely to major in natural and physical sciences than white males. In regards to race

and ethnicity, there was also a sex gap within this finding. Asian women were more likely to

major in natural and physical sciences than males. Hispanic and Asian males are also more likely

to major in natural and physical sciences. As far as switching majors, students were more likely

to switch their major if they originally majored in engineering or computer sciences. The race

and ethnicity variation in college major choice was more limited than the gender variation. This

study, by Dickson, relates more to the connection of gender and college major choice but it

supports the idea that there are some differences in major based upon race. Although the

hypothesis has some focus on race, it wants to address how racial discrimination experienced by

African Americans affects their college major.

Because African Americans experience racial discrimination, it stems to different aspects

of their life from the time they first start going to school to police contact when they get older.

Their choice of major could be also influenced by racial discrimination as well. It is

hypothesized that increased racial discrimination will increase the probability of an African

American student choosing a major in The College of Arts and Sciences which can include

majors such as: Art, History, Biology, Africana Studies, Humanities, Political Science,

Psychology, Criminal Justice, etc. The categories under The College of Arts and Sciences are

based upon The University of Tennessee of Chattanooga (The University of Tennessee at

Chattanooga, 2016). It is important to see the results between the SRE and the information given

in the interview to see the relationship they could have.

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Hypothesis 1. Higher scores from the Schedule of Racist will increase the probability of

a student choosing a major in The College of Arts and Sciences.

Method

Participants

The study will specifically be looking at the students who identify as black. The

participants in the study will include a convenience sample of 100 black college freshmen in

their first semester of college (N=100) that attend The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

Materials

The materials that will be used will consist of the questionnaire called Schedule of Racist

Events (SRE) (Landrine & Klonoff, 1996), that looks specifically at the racial discrimination that

African Americans experience. The SRE includes a 18-item self report questionnaire that

assesses the amount of racist events the individual has experienced recently versus long term.

The SRE also evaluates how stressful the event was for the individual. The questions, with a

scale of one (never experiencing it) to six (experiencing it almost of the time). Scores will range

from 18 to 108 and higher scores would indicate greater stressfulness of racist events. This study

will also consist of a separate interview that will explore the motivations and reasonings behind

their college major decision.

Procedure

The participants will be presented with consent forms to sign, and then will be

administered the SRE questionnaire. After the SRE is taken, each individual will interviewed

separately. The interview will take approximately 15 minutes.

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Proposed Analysis

The study will have a qualitative approach and be correlational as well. The procedure will be

conducted by several lab assistants who will distribute the questionnaires and conduct the

interviews. The lab assistant will record the interviews as well as search for keywords that are

prominent during the interviews given by the participants. To evaluate the results, the results

from the SRE will be correlated with the major that the student choose. For example, a student

with a higher score from the SRE questionnaire could explain why they choose a major in legal

studies which would indicate a correlation in racist events and a major in The College of Arts

and Sciences.

References

Bonilla, Y., & Rosa, J. (2015). #Ferguson: Digital protest, hashtag ethnography, and the racial

politics of social media in the United States. American Ethnologist, 42(1), 4-17.

doi:10.1111/amet.12112

Dickson, L. (2010). Race and gender differences in college major choice. Annals Of The

American Academy Of Political And Social Science, 627(1), 108-124.

doi:10.1177/0002716209348747

Eccleston, C. P. (2008). The Psychological and Physical Health Effects of Stigma: The Role of

Self-threats. Social And Personality Psychology Compass, 2(3), 1345-1361.

doi:10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00082.x

Fisher, C. B., Wallace, S. A., & Fenton, R. E. (2000). Discrimination distress during

adolescence.
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Journal Of Youth And Adolescence, 29(6), 679-695. doi:10.1023/A:1026455906512

Landrine, H., & Klonoff, E. A. (1996). The Schedule of Racist Events: A measure of racial

discrimination and a study of its negative physical and mental health

consequences.Journal of Black Psychology,22, 144168.

Saleem, F. f., English, D., Busby, D., Lambert, S., Harrison, A., Stock, M., & Gibbons, F.

(2016).

The Impact of African American Parents' Racial Discrimination Experiences and

Perceived Neighborhood Cohesion on their Racial Socialization Practices. Journal Of

Youth & Adolescence, 45(7), 1338-1349.

Sherry, A., Wood, K., Jackson, E. B., & Kaslow, N. (2006). Racist Events and Ethnic Identity in

Low Income, African Americans. Journal Of Applied Social Psychology, 36(6),

1365-1380. doi:10.1111/j.0021-9029.2006.00063.x

Smith, S. M., & Fincham, F. (2016). Racial discrimination experiences among Black youth: A

person-centered approach. Journal Of Black Psychology, 42(4), 300-319.

doi:10.1177/0095798415573315

Sutin, A. R., Stephan, Y., & Terracciano, A. (2016). Perceived discrimination and personality

development in adulthood. Developmental Psychology, 52(1), 155-163.

doi:10.1037/dev0000069

White, K. M. (2015). The salience of skin tone: Effects on the exercise of police enforcement

authority. Ethnic And Racial Studies,38(6), 993-1010.

doi:10.1080/01419870.2014.952752
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"University of Tennessee at Chattanooga." College of Arts and Sciences - University of

Tennessee,

Chattanooga - Acalog ACMS. The Records Office, 2016. Web. 25 Nov. 2016.