Racial Identity and Body Image Among Black Female

Racial Identity and Body Image Among Black Female College Students Attending Predominately White Colleges

Sex Roles A Journal of Research ISSN 0360-0025 Volume 63 Combined 9-10 Sex Roles (2010) 63:697-711 DOI 10.1007/ s11199-010-9862-7

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Author's personal copy Sex Roles (2010) 63:697–711 DOI 10.1007/s11199-010-9862-7

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Racial Identity and Body Image Among Black Female College Students Attending Predominately White Colleges Sharlene Hesse-Biber & Stacey Livingstone & Daniela Ramirez & Emily Brooke Barko & Alicia Lorene Johnson

Published online: 26 August 2010 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010

Abstract This study examined attitudes about body image and racial identity among Black women at a predominately White college in the United States. We conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with 34 women about their school experiences, family, racial identity, self-esteem, and body image. We found that early childhood influences including family and school environment had profound impacts on their racial identity and body image. Through a qualitative analysis based in grounded theory, we found that participants’ identification with White and/or Black culture produced levels of body satisfaction and a set of beauty ideals that generally corresponded to four racial identity groups: identification with White or Black culture, floating between both, or having a diverse self-identity. Keywords Body image . Self-concept . Contingencies of self-worth . Racial identity . Black women . Predominately White colleges

Introduction This study examined attitudes about body image and racial identity among Black women at a predominately White college in the United States. We conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with 34 women to see how their school experiences, family, and other factors affected their racial identity, self-esteem, and body image. We used a S. Hesse-Biber (*) : S. Livingstone : D. Ramirez : E. B. Barko : A. L. Johnson Sociology Department, Boston College, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, McGuinn Hall, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA e-mail: [email protected]

grounded theory approach to give voice to these women’s subjugated knowledge. While we have only looked at women living in one specific context, our results have implications for studies and practices among larger populations or other institutions and countries that should take into account the many factors that impact how women construct racial identity and body image—beyond simple categorization by race or gender. Women of color who attend predominately White colleges in the United States live within diverse social worlds. They are bound by the macrocosm (the larger popular culture) of American-White culture, but also racially identify with a specific sub-culture. This dual identity puts them in a very unique and conflicted role; they are both “insiders” and “outsiders” and are challenged to integrate to some extent aspects of these different cultures, living as insiders with one, both, or neither culture. In addition, some women of color struggle with their identity based on differences in social class, childhood experiences, family, and other factors that make them seem “too White” to certain groups of color, while they might not be “White enough” in appearance for their White peers. Perceptions regarding the meaning of race in the formation of identity and body image of women of color tend to miss the larger impact of prior cultural and racial/ ethnic contexts. There remains a general lack of attention to minority students’ experiences during college especially with regard to how they negotiate their racial identities in interaction with their peers, most of whom are White. Few research studies focus on the lived experiences of women of color using in-depth interviews (for an exception: Willie 2003). There are numerous studies on how racial identity, gender, family, and other factors impact body image and self-esteem, but almost none of them include the actual words of those studied. In addition, studies have often

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considered Black women as a monolithic group without looking for further causes of difference such as social class and cultural identification. Research suggests that African American women who enter predominately White colleges with negative or weak racial identity and self-esteem are especially vulnerable to internalizing White Western norms of beauty; these women are at greater risk for developing body image issues and eating disorders (Abrams et al. 1993; Akan and Greilo 1995; Bowen et al. 1991; Hesse-Biber 1996; Root 1990; Stice et al. 1994; Stice and Shaw 1994). Additional research suggests that women of color who attend predominately Black colleges report fewer eating disordered symptoms than women of color who attend predominately White colleges (Gray et al. 1987; Mulholland and Mintz 2001; Williams 1994). Past empirical research documents the important role that the internalization of a thin body ideal can play in the development of body dissatisfaction and eating issues among women (Smolak and Striegel-Moore 2001; Stice 2001; Stice and Agras 1998; Stice et al. 1994; Stice and Shaw 1994; Stice and Whitenton 2002; Thompson and Stice 2001). Fewer studies have focused on ethnic and racial differences in adherence to the thin ideal (Abrams and Stormer 2002; Hermes and Keel 2003). Some research suggests that, in general, African American women both report a greater satisfaction with their body image in terms of body weight and are less likely to diet compared to their White counterparts (Belgrave 2009; Fujioka et al. 2009; Gray et al. 1987; Kumanyika et al. 1993; Molloy and Herzberger 1998; O’Neill 2003; Parker et al. 1995; Powell and Kahn 1995). Hesse-Biber et al.’s (2004) research on low-income African American adolescent girls found less body dissatisfaction among women of color compared with their White counterparts. They attributed this finding in part to the “protective factors” instilled in African American women as a result of the historical legacy of racism that provides them the emotional resilience to withstand potential negative comments about their appearance from the dominant culture (Stombler and Padavic 1997). Two studies of Black women in middle school, high school, and college have suggested that they might have more positive body image than White women due to a broader and more flexible definition of beauty, which in turn is connected to positive body image (Parker et al. 1995; Wood-Barcalow et al. 2010). In a meta-analysis of the relationship between ethnicity and culture and the development of disordered eating and body image dissatisfaction, Wildes et al. (2001) noted the complexity of this relationship. While White women are generally more dissatisfied with their bodies than women of color, other factors such as increased acculturation to the dominant culture can increase Black women’s vulnerability

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to White western norms of beauty (Abrams et al. l993; Roberts et al. 2006; Smolak and Striegel-Moore 2001). In light of these findings and those mentioned earlier that found Black women at predominately White colleges to have more eating disordered symptoms than other Black women, we asked: what more complicated stories could be told when taking a more nuanced look at Black women’s experiences before and during college? Additional research on levels of body satisfaction with regard to ethnic and racial differences is complex and ongoing and there are reported variations within and between different groups of women (Abrams and Stormer 2002; Wildes et al. 2001). Pumariega et al. (1994) conducted a large survey of African American women of diverse age and geographic location with the United States but relatively higher income and education. They found that African American women struggle with disordered eating as much as White women, but that a strong adherence to Black identity/culture is a protective factor against the development of behaviors associated with eating disorders, such as the drive for thinness (Brook and Pahl 2005). Some research has noted that the transition of women of color to predominately White colleges is particularly problematic in terms of a diminished sense of their racial identity, which may, in turn, lead to body image dissatisfaction (Jackson 1998; Roberts et al. 2006; Rucker and Cash 1992). Much less is known concerning how differences not only in race, class and gender but also cultural identity and earlier experiences impact women of color. Buckley and Carter (2005) surveyed 200 Black girls attending urban American high schools to show that “Black girls are not a monolithic group socialized in the same manner” (p. 649) and that their self-esteem is influenced by a number of variables. They found that Black girls with androgynous characteristics who had a positive Black racial identity had higher self-esteem, as opposed to those who depended on White standards to define themselves. In addition, Henrickson et al. (2010) recently studied ethnic identity and eating disorders among African American women of a variety of ages and education levels, finding that Black women identified with White and Black culture in disparate ways, and women who identify more closely with White culture exhibited higher levels of disordered eating. While previous research has focused on relative body image satisfaction between different ethnic groups or races, we sought to delve deeper to examine the nuances of identity and attitudes within one racial group—Black women—generally treated as a monolithic identity. As women and minorities, Black women attending predominately White colleges experience “double jeopardy” and even “triple jeopardy” if their social class background places them “outside” the dominant group. Our research was designed to extend our knowledge of the lived

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experiences of Black women attending predominately White colleges by seeking the more nuanced understanding that can be derived from a qualitative study. Theoretical Approach This research project was interested in exploring the lived experiences of Black women regarding their transition to and experience in predominately White colleges and universities. We were specifically interested in their environments prior to and during their college years, including their family and community life, peer group relationships, and transitions from high school to primarily White colleges. We explored the extent to which they selfidentified with a given racial group prior to matriculation in college and the perceived strength of their racial identity when compared with other aspects of self. Furthermore, we looked at the possible linkage of their racial identity to their body image prior to, during, and after their transition to college, including which factors, if any, serve to “protect” Black women from poor body image. This research explored Black women’s experiences through a qualitative framework in order to understand what it means to be an “other” at a predominately White college. We adopted Crocker and Wolfe’s (2001) definition of self-concept, which is an idea of who one is, due to its usefulness as a framework for thinking about issues of identity. One’s self-concept is further comprised of contingencies of self-worth—beliefs about what one needs to be or do in order to have value as a person in society (Crocker and Wolfe 2001). Identity is shaped by individual and collective experiences across the lifespan, from early attachment relationships with caregivers to interactions within the family, neighborhood, school, community, and culture (Crocker and Park 2004). Identity is tightly linked with self-concept and comprised of a series of self-worth contingencies (Crocker and Wolfe 2001). Contingencies of self-worth are directly related to one’s self-esteem; they are the domains in which an individual’s self-esteem is based and that the individual believes give them worth as a person (Garcia and Crocker 2004). Because it is difficult, if not impossible, to sustain a positive view of the self if others with whom one interacts do not share that same view, people want others to see them as succeeding in the domains in which their self-esteem is based. One accomplishes this by creating and maintaining a “shared reality” or a perceived consensus with those one interacts with socially—this is often referred to as one’s “corporate image” (Luhtanen and Crocker 1992). A corporate image is the physical/external manifestation of an individual’s contingencies of self-worth as portrayed through an individual’s physical presentation of self—behavior, attitudes, and physical appearance (Luhtanen and Crocker 1992).

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Since the corporate image is the physical manifestation of an individual’s contingencies of self-worth, it is mandatory that the corporate image be accepted and validated by society so that the individual’s self-esteem may remain intact. Success at achieving self-validation and sustaining the corporate image leads to positive self-relevant emotions such as pride, whereas threats or obstacles to self-validation trigger negative self-relevant emotions such as shame, guilt or humiliation (Garcia and Crocker 2004). These contingencies of self worth are socially determined and negotiated through a range of social interactions (Giordano et al. 2006; Stryker and Burke 2000). In order to explore the connections between social interaction and contingencies of self worth in this study of Black women, we were interested in a variety of environmental and experiential factors, including whom they identified with growing up, specifically whether or not their sense of racial identity was affirmed in their social circles. We also looked at how their sense of racial identity intersected with perceived body image and the extent to which they reported positive or negative feelings about their bodies. Important to this discussion is the extent to which Black women identify with their class background. Upward mobility among women of color may serve to place them in communities where their primary contact is with the dominant White culture. They may even find that socially they have more in common with others based on their class rather than race (Bourdieu 1984). It is possible that some women of color who share a common class background with the dominant White culture may find it easier to fit into the values and goals of upward mobility, making their racial identity differences a less important contingency of their overall identity. This research project sought to understand the lived experiences of Black women with regard to issues of selfesteem, racial identity, and body image, using the following organizing research questions: (1) What are the racial, gender, and class identities Black women bring with them as they transition to a predominately White college? What factors (if any) within the family and pre-college environment outside the family contribute to these identities as well as body image? (2) To what extent do Black women entering college hold dominant cultural values and attitudes, especially those concerning norms of beauty? What specific factors (if any) in their pre-college environment contribute to the incorporation (or lack) of dominant cultural values? In what way/s are these values related to their sense of self-esteem, racial identity, and body-esteem?


(3) What factors (if any) within their college environment impeded or facilitated a change or reinforcement of their racial identity since entering college? What specific negative factors (such as racism, classism and sexism) and positive factors do they perceive as influencing these identities and in what way/s? In what sense do these factors enhance or diminish their sense of self-esteem and/or body-esteem? What factors (if any) tend to promote disordered eating symptoms?

Method Participants A snowball sampling technique was employed in order to obtain participants: 34 Black women at a predominately White college in the Northeast United States. Students were recruited by asking other students to refer their peers. None of the individuals recruited for this study were students of the principal researcher, but were undergraduate and graduate college students between 18 and early twenties in age. They identified their race and ethnicity in a variety of ways, including African American, Black, Haitian (and other nationalities), and biracial. They were from all over the country, mostly the east coast (the state with the greatest representation was Massachusetts, with eight participants); outside the United States, one participant was from Switzerland and one from Saint Thomas, US Virgin Islands. They also represented a range of academic studies, including political science, communication, nursing, social work, chemistry, and mathematics. The principal researcher in this study, who conducted all interviews, was a White woman with extensive experience in qualitative interviewing and analysis. Some research suggests that differences in race and social position between the researcher and respondent can influence the interview outcome by compromising what information the respondent feels comfortable talking about. However, we take the stance that through the practice of reflexivity throughout the research process on the part of the researcher, whereby the researcher is aware of and acknowledges her/his own positionality and biases, both subject and interviewer are able to learn and share their subjective understandings with one another based on both their commonalties and differences. In fact, diversity in the interviewer-interviewee relationship may lead to a richer understanding as well as unanticipated new information (Edwards 1990; Hesse-Biber and Piatelli 2007; Reissman 1987). The sample size of this study limits its ability to be generalized to the experiences of all Black women; however, it was not our intention to provide a concise picture or easily mapped theory of racial identity and body

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image. Instead, we sought to give voice to the individuals we interviewed and examine issues in the process of forming their gendered and racial identities. In this paper, we attempt to portray the nuances of our participants’ stories and the wide range of identities and experiences that they shared with us. We have used pseudonyms to protect the identity of our informants. Interview Procedure One-on-one interviews lasted 1–2.5 h. IRB approval was granted to conduct in-depth individual interviews and all subjects agreed to participate on a voluntary basis and gave their written consent. Questions in the interview were openended and fluid in that the researcher sought to understand those factors most salient to each respondent, allowing each interview to follow a unique path. Participants were initially informed of the general topics to be covered by the participation consent letter. An excerpt: You are being asked to take part in a research study about accounts of body image, weight, and eating patterns among college-aged women of color at predominantly White universities in the United States. We hope to be able to address some of the substantial lack of knowledge of how weight and body image are perceived among different ethnic/racial groups. You will be asked to identify your perceptions and concerns surrounding weight and body image. Topics will also include such issues as dieting, skin-care, hair-care, and self-esteem (e.g. in an interview we might ask you discuss some grooming techniques that you practice on a daily basis). There was no structured set of interview questions, and the interviewer’s role was primarily to facilitate and encourage the participant to elaborate on those aspects most relevant to her life. Some of the topics that were covered were respondents’ experiences as Black women at a predominately White college, as well as questions about earlier family and school environments and feelings about racial identity before and during college. Also discussed were perceptions and concerns that they held about their weight and body image, including their efforts to diet and care for their appearance. Each interview aimed to touch on a set of domain areas (family, school environment, racial identity, body image, etc.) that were expanded, specified, and altered based on the information provided by participants. The interviewer also used a flexible set of guiding questions: &

What has it been like for you to transition from high school to college and what have been some challenges, if any, for you in this transition?


& & & & & & & &

What does the term body image mean to you? What do you think about your sense of body image? When did you first begin thinking about the way that you look? What were some of your thoughts and feelings? How, if at all, have your thoughts and feelings about body image changed since you’ve entered college? What positive or negative changes have occurred in your life since entering college? Tell me how you go about caring for your appearance each day. What do you do? Can you tell me about your views on dieting? Have your views changed since entering college? What do you most value about yourself today? What do others most value in you? What advice might you give a best friend or family member about taking care of your body and your self?

All respondents were aware of strict procedures surrounding the issue of confidentiality and could decline to answer any questions asked. The interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed by the researchers using HyperTRANSCRIBE. Interviews were conducted until we felt that data saturation had been reached. Data Analysis A qualitative analysis of the data was employed using a grounded theory approach (Charmaz 1995). This entails an iterative process of data collection, data analysis, and theory generation known as analytical induction: while data is collected, the process of analysis and interpretation of these data is on-going throughout the life of the project. The creation of ideas and hypotheses concerning the data in turn lead to more data collection in response to previous results, resulting in a constant interaction with the data and leaving researchers open to the discovery of new ideas. Analysis was conducted by the principal investigator as well as the other co-authors, who at the time were undergraduate research assistants trained by the principal investigator in coding and data analysis in the grounded theory tradition. All the researchers practiced reflexivity throughout the project, being aware of how our own positionality impacted the research process (Hesse-Biber and Piatelli 2007). A preliminary analysis was done as an iterative process, consistent with grounded theory, which attends to the voices of respondents and relies on an inductive procedure that starts with initial codes derived from line-by-line coding. Memo-writing allowed us to progress toward more abstract conceptual codes (focused codes) in order to clarify concepts and synthesize patterns across interviews. For example, we wanted to get a handle on a common theme related to respondents’ sense of belonging when they

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were growing up and how this may have changed during college. Some of the initial codes were “perceived belonging,” “raised primarily in white culture,” and “strong identification with white peers during early schooling.” We also coded for the racial makeup of respondents’ communities and peer groups growing up, which we coded under “locations of diversity.” All of these codes contributed to the focused code “sense of belonging.” Going through this process helped us understand the impact of early family and peer group belonging on respondents’ sense of racial identity growing up and, in turn, how this affected their sense of racial identity as they transitioned to a predominately white college. Interviews were coded thematically within HyperRESEARCH, a computer-assisted software program for the analysis of qualitative data, and were reviewed, evaluated, and reevaluated through the process of memo writing. Memo writing provides a way to reflect on one’s data and to verbalize how categories are connected in the overall process, serving as an analytic bridge between theory and data collection. We used memo writing to analyze our current interviews and point to specific areas or topics that we needed to investigate further, thus also helping to drive our future research questions. As salient topics emerged from the memos, they were explored through subsequent interviews in the study. This process allowed data, ideas, and questions from one interview to influence and be worked out in later interviews. While we recognize the wide range of individual stories, the use of grounded theory methods revealed four (4) groups of women that differed in terms of their sense of racial identity and body image satisfaction (see Table 1). We also categorized the respondents into subgroups based on their relationship with their bodies. Participants placed in Group A demonstrated a great deal of self-confidence, minimal or no body image concerns, positive self-image, and in some cases purposely made a decision to view their body more positively than they had in the past. Members of Group B had mixed feelings about their body. They demonstrated self-confidence at times but made both positive and negative comments about their bodies and went through phases in their life of being satisfied and dissatisfied with their bodies. While they did not demonstrate any signs of severe disordered eating or eating disorders, they had trouble being completely satisfied with their bodies. Participants in Group C demonstrated a lack of self-confidence and many body insecurities and concerns, had a mainly negative self-image, and in some cases had developed severe disordered eating habits. These categories emerged directly from the data in an iterative process (through line by line coding, memoing, and analysis), allowing respondents’ experiences to drive the results. We then analyzed each of these groups in greater detail, noting trends in specific lived experiences for


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Table 1 Racial identity groups Racial identity groups

Body image groups

Key characteristics

White enough (n=3)

Group Group Group Group Group Group Group Group

A=1 B=0 C=2 A=11 B=3 C=4 A=3 B=4

Predominately White neighborhood and school; identified with White western culture and body image norms Highly aware of racial identity; identified with Black culture; body image was related to hair, skin color, and “thickness”

Group Group Group Group

C=1 A=4 B=1 C=0

Had diverse communities and/or were mixed race; friends with both races; low adherence to White western beauty ideals

Black and proud (n=18)

Floater (n=8)

Bridge builder (n=5)

Identified with both White and Black cultures; kept friends separate by race; vacillated between beauty ideals of Black and dominant White western culture

each group. In this paper, we provide an overview of the general themes discovered for each group, as well as the voices of the participants themselves in order to convey both their consistency with and disparity from our analytic categories. While we share a multitude of voices, most of the data provided for each group comes from one interview that best exemplifies the characteristics that emerged from our grounded theory analysis of these data. We also utilized two interpretative focus groups (consisting of three students and the main researcher as moderator) drawn through snowball sampling of Black students who attended the same predominately White university but did not participate in an interview. We used these focus groups to contribute to the analysis of our results and challenge our findings; the participants took the role of “analysts rather than respondents” (Dodson et al. 2007). Interpretative focus groups can unearth “hidden transcripts of privilege” that we brought into our work and challenge our interpretive assumptions that might be present in the analysis of their experiences (Dodson et al. 2007, p. 826). The focus group data were especially useful in dealing with a range of biases within our study that might have resulted from interviewing across racial and class divides. Internal Reliability and Validity Checks Internal reliability in qualitative approaches to research demands a high degree of agreement between the codes and what respondents are saying. We ensured this by having two coauthors code each interview and comparing the extent to which they were in agreement. The primary researcher independently coded those aspects of interviews that were in disagreement. In addition, all researchers practiced strong reflexivity through memoing and dialoging about the analytical categories that emerged from our data. The coauthors continued to do so through the research process as our four

groups emerged, able to hear each other’s reasons for category placement and revise the parameters of categories as necessary. Ultimately, any conflicts between coauthors were resolved and we agreed upon the final groups. To further check the validity of our analytical groups, we performed “member checking” with the two interpretative focus groups mentioned earlier that consisted of Black women from the same school as respondents but not part of the initial study. Lincoln and Guba (1985) note the importance of this process as “the most crucial technique for establishing credibility” (pp. 3-4). We used these focus groups to determine the validity of analytical codes we had developed by asking their thoughts or our findings and whether their experiences fit into our categories. Here is an example of a dialogue with a focus group member: SHB: “A lot of folks have said to me that when they come to this college, one of the reasons why they don’t hang out with a lot of White people is that they become suspect in the eyes of their Black friends, especially if they hang out with too many White people versus hanging out with their Black friends, or friends of color. Is this something that any of you have experienced?” In response, one participant noted that she mostly spent time with Black friends socially and White friends during the school week and for a specific academic purpose, which reflected our findings of women who move back in forth between racially divided groups of friends. She noted: During the school week, I guess maybe at lunch it’s like, oh are you sitting with us or are you going to sit with someone else? But, on the weekends it’s just kind of assumed that you’re going to spend time with your Black friends. During the school week it’s like, oh well you’re in your academic mode so you might hang out with someone who’s in your chemistry class


or someone who’s in your calculus class, but on the weekends it’s like, oh we’re going out to have fun so you’re hanging out with us right? So I feel like that’s more of the division. Dodson et al. (2007) noted that “interpretative focus groups” are important to understanding the lived experiences of respondents by giving them the role of “expert interpreter.” Our focus groups’ responses were in agreement with regard to the four major groups we uncovered in our analysis.

Results Group 1: White Enough Participants in Group 1 expressed a sense of identity that was primarily contingent on self-identifying with White culture. They grew up in predominately White neighborhoods, attended predominately White schools, and are middle to upper class. They portrayed a corporate image closely aligned with White culture and were readily accepted by their White peer group. They did not shift their sense of racial identity and peer group memberships in transitioning to college, and tended to display a heightened sense of self-esteem in college, mostly because they felt accepted and validated by their White peers. Their sense of body image concerns closely corresponded to the beauty ideals of their White counterparts. There were three members in Group 1; all had struggled with their body image, trying to fulfill the thin ideal, although their current satisfaction with their bodies was variable (two were dissatisfied with their bodies; one satisfied). Group 1 Example: Trina Trina grew up in a predominately White area and attended elementary and high school with mostly White students. Although she was supported by the small but tight-knit Black community in her town, she was the only Black person in her friendship networks. Her friends were peers with whom she bonded not over race but shared interests, such that she noted that she was never made to feel “different”: From first grade to I think eighth grade, there were maybe four other Black people besides myself...so I played soccer and basketball with a bunch of kids I’ve grown up with and they just happened to be White. She first became aware of her body image concerns when transitioning to high school and “it was just a strange period of...growing into my body.” In high school, she dieted in order to lose weight and “stay in shape” and learned to define being healthy as being thin. Trina and her (White) friends were increasingly cognizant of their body size, and thinness became a contingency of self-worth.

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When she first came to college, Trina was immediately struck by the divide between Black and White students. She continued to identify with and befriend her White peers because she did not identify with the Black culture she observed on campus: No one [in the Black community] was really like me; they didn’t like the same music I did, didn’t speak the way I did, didn’t come from the same background that I’d come from. Trina largely felt alienated from her Black peers because her corporate image was too “White”—in college she felt she needed to act like a “stereotypical Black girl or person” in order to fit in with other Black students, but refused to take on that persona. While she identified as AfricanAmerican, and had some Black friends, she saw herself as culturally part of the White community. Trina also still felt a desire to be thinner. In our interview, she defined the White beauty ideal as tan, thin, and “in shape, or not too in shape,” and admitted to holding the same value of thinness: “I would like to be thinner or I would like to be better in shape.” Because of her long identification with White friends and culture, she also held White beauty values. This identification with White culture and corresponding internalization of the thin ideal of beauty was indicated by all three of the respondents in Group 1. Trina also struggled to maintain her hair in braids or straight. Despite the difficulty of managing a straight hairstyle, she said that she prefers her hair this way, “just because it’s my hair.” In terms of both weight and hair style (although not her skin color, which she said she “never had a problem with”), Trina strived to sustain a corporate image aligned with White beauty ideals. Additional Voices in Group 1 Susan’s story traced a path similar to Trina’s. While she lived in a mostly Black neighborhood as a child, she was friends with her White classmates and was “too White for... the neighborhood friends.” In the eighth grade, she began to notice positive comments about her slim figure, quickly learned that being thin was good, and decided to diet in high school “to go with the crowd.” In transitioning to college, Susan continued to have a majority of White friends and described her relationship with her Black peers as “bordering on nonexistent.” She went through a few phases of gaining and losing weight, influenced by her mother’s value of thinness and roommates who had problems with disordered eating. Her attitude about weight was evident in her motivation for working out—“I don’t want to be fat”—and admission of obsessive exercise and monitoring of calorie intake. Susan


realized that her self-esteem was directly related to how thin she was and the extent to which she felt she was fulfilling the White ideal of beauty: “when I do think of a rail-thin person or a skinny person, like someone that I would admire, I would think of a White person.” She had been dissatisfied with her body throughout college, going through a constant struggle for the “perfect” thin body. Another respondent, Marissa, presented a story of long struggle with body image and self-esteem, but ultimate acceptance of and confidence in her own body. She selfidentified as African-American and grew up in a White suburb in the Northeast, where she attended predominately White schools and was one of the only people of color. While in high school, Marissa had concerns about her body image similar to those of her White peers: “I would go on month long kicks where I’d eat a salad and have less food for dinner, or I’d attempt to drink less soda for a month, and then I’d give up and say, ‘Who cares?’” In college, Marissa felt pressured by White Western norms of beauty and dress: I noticed all the skinny girls around with the miniskirts and the Uggs in the winter and I’m like ‘Wow.’ But like, ‘That would be nice, to be that skinny.’ But I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve come to terms with I’m never going to be that skinny and that’s okay. I’ve gone like, it took a while. Marissa was unique in that she had a positive self-image, though she admitted that it took a while to achieve that acceptance. In stark contrast to Susan’s experience, Marissa credited her mother for instilling in her the self-confidence that allowed her to resist pressure to be thin. While Susan, Trina, and Marissa’s stories were all unique, they were linked by a common identification with White culture and a struggle for significant periods of their lives to be thin—to have the ideal White body. Group 2: Black and Proud The 18 members of Group 2 identified with Black culture prior to and during college, and their gendered identity was more closely associated with Black beauty ideals that focus on hair, skin color, and “thickness.” Members of this group had a high sense of body-esteem and that was protected from White Western norms of beauty. Women in this group had a heightened awareness of racial identity and upon their transition to college they strongly identified with Black culture and did not tend to shift their racial identity while in college. Group 2 contains women from various socioeconomic backgrounds, mostly working class; however, they all resided in communities of color. Their sense of racial identity was accepted by their communities, therefore allowing for a higher sense of self-esteem.

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Group 2 Example: Keisha Keisha’s story represents the majority (11) of the members of Group 2 who had a positive body image. She grew up in a poor Black section of a city in the Northeast. Additionally, she was raised in a lower-income household. In middle school and high school, she was bussed to predominately White schools, but she called her high school years the “pinnacle of segregation.” Keisha’s transition to college was smooth. Most of her friends were men and women of color, as she gravitated to Black students on her dorm floor. While she does have some White friends, she feels that she would have to change her lifestyle and appearance in order to fit in with that crowd. She noted: Definitely the Uggs, having jeans, or something of that nature. Like, um, a little North Face coat or something. I probably would have to like watch what I eat though. Not like over-eat. Keisha felt that she was an insider to the Black community within her college. She acknowledged that a “not Black enough” group exists at her school, and she called them “posers” because they pretended that race was no longer a factor in society. Although she did not have any qualms about Black students making friends with their White peers, she found actively avoiding friendships with other people of color to be problematic. Keisha also discussed an apparent class divide. She felt that the more wealthy White students did not understand the true plight of the racially and economically oppressed. Identifying with Black culture, Keisha also espoused a Black beauty ideal. She considered how one carries oneself to be more important than thinness. She believed that her community and family were instrumental in forming her overall outlook on body image and food: I’ve never been told, ‘Oh you should eat this, and you should eat that.’ Like it’s never been an issue to watch your weight, ‘cause it’s always, like I feel like in the Black community, it’s like you need to eat healthy. Like, eat a hearty meal is associated with family events and gatherings. Keisha saw herself as a Black woman that subscribes to Black ideals of beauty, which are less emphatic on thinness than culturally dominant White ideals of beauty: I feel like for, for the woman of color the look is like... thick thighs, you know fat butt and... a nice chest or something, but like a small waist...But other than that like, they [men] like, like want you to have meat on your body. Whereas like if you’re in like pop [White] culture, it’s like you need to be rail thin and like tall and lean looking, and you know, long hair, et cetera.


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She concluded that, for her, food is not the enemy; being raised in Black culture taught her to appreciate eating well and loving women of any size.

Jamaican high school, where she said, “I really, really embraced my culture...[and] learned a lot about who I am and where I came from.” She continued to be friends with primarily Black peers in college and was highly involved with her school’s Jamaican association. While she mentioned no peer or larger cultural influence on her body image, and overall was satisfied with her body image, she did discuss her father’s expectations of thinness. Melanie’s parents would tell her and her brother not to gain weight because “you’ll be discriminated on, you’re already Black.” Her parents’ attitude recognized social inequities, wherein people of color and overweight people are discriminated against—and being both Black and overweight would “intensify the hate.” This pressure ultimately came from White culture, because Melanie’s parents felt the need to protect their children from discrimination. Melanie and the other members of Group 2 showed a strong identification with Black culture, which generally protected them from negative self-esteem and body dissatisfaction, but sometimes the pressure from White culture can intervene (four women in Group 2 were dissatisfied with their body, and three had mixed feelings).

Additional Voices in Group 2

Group 3: Floaters, “Not Black Enough, Not White Enough”

Another member of Group 2, Sarah, attended a predominately White high school and in order to better understand and identify with her cultural background, she “developed [an] Afro-centricity...I would wear head wraps to school...I became, you know, involved in really getting to know my history and studying my own history.” For the first 2 years of college, she attended the historically Black Spellman College, where she found the diversity of Black women to be “beautiful” and felt liberated by the lack of gender and racial issues. However, she transferred to a predominately White college for the remainder of her undergraduate career and sought to maintain her African-American heritage in response to the lack of a significant Black community. Sarah noted, “At [my predominately White college] I learned how to hold onto who I was in terms of people trying to make me into something else.” Sarah was generally satisfied with her body image throughout her life. She used to relax her hair, but later allowed it to have its natural texture. She did not express any concerns with her weight or skin color. Only recently in pursuing an acting career had she felt pressure to lose weight: “You have to be a certain size to be in the business.” Pursuing this career meant being part of a culture that is bound by and perpetuates White beauty ideals, especially thinness. By entering this industry, Sarah became conflicted between loving and being dissatisfied by her body. Another respondent, Melanie, developed body image concerns because of her family rather than her peers. She was born in Jamaica and attended a predominately

Group 3’s racial identity “floats” between Groups 1 and 2. The eight members of this group were predominately from upper to middle class families. Just as members of Group 1, their social class background in particular provided them with the resources to identify with White culture, although members of Group 3 also identified with Black culture. If either Black or White racial identity contingencies were not validated, they experienced low self-esteem and poor body image. They tended to exhibit characteristics of both cultural identities and vacillate between conceptions of beauty. They were open to diversity but kept their racially different groups of friends separate from each another. Their sense of selfesteem was high as long as each racial group affirmed these identities. In terms of body image, they identified with both White and Black cultures and their respective ideals of gendered beauty, but tended to not conform fully to the body image ideals of either group. However, if neither their Black nor White peers fully accepted them, they became “outsiders” to one or both groups.

In discussing her weight since coming to college, she recognized that while different changes in lifestyle caused her weight to fluctuate up and down, she never was concerned either way. She made sure to eat healthy and accepted her body size. As a woman brought up in Black culture, she developed a great appreciation for the Black ideal of beauty, which embraces curves and “thickness.” She developed a positive self-image that seemed to be linked to her strong racial identification with Black culture. When asked why she has been unaffected by society’s expectations of thinness, Keisha said: Because of the community that I grew up in and like the family support...it’s never been an issue to like watch your weight, ‘cause it’s always, like, I feel like in the Black community it’s like you need to eat healthy. Like, eat a hearty meal.

Group 3 Example: Joan Half (four) of the participants in Group 3 exhibited mixed feelings about their body. One of these women was Joan. Until third grade, she attended a predominately Black school at which there was a strong focus on empowerment and pride in her Black identity. From fourth grade through high school, she attended predominately White schools, at which she recognized that her White peers’ culture differed


from the way she was raised, for example playing with dolls as an older child. Joan said she had both White and Black friends growing up, as well as friends of other ethnicities, generally meeting White friends in school and Black friends in her extracurricular activities. She was clearly comfortable with befriending peers of any race and could identify with friends based on certain common interests as opposed to race. However, she did not consider merging her friend groups and spent time with her White and Black friends separately. She described her own situation: “I feel like I float, like, in terms of group identity, depending on where I am and how I feel.” When she first came to college, Joan felt judged by other Black students because she was upper-middle class and therefore not “Black enough.” However, she described that as she became more involved with an undergraduate student group for Black students and discussions on race, she became more accepted, but also realized that the Black community at her college was not completely cohesive. They continued to criticize her for having White friends: “If you as like a person of color hang out with people that are White or other groups, people question your Blackness.” By having White friends in college, she was ostracized from complete acceptance among her Black peers. Before college, Joan did not feel affected by issues of diet or weight because she was constantly in shape; she felt some pressure from coaches and peers to be more muscular, but was comfortable with her athletic body due to her participation on sports teams. She also never felt dissatisfaction with her skin color or hair. However, she recognized the disparity between the ideals of Black and White cultures. She was somewhat conflicted between having the ideal “thick” Black figure—large breast, butt, and thighs, but otherwise thin—and having a thin White figure, which was the socially dominant expectation, and was seemingly necessary in order to wear fashionable clothes. She particularly saw a drive for thinness and fashion at her college and was disturbed by what she considered a commonly held but false idea that eating disorders are only “a White person issue.” Joan’s body image conflicts were most evident in her first year of college. When she came to school, one of the additional reasons she was considered an outsider among her Black peers was that she was thin and even wanted to lose more weight, which went against their values: “I was trying to still like gain favor with like the Black people, and they already thought I was a bit I guess skinny...It’s, ‘You’re not thick’...‘you want to be even smaller?’ Like, ‘What are you trying to do?’” Joan was torn between fulfilling two contradictory corporate images, trying to be thin and thick at the same time, and never satisfactorily achieving either.

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Additional Voices in Group 3 Angela’s narrative followed a similar path of spending all her school years with predominately White peers. Her experience in late adolescence among White students led her to feel more comfortable around White people and have mostly White friends, which continued in college; however, she felt that she did not completely fit in with her White peers, often feeling isolated due to her skin color. Angela was conscious that her White friends did not always understand her experiences (as evidenced by their feeling that a raciallymotivated hate crime “didn’t seem like that big of a deal”). Due to her identification with White culture, Angela struggled to fulfill the thin ideal. However, in one poignant moment she reflected on her inability to find a Black role model in mainstream media: I felt a little bit [out of the beauty loop] because I’m not Halle Berry. I feel like there’s not a good, beautiful Black woman, because she’s always associated with a White person. Like she’s more like a White person, do you know what I mean? Tyra Banks, she always wears fake hair. Halle Berry, she’s mixed. Mariah Carey, mixed... [But] when they’re like ‘strong, Black women,’ like I don’t fit. I don’t have a big butt. I don’t have enormous breasts, I don’t have what people associate with Black women. Angela was the only “floater” who we found in our analysis to be dissatisfied with her body (as opposed to the majority who had mixed feelings). Almost half (three) of the members of Group 3 were satisfied with their bodies. Renee described herself as a “big girl,” and while she struggled in her youth to lose weight, she eventually accepted that her body was just naturally bigger. She said, “There’s nothing wrong with me being bigger than anybody else in the room,” and, “Big girls can do anything that anybody else can.” Another member of Group 3, Adjoa, self-identified as a floater: “When I say a floater I never really associated myself with anybody in particular...I talked to everybody.” Partially due to her parents’ support, she never had body image concerns, and only remembered learning about body image problems and eating disorders when her high school coach educated her cheerleading team about these issues. In making the transition to college, Adjoa noticed an increasing amount of attention to and compliments about her thinness, and resisted the obsession over weight, encouraging her friends and teammates to see their beauty and not strive for thinness. While she recognized the different aesthetic values of the Black and White communities, she did not have a contingency of self-worth tied to either’s ideal. Adjoa’s confidence in belonging among her Black and White friends likely secured her self-esteem and protected her from negative body image.


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Group 4: Bridge Builders

them with some success: “I feel like I don’t have to choose...I don’t hide my personality from one group to another... I try and get people to do whatever. If I’m doing something, whether it’s, ‘Hey come to this party,’ [or] ‘Oh, I’m going to help out for something for service, why don’t you come?’” She did notice herself “code switching” (altering her attitudes, behaviors, and appearance in order to accommodate the normative expectations of White and Black cultures and communities), but Rhonda felt that neither her Black nor her White self are an act; they are just two parts of her identity. In regards to body image, weight was never an issue for her. Despite any fluctuations in weight, she maintained a positive body image and did not discuss in the interview dieting or exercising in order to lose weight. Rhonda said, “I was always very, very skinny growing up, which never bothered me...and I’ve always been really, really tall, and that never really bothered me. And then when I hit adolescence or the pubescent stage...I never wanted to diet.” Body weight was not an issue for her upon entering college, either. She lost fifteen pounds, but was very active throughout her first year of college and did not diet or obsess over her body. Rhonda was clearly satisfied with her body and in the interview she exuded self-confidence. While her weight fluctuated in the past, she did not obsess over it and developed a positive self-image. She also overcame concerns she held when she was younger about her skin being too dark. She came to desire the athletic body type, since she gained a lot of muscle through participation on the crew team, but Rhonda did not seem to construct her body image in correlation with a socially dictated concept of beauty.

The women in Group 4 perceived race as a primary means in their development of self-concept and self-esteem. They were not aligned with any one racial or cultural group, as they grew up in diverse communities and/or have a mixed racial or ethnic ancestry, and valued this diversity of selfidentity and relationships as a contingency of self-worth. Because of this diversity of identity, they did not have a particular affinity towards the beauty ideals of either culture. Termed “bridge builders,” these participants were accepted by both the White and Black communities and sometimes attempted to build connections between their friends of different races and backgrounds. Members of Group 4 spanned the spectrum in terms of class status. While an upper or middle social class background may have provided them with the cultural capital necessary to embrace diversity, all members of this group appeared to have strong leadership skills and a high degree of selfconfidence. The five participants we identified as bridge builders tended to have high body satisfaction in part because they did not ascribe to a specific racial identity. Group 4 Example: Rhonda Rhonda was a participant that is most typical of Group 4 in that she was an insider to both White and Black cultures, had high self-esteem, and considered herself insulated from or not affected by the body image issues of her female peers. (We identified three bridge builders as satisfied with their body, two with mixed feelings). Rhonda noted: I think part of it has to do with...the fact that I myself am not just one specific race, another may have to do with I was born and raised Catholic, but my youth group I was in has been very open and accepting of everyone. Rhonda explained that as a child, she was never made to feel racially different because her mother always offered positive advice and encouraged her to confidently pursue her interests. She called herself an “island girl” and was proud to describe her diverse ethnic ancestry, saying: “I love the different aspects of it, I love being able to mix it, and just be me.” Upon entering college, Rhonda recalled feeling anxious about the transition from her seemingly sheltered town to a large university. Her first-year dorm was very diverse, which allowed her to start friendships with people of different backgrounds. In her subsequent years at college, she made an active attempt to integrate her White friends with her friends of color by inviting them to multicultural social events. Her positive attitude and multicultural background enabled her to reach out to different social groups and attempt to bridge the gaps that exist between

Additional Voices in Group 4 Several participants in Group 4 desired to bring people of different races together, however faced resistance or barriers to doing so at their college. Tara grew up in a diverse neighborhood and had both White and Black friends growing up, but in college had mostly Black friends and wished there were fewer barriers between racial groups. On the other hand, Shana lived in a White community and attended a predominately White high school, and upon transition to college actively sought a diverse group of friends. She also expressed frustration over people of different races’ difficulty in crossing that boundary, saying, “I find it hard to have my White friends come to my Black Student Forum events, and I also find it very hard for my Black friends to like hang out with my [White] roommates, so it’s just really hard mixing the groups together.” The nature of our interviews was to allow participants to lead the discussion toward topics most salient in their lives; those in Group 4 tended to address body image, and


especially weight, significantly less than members of other groups. This indicated that these women who identified with both White and Black cultures and placed a high value on cultural diversity tended not to actively struggle with cultural norms of beauty, and their self-esteem was not strongly correlated with their body image. While they did express some mixed feelings about their bodies, sometimes struggling with the thin ideal, Group 4 was the only one in which our analysis found no participants to be consistently dissatisfied with their body.

Discussion Although all women in this study racially identified as Black, their conceptualizations of racial identity diverged into four generalized groups. The noted differences between these groups may be explained by a number of factors that shaped the participants’ cultural identities, sense of self, and the extent to which race plays a role in their contingency of self-worth. Important factors included their family’s racial identity, school environment and neighborhood, peer groups, and other unique life events. Participants’ cultural identity tended to be formed before college, due to the above factors; often times, participants’ racial identity was different from their cultural identity. Some women did obtain a heightened awareness of their racial identity in college due to a perceived lack of people of color. Participants also demonstrated their self-concept through a set of body ideals (Meshreki and Hansen 2004). In this sense, their particular racial identity configuration was tightly linked to their sense of self-esteem (Zeigler-Hill 2007). In particular, the extent to which they were at risk for developing body image issues was dependent on the ideals to which they ascribe (Britton 2001). In essence, the degree to which they identified, for example, with White mainstream culture corresponded with their “values and beliefs associated with care of the body” (Fujioka et al. 2009, 455). In the transition to college, our study found that women tended to maintain the same cultural identity and conceptions of body image they formed in their younger life. Our participants had a broad range of ideal body types, which is echoed in the research of Fujioka et al. (2009) concerning thinness and media perceptions of Black and White female college students in the Southeastern United States. Participants in Group 2 had a self-concept with a contingency of self-worth associated with a Black cultural identity, often focusing more on Black pride as a source of self-esteem than body image. Black consciousness serves to imbed the notions of pride, community, and faith within African Americans; their heightened awareness of racial identity stems from awareness of the racism that initially

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created a need for Black culture (Tatum 1993). Most of the participants in Group 2 were satisfied with their body; any qualms that did exist were often based on Black beauty ideals such as hairstyle, skin color, and “thickness.” Smith et al. (1991) reasoned that African American women who expressed a high level of Black consciousness subsequently felt more confident about their bodies and in turn demonstrated higher self-esteem, and thus were not at serious risk for the development of body image dissatisfaction. Our study concurs with those findings. The Black women in Group 2 demonstrated an increased level of racial identity that allowed them to have an increased sense of self-esteem and body image satisfaction. Participants in Group 4 had a self-concept with a contingency of self-worth associated with a cultural identity of diversity due to their identification as mixed race and/or circumstances of growing up in culturally and racially diverse environments. These “bridge builders” were less prone to body dissatisfaction because they did not hyperidentify with either White or Black culture. This echoes the findings of Anglin and Wade (2007), who found that a multicultural identity was associated with overall better adjustment to college. This research was based on the “Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire,” but overall adjustment might also be connected to positive self-esteem and body image. Black women who were bridge builders were protected from getting swept up by the beauty ideals of a specific culture. As discussed earlier, we hoped that the racial identity categories we came up with in our analysis would resonate with the two focus groups’ participants’ own experiences of being Black students at a predominately White college. In the focus groups the facilitator asked questions such as the following: “One of the things that I think I’m interested in knowing more about...is people that say you know, um, ‘I’m not Black enough for the Black community...’ [Do] you have any ideas about if that happens here at [your college] and why that happens?” One participant commented in the affirmative, saying she knew about such women of color at her school and tended to blame them for getting this label, not the Black community for ascribing it. One respondent noted: Like the majority of [these Black] girls that are going here, like you know, they wear Tiffany’s you know what I’m saying... If you don’t want to put yourself out there, because the Black community, I think, is largely accepting. Like if you’re only hanging out with White people, then honestly, that’s something about you. That’s not the Black community doing that at this point. That, that’s the choice that you’re making, because it’s something that you haven’t been able to get over.


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This is just one example of the focus groups’ validation of our analysis. The purpose of this study was to get at the lived experiences of our respondents, not to test out a formal a priori determined relationship between variables in a causal path diagram. Figure 1 positions a range of situational factors that play a role in Black women’s racial identity and body image perceptions. This figure is not a causal model but should be treated as a visual “heuristic” model that is intended to depict the importance of taking into account the variety of factors that affect Black women’s racial identity and how this in turn impacts their susceptibility to White western norms of beauty and body image dissatisfaction. This study provides a unique contribution to the literature surrounding racial identity and body image, not only by providing a rich set of qualitative data but also by examining the complications of multiple identities and experiences, including racial-cultural identification and educational environment. We found a set of four groups of Black women who, while they in many ways formed distinct groups, also overlapped and diverged in other ways. This analysis points to the importance of educators, health workers (addressing issues of body image in young women), and others to incorporate factors beyond race when looking at how identity affects individuals’ behaviors and attitudes. While we did not focus in-depth on the role of social class in our placement of women into the four groups, we did take note of some trends in social class differences. As we mentioned earlier, it appears that higher class standing provided members of Groups 1 and 3 with the economic means and cultural capital (Bourdieu 1984) to negotiate and perpetuate a middle/upper class White identity that over time became validated among their middle/upper class White peers. On the other hand, Black women’s racial identity might increasingly bump up against the dominant culture with increasing social class, causing conflicts in predominately White and upper class school environments. The role of social class within our analysis was unclear and could be the basis of another research article. Early family and school environment

Racial/cultural identification White Enough – Black and Proud - Floater – Bridge builder (n=3) (n=18) (n=8) (n=5)

Friendships and behaviors in college

Perception of Body image

Fig. 1 A Heuristic model of the interconnections of racial identity and body image

Limitations of this study include the small sample size. We employed a non-probability snowball sampling technique that is especially useful for hard-to-find populations. Three undergraduate research assistants were asked for potential names of interviewees, who were in turn asked for additional names. It is possible that the use of snowball sampling created a bias in which participants forwarded the recruitment message to other individuals in their “group,” possibly resulting in an imbalance of members. However, by starting with multiple targets we hoped to reduce this bias and access a greater cross-section of the population of interest. One of the important points addressed in this study is that there is a strong bias in some of the research literature to say that Black women are “protected” from White Western norms of beauty that make White women more at risk for body image dissatisfaction and eating disorders. However, not all the women in our study had the same sense of their racial identity nor did this identity always remain stagnant. Their relationship with White culture varied depending on their early childhood and later experiences that formed a set of contingencies of self that they brought to college. These contingencies continued to interact with one another in college, especially for the group we named “floaters,” for whom the boundaries around their contingencies of self were more fluid and flexible. For other women of color, racial identity boundaries tended to become more encompassing as they reinscribed what it means to be from a given racial/ethic group. Each individual’s sense of racial-cultural identity (as categorized in our analysis) was significantly related to body satisfaction/dissatisfaction. Our overall findings suggest that Black women who attend predominately White schools in the United States inhabit a range of racial identities and have varying levels of self-esteem and body satisfaction. This study adds to our understanding of racial identity as it is socially situated through the generation of a grounded and culturally relevant understanding of the way in which Black women experience issues surrounding racial identity and body image. Our study argues that treating racial identity as allencompassing ignores the diversity of perspectives held by Black women. Individuals’ sense of race as a contingency of self-worth can have important implications for the extent to which they become vulnerable to White western norms of beauty and body image dissatisfaction. Our study also has important policy implications in terms of how college administrators and university health services engage with diversity in women’s health. One important step in thinking about diversity, especially on a predominately White campus, is not to assume that all women of color are the same. For example, the dominant perception that all Black women are “protected” from a range of eating disorders misses crucial opportunities for


preventive education and health interventions. Further research is needed so that we may have a more comprehensive understanding of the lived reality of women of color at predominately White colleges and beyond. We must avoid the tendency to assert that Black women’s experiences can be described by one racial identity or that Black women are not, nor ever will be, affected by weight-centered appearance dissatisfaction and even eating disorders.

Acknowledgment We wish to acknowledge the research assistance of Boston College graduates Colleen Madden (‘08) and Lauren Kraics (‘09).

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