Resisting Stigma in US Higher Education

Abstract

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES THAT INVOLVE STEREOTYPING, PREJUDICE, stigma and discrimination are common in interpersonal and intergroup activities. In most modern societies, these processes are enacted against the background of a stated sociopolitical agenda that values and promotes diversity. And yet, their effects persist in social interactions in high-stake contexts such as in migration, and fuel negative judgements made about persons categorised by stigmatised social characteristics, such as gender, religion, social class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and nation of origin. Stigma “occurs when elements of labeling, stereotyping, cognitive separation into categories of ‘us’ and ‘them’, status loss, and discrimination co-occur in a power situation that allows these components to unfold”.1 Highlighting the power situation underscores varying stakes for those being labelled. If nothing is at stake, then the target may not care about being regarded negatively, but in situations such as workplaces, business transactions, in education and in healthcare institutions, stigma can be devastating. The hazard of bearing stigma may be tangible (for example, being denied a mortgage), or social (for example, loss of status), or it may be psychological (for example, a threat to identity or well-being). The meanings, processes and consequences of social branding also vary across time and place. A critical social psychology imperative is, therefore, to unearth how, why, for whom, and with what effects “the material, historical and institutional dimensions of stigma are inextricably interconnected”.2 Research attention to the risks associated with social disparities is undeniably important. However, we need to be concerned with the full range of subjective responses to the marginal situation.3 Caribbean women who live in the United States and are enrolled in colleges are non-traditional college students and members of several historically marginalised social groups: foreign-born, women, and largely of African ancestry. Hence, the social categories to which they belong – race, class, nationality, migration