Understanding Latinas/os/xs Undergraduate Experiences in a Business School through the Working Identity Lens

ABSTRACT

Our study presents some of the voces of Latinas/os/xs undergraduates in a western U.S. business school to explore the concept of “working identity” in employment discrimination law under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. While overt racial discrimination is outlawed, racial salience through factors such as phenotype, accent, demeanor, associations and assimilation all impact the way employers see potential applicants and fit with future corporate job roles. We used this conceptual framework to gain insights into ways that some Latinas/os/xs students initially experienced the pressure of “working identity” through their education in schools of business. We selected students majoring in business because it is a popular major and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts have taken hold in business school contexts. The five participants in our study were majoring in accounting, business administration and management, and preparing for their future as employees in the business world. The first part of our paper provides an overview of the context of business schools and diversity; research on Latina/o/x student experiences in higher education, and the significance of the “working identity” concept; followed by our methods section, results and interpretation of how the pressures to perform working identity negatively impacts Latinas/os/x students.

KEYWORDS:

• Working identity
• Latinas/os/x undergraduates
• LatCrit counternarratives
• critical race theory
• business schools

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ We used the term Latina/o/x when referring to the general undergraduate community, as it is inclusive of all current descriptors. We also use Latina/o and Chicana/o at certain times to be respectful of the original intent of the seminal studies in the field that used those terms to define their population and, more importantly, the historical activist struggle embodied in their use against white supremacy (personal communications with M. Malagón, L. Pérez-Huber, V. Vélez & D. Solórzano June 1, 2019, and T. Yosso, Dec. 7, 2019).