The Strategic Pursuit of Black Homophily on a Predominantly White Campus

ABSTRACT

The process of Black homophily (finding Black others) is complex. Yet few have researched how and why Black friendships form. For many of the informants at a selective West Coast university, finding Black friends was fraught with obstacles and required strategy. Some manipulated their campus placements and time commitments to access predominantly Black spaces at the expense of cross-racial relationships. Others were less motivated to form Black friendships. Social network research within higher education rarely explores same-race network formation and often struggles to tease out the role of agency versus structure. Through 42 interviews with students and administrators and campus observations over three years, this study sheds light on how and why these relationships form and provides insight into the role of choice in Black homophilous friendship formation.

KEYWORDS:

• Racial homophily
• college friendship
• diversity in higher education
• African Americans

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Pseudonym.

2. Pseudonym.

3. Exact percentage modified to protect university’s anonymity.

4. Pseudonym.

5. I never defined friendship during the interviews. Friendship is used throughout the manuscript in the manner it was used by the participants.