Theorizing racial microaffirmations: a Critical Race/LatCrit approach

ABSTRACT

This article theorizes the concept of racial microaffirmations and illustrates different microaffirmation types. We report findings from a study that employed narrative interviews to solicit stories from racially minoritized students at a predominantly white university. Participants included 16 graduate students and 18 undergraduate students who identified as African-American, Latinx or mixed race. Students shared microaffirmations that they experienced related to their racial identities. We developed a typology of four microaffirmation types from the students’ stories: microrecognitions, microvalidations, microtransformations and microprotections. Drawing on the students’ stories, we further define each microaffirmation type and root the typology in the foundational elements of Critical Race/LatCrit theoretical framework. This study offers concrete examples of experiences university students found affirming that are helpful to practitioners seeking to better understand what racial microaffirmations are and ways they may be promoted. This work also expands the literature on microaffirmations and points to areas that need further research.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical race theory
• LatCrit
• microaffirmations
• Latinx identity
• African American identity
• higher education
• campus climate

Acknowledgments

This paper draws on the “Tell it like it is” project supported by the Center for the Study of Diversity (CSD) at the University of Delaware. We are especially grateful for the students who were willing to participate in the study and share their experiences. We also deeply appreciate the undergraduate and graduate students who provided assistance in different phases of the data collection and analysis process.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. There were other research team members, we only report on the composition of the research team involved in the work relevant to this article.

2. The multiracial students identified as either African-American or Latinx along with one or more racial groups.

3. Each participant was asked to share one microaggression and one microaffirmation experience. Some participants shared more than one and a few only shared experiences of microaggressions or only shared microaffirmation experiences.

4. Any words added to transcripts are inserted in brackets.

5. We also classified the microaggression stories using a taxonomy of microaggression definitions provided by Sue et al. (2007) and Yosso et al. (2009). We developed our own rubric to classify the stories into four microaggression types.

6. We hyphenate the term here because that is how Rowe used it, but throughout the rest of the article, we delete the hyphen to make it more parallel with microaggression terminology.

7. Further discussion of findings related to the interplay between microaggressions and microaffirmations and the impact on participants is beyond the scope of this article and will be reported in other publications of this study.

8. We use the term race-based to refer to racial and ethnic identities that may be salient for minoritized groups.

9. Names of participants and or organizations or programs referenced in stories are pseudonyms.

10. We use the terms students preferred to describe themselves.

11. Ellis et al.’s (2019) definition of microvalidations as ‘communication appreciating the experience, thoughts, or feelings of an individual who may feel unwelcome or invisible in an environment’ (270) is similar; but we focus specifically on racial identities and emphasize additional modes of validation such as corroborating, legitimizing or giving value.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Center for the Study of Diversity, University of Delaware [NA].