Racial Microaggressions on Christian Campuses: Instrument Development and Exploratory Factor Analysis

Abstract

The severity or impact of racial microaggressions can differ based on an individual’s contextual factors. Specifically, people of color in a Christian context face unique racialized experiences that may not be adequately captured by existing measures of racial microaggressions. This study seeks to develop and examine the factor structure of a measure of racial microaggressions experienced by students of color in Christian colleges and universities called Racial Microaggressions on Christian Campuses (RMCC). We predicted that this measure would be correlated with decreased self-esteem and life satisfaction. Additionally, we predicted that racial microaggressions would be correlated with ethnic identity, with individuals with stronger ethnic identities being more likely to report racial microaggressions. Results based on 300 U.S. racial/ethnic minority undergraduate students enrolled in Christian colleges and universities indicated preliminary evidence of a two-factor structure for the RMCC. Factor 1 called RMCC-Misguided reflected receiving misguided solutions to racism, while Factor 2 named RMCC-Critical reflected receiving criticism in racialized messages. RMCC-Misguided, RMCC-Critical, and RMCC-Total (RMCC-Misguided and RMCC-Critical combined) were all positively and significantly associated with ethnic identity. The RMCC can be a useful tool for researchers who are interested in assessing the experiences of racial discrimination specific to Christian colleges and universities.

Keywords:

• racial microaggressions;
• Christian universities;
• measure development;
• racial discrimination;
• students of color

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a Faculty Research and Scholarship Grant through the Faculty Life Office (formerly known as the Center for Scholarship and Faculty Development) at Seattle Pacific University (awarded to the first author). We would like to thank all the following past and current undergraduate students who were involved in the initial stages of this project: Dalton Geil, Cassandra Igama, Gloris Jones, Sarah-Ann Moh, Charezka Rendorio, Sung Hun Ryu, and Cambrea Taylor. We thank Brian Bantum and Tali Hairston for feedback on the initial items of our measure.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Faculty Life Office at Seattle Pacific University.