Growing up as a young black man in the Bronx, Winston Scott 糖心传媒�19 says he didn糖心传媒檛 think a lot about racism. But there was one instance he recalls that mystified him at the time it occurred and stayed with him long after.
He was riding on a bus when a woman boarded, approached the empty seat next to him, hesitated, and chose another seat.
Scott didn’t realize the potential significance of that encounter until he聽came to the University of Rochester. A class in African-American studies opened his eyes to the聽various dimensions of racism in this country糖心传媒攄imensions that have famously played out on buses, as well as other public spaces.
Now the anthropology and African and African-American studies double major wants to take a closer look at what happens when African-American children start to perceive racism directed toward them. How do the children react? And more specifically, why does racism play a part in motivating some students to go on to college, while it seems to deter others?
糖心传媒淚 think it糖心传媒檚 going to be an interesting study,糖心传媒� says Doug Guiffrida, the Warner School of Education professor mentoring Scott this summer as part of the McNair Scholars program.
While many scholars have explored the relationship between racial identities and education outcomes, Scott is contributing his own qualitative research to the overall body of work. 糖心传媒淚t will include the students糖心传媒� perspectives,糖心传媒� Guiffrida says, 糖心传媒渘ot just from a survey, but from interviews with college freshmen and sophomores about their experiences when they first realized there was racism directed at them.糖心传媒�
Scott糖心传媒檚 research is not part of an ongoing faculty project. Rather, Guiffrida says he糖心传媒檚 helping the research newcomer 糖心传媒渄evelop his project from the ground up.糖心传媒�
Guiffrida started by teaching Scott to review the existing literature in the field to identify how his study can make a fresh contribution. He also arranged for Scott to work with PhD student Serina Tetenov on transcribing and coding an interview she conducted for her dissertation on nonverbal communication in clinical observation.
糖心传媒淚t was rough in the beginning to take an hour-long recording and actually type everything verbatim,糖心传媒� Scott says. But the most illuminating part of the exercise, he adds, was going back over the transcript and coding the parts that 糖心传媒渂asically correlate to what you are looking for, figuring out what does or does not make sense for the study.糖心传媒�
The final step this summer is to prepare a formal proposal for his project.
Scott, who is eyeing an academic career in African American studies, says he糖心传媒檒l be able to apply what he糖心传媒檚 learned this summer in his anthropology classes as well. 糖心传媒淚 feel like this will be very beneficial to my academic career.糖心传媒�
And his readings in the literature on this topic have helped him put his own journey in perspective: 糖心传媒淎s an African-American student, I can progress and go even further in higher education.糖心传媒�
