Race, identity, and resilience: Black college students negotiating success in mathematics and engineering

This study analyzes the experiences of 23 African Americans, who are all academically high achieving college mathematics and engineering junior, senior and graduate students. Counter-narrative methodology and in-depth case studies accounted for the students' racial and mathematical identities as they were revealed through their experiences in the home, school, neighborhood, and workforce. Additionally, the Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity was administered to complement the exploration of the respondents' emerging identities and its connections to their larger shared experiences of being Black.Additionally, this study explores their emerging identities and its connections to their larger shared experiences of being Black. This analysis is further explained by an emerging model I define as A Model for Trajectories of Resilience Among Successful Black Mathematics and Engineering Students, with appropriates the interplay between defining oneself with race-based expectations (fragile resiliency) and defining oneself through sell-generated criteria (robust resiliency). This model proposes the integration of identity processes and mathematical experiences in understanding the mathematical outcomes of Black college students.This research raised important considerations, regarding mathematics and engineering learning and participation among African Americans including: the role of racial identity, race-conscious self-perceptions in the journey toward completing a degree in mathematics and engineering definitions of group membership, including societal and self-constructions of what it means to "be Black" in the contexts of mathematics and engineering participation and what it means to be resilient in contexts where African American students are few in number and where negative societal and school beliefs about their ability and motivation persist. I also expect this work to contribute to a reconceptualization of mathematics and engineering achievement and persistence among African Americans---one that views mathematics and engineering success as outcomes of identity and resilience within and across these contexts.