Does Representation Really Matter? Black Undergraduate Women's Stories of Identity, Academic Achievement, and (Dis)Connections with Black Female Characters in Popular Culture

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  • July 24, 2019
Creator
  • Staton, Torri Allyce
    • Affiliation: School of Education
Abstract
  • Black consumers watch and stream television at a higher percentage than any other demographic. Research has shown that presence of Black teachers, administrators, and school officials has positively influenced Black students’ academic success. Research on how Black students understand and connect to portrayals of Blackness is needed in order to best understand the influence that presence and representation in popular culture has on Black students, their identities, and their academic achievement. There have been statements presented predominantly on social media that representation matters – implying that it is important for adolescents to see representations of themselves in popular culture – including on television and film screens. This study aims to understand the types of academic and racial affirmation do Black female students describe when revisiting K-12 school – related academic experiences. This study also aims to analyze what experiences of Black characters in television and film intersect with the academic experiences described by Black female undergraduates as affirming their racial and academic identities. This study used a life narrative methodology with data collected through a series of interviews. The researcher sought to better understand pieces of the life of the interlocutor to provide context to their academic and popular culture experiences. The goal of this study was for participants to tell their own stories of academic identity, popular culture, and how both of those identities have been affirmed in school environments, in the community, and in the home. This study also sought to understand how the Black female characters in television shows and films these women watched affirmed and influenced them. This study found that all of the women connected to Black actresses and Black female characters in a variety of types of roles for racial and academic affirmation. This included attributing Black womanhood to animated characters that were depicted as “race-less”. Additionally, being in a predominantly Black school environment led to an association between academic identity and racial identity. This study contains important implications as to how Black women develop racial and academic identities and the role that popular culture and media plays in this development.
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Advisor
  • Rong, Xue
  • Parsons, Eileen
  • Price, Charles
  • Hughes, Sherick A.
  • LaGarry, Alison
  • Regester, Charlene
Degree
  • Doctor of Philosophy
Degree granting institution
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School
Graduation year
  • 2019

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