An Intersectional Grounded Theory Study Examining Identity Exploration For Queer Collegians Of Color At Historically White Institutions

The purpose of this study was to understand how Queer Collegians of Color explore and make meaning of their intersecting identities during their time in higher education. With intersectionality as a theoretical framework, this research also examined how axes of oppression at historically white institutions (HWIs) influenced the process of identity exploration for Queer Students of Color. Guided by constructivism and critical theory as its epistemological foundations, this constructivist grounded theory study included the following four research questions: 1) how do Queer Students of Color explore their identities during their time at historically white institutions; 2) how do collegiate experiences play a role in the process of identity exploration for Queer Students of Color at HWIs; 3) how do systems of power influence the process of identity exploration for Queer Students of Color at HWIs; and 4) how do Queer Students of Color at HWIs make meaning of their identities during the process of identity exploration? Twenty participants with differing races, ethnicities, sexualities, and institutional types served as the sample for this research. Data were collected using three intensive interviews to align with constructivist grounded theory methodology. In addition, participants engaged in a reflective journaling activity between their first and second interview. The data gathered in this research project were analyzed using the constant comparative method characteristic of grounded theory methodology. To honor the two epistemological foundations (constructivism and critical theory), data analysis involved two different readings of the transcripts and journals, including one reading that paid specific attention to issues of power and structural inequality. The outcome of this study was an intersectional grounded theory detailing how Queer Collegians of Color explore and make meaning of their intersecting identities during their time at HWIs. The theory centers a simultaneous process of learning and unlearning, referred to as (un)learning, with students learning new ways of understanding their identities and unlearning the oppressive discourses that they had previously internalized about their identities. Students underwent this process of learning and unlearning through four main dimensions: behavioral, cognitive, affective, and social. These four dimensions encapsulated the manners in which students engaged in behaviors, expanded their ideas, encountered significant emotions, and developed connections to a larger social group as they explored their identities. Salient experiences they had during college - academic, extracurricular, social/romantic, and off-campus organizations/study abroad - assisted students in this process of exploration. Importantly, individuals who had connections to spaces where discussions actively took place concerning the intersections of these identities (e.g., Queer People of Color spaces) were more likely to explore their racial and sexual identity in an interconnected fashion. As collegians navigated their environments, these individuals began to unlearn negative messages rooted in systems of power through their meaning-making structures. Central to this intersectional grounded theory is that structures of domination (e.g., racism and heterosexism) manifested for individuals in their higher education institutions, local contexts, sociopolitical climates, cultural dynamics, and interpersonal interactions. Acknowledging the role that power played in their exploration, Queer Students of Color communicated how they hoped to achieve a secure sense of self that does not internalize oppressive influences or that can resist marginalization. This goal of identity exploration represents the core category of the grounded theory. Ultimately, this theory of identity exploration for Queer Collegians of Color at HWIs has implications for higher education staff, faculty, and institutions with the aim of informing socially just practices at colleges and universities.