Running head: THEORY 1

Guiding Theory to Practice

Erica Longamore

Western Carolina University

THEORY 2

Description of Situation

There is one student I have in particular that stood out to me as I was learning the first

half of our student development theories. Working in the Department of Intercultural Affairs

(ICA), I work with a large amount of fairly similar students. Most are all considered

underrepresented and the greater majority of my students are students of color. I see ethnic

development in my students every single day. However, one student really stood out to me for a

different reason. This student is a white, straight male and first came into ICA because he had

been mandated to by a professor. The professor had mandated that the whole class come to a

program that our Director, Dr. Dana Patterson, was putting on regarding the topic of racism. I

originally had not even planned to attend the event but since classes were coming, it was turning

into a larger program than we expected so I told Dr. Patterson that I would come and help out. I

was not dealing with the students one on one at all; I was simply just there to observe and help

pass things out. This led me to be able to observe quite a bit.

The program consisted of watching two videos. The first was a recap of Jane Elliott’s

“Blue Eyed Brown Eyed” experiment and the second was the viral “I’m Not Racist” music

video. And then the students were put into groups and given a list of questions to discuss. As

groups were discussing, Dr. Patterson and I were walking around and observing and listening to

the conversations that were being had. There was one group in particular that struck my interest.

One of the students was dressed in mostly camo and had on a hat sporting the words, “Make

America Great Again.” I immediately walked over to see what this group was talking about.

One of the questions that was asked was whether or not the students thought the videos

were racist. The student dressed in camo immediately said that he thought the second one was.
THEORY 3

He continued on to explain that this video in particular was correct in a lot of ways but that it

negatively depicted the typical white American. The video in question is a music video in which

a black and white man are both sitting at a table going back and forth stating stereotypes and it

ends with them hugging it out. It is blunt but powerful to say the least. This student thought that

all of the stereotypes were just coming from the white man and when it was the black man’s turn

to speak, he was simply defending himself. So ultimately, the video just made white people out

to look bad and although the student acknowledged that racism does in fact exist sometimes, that

it should not be made into such a big deal because it is not as relevant as black people make it

out to be. I definitely noticed that there was some development issues going on.

Description of Theory Observed

At this moment in time, I had yet to learn about the White Racial Consciousness Model

although when I did finally learn about the Rowe, Bennett, and Atkinson theory, I immediately

thought back to this program and student. According to this model, there are two types of

attitudes that white individuals tend to possess: Achieved white racial consciousness and

unachieved white racial consciousness (Patton, Renn, Guido-DiBrito, & Quaye, 2016). There are

three attitudes that unachieved people usually have: Avoidant, dependent, and dissonant (Patton,

Renn, Guido-DiBrito, & Quaye, 2016). Being avoidant means that you dismiss or ignore issues

revolving around race (Patton, Renn, Guido-DiBrito, & Quaye, 2016). Being dependent means

that you use superficial forms of white consciousness (Patton, Renn, Guido-DiBrito, & Quaye,

2016). Being dissonant means that you are uncertain about issues around race and you feel a

disconnection to the topic (Patton, Renn, Guido-DiBrito, & Quaye, 2016). There are 4 attitudes

that achieved people tend to have: dominative, conflictive, reactive, and integrative (Patton,
THEORY 4

Renn, Guido-DiBrito, & Quaye, 2016). Dominative people are ethnocentric and are rooted in

stereotypes (Patton, Renn, Guido-DiBrito, & Quaye, 2016). Conflictive people are opposed to

discrimination but at the same time, are also opposed to actions being taken to minimize

discrimination (Patton, Renn, Guido-DiBrito, & Quaye, 2016). Reactive people believe that

inequity is indeed real and these people want to work towards addressing discrimination (Patton,

Renn, Guido-DiBrito, & Quaye, 2016). Lastly, integrative people understand the complexity of

race and notice the reality of living in a racialized society (Patton, Renn, Guido-DiBrito, &

Quaye, 2016).

There were a couple of different parts of this theory that I saw in this particular student.

All 3 types of unachieved white consciousness related to the way this student was responding to

the topic of racism but the attitude he mostly possessed was the avoidant attitude. In his

statement about “racism not being that big of a deal”, he was avoiding the fact that racism is a

very real problem in our society. He was also clearly uncertain and disconnected as well simply

for the fact that he seemed uneducated about racism as a whole, which showed that he was in the

dissonant stage as well.

Analysis

There are a lot of parts to this theory. Ultimately, there are 7 different attitudes that a

white people can have regarding their racial consciousness. Some attitudes were very apparent in

this student. The only issue is the fact that this theory makes it seem like one can only be one or

the other: achieved or unachieved. While as a whole, I believe that this student is unachieved

when it comes to his white consciousness, I could see some of the achieved attitudes as well. For

example, the fact that he stated that racism can exist but that it should not be made such a big
THEORY 5

deal showed the conflictive attitude of achieved consciousness. He was acknowledging that

racism can indeed happen but he was opposed to doing anything about it. This theory does a

good job of giving a lot of variety in attitudes so it can apply to each person in their own way.

However, it is confusing in the sense that it does not acknowledge the fact that every single

person can experience all of these attitudes, achieved and unachieved, at any given moment in

time.

Implications and Future Considerations

Unfortunately, since I had yet to learn about this theory at the time, it did not affect how I

reacted to this particular situation. I was a little dumbfounded at that moment and then I

remember just walking away and debriefing about it with my staff members later on. However,

knowing about the model now, I will definitely consider it in future situations. When you notice

a student existing in a particular part of his or her development, it can help you in mentoring

them and developing them further. With this theory in particular, I could easily explain to a

student what is going on in their life without resorting back to the theory itself. For example,

instead of telling that student, “You are clearly in the avoidant stage of the white consciousness

model!” I could instead explain to him that sometimes when we are uneducated on certain

matters, we tend to dismiss or ignore certain situations and while that is extremely common in

white Americans, maybe he could start doing some research to find some evidence that racism

does indeed exist and we could go from there.

THEORY 6

References

Patton, L. D., Renn, K. A., Guido, F. M., Quaye, S. J. (2016). Student development in college:

Theory, research, and practice (3rd Ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.