Experiences of biracial female high school students in the united states

Number of biracial marriages is increasing in the United States, so does the number of children with mixed racial heritage. Biracial students constitute a distinct group with unique needs that main-stream multicultural educational agenda does not include. Besides, given the fact that race and identity studies usually focus on either social-historical construction of Blackness or Whiteness in different settings, one can say that mixed race kids are pushed to the periphery of the research agenda. This research sets out to understand how ‘biracial’ high school students in the United States articulate their schooling, community and family experiences and how peer culture and schooling practices influence the space and racial identity conceptualization of “mixed race” high school students. This research has been grounded on the belief that biracial students constitute a distinct group with unique needs that main-stream multicultural educational agenda does not include. This study is designed as a qualitative, phenomenological study in an attempt to reveal the experiences of biracial students. Seven female students were recruited as the subjects of the study. Snowball sampling technique was adopted as a way of finding research subjects. Semi-structured interview form was adopted as a tool of gathering data. Results show that formation of biracial identity needs to be studied in connection with social class as social class plays an important role on both school choice and schooling practices. In other words, race is nested in social class. At the same time, skin color itself could be very important about how other people see these kids.

Biracial students ,

social class ,

biracial experience ,