Kristia Wantchekon (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Georgetown University. She joined the faculty in fall 2022, after completing her Ph.D. and postdoctoral training at Harvard University. Her research focuses on the developmental processes through which adolescents and young adults come to understand themselves with respect to their race and ethnicity as well as the diversity of beliefs and feelings they can hold about their ethnic-racial group membership. She studies the implications of these identity processes and beliefs for young peoples’ psychosocial adjustment (e.g., mental health, academic outcomes, social skills) and resilience in the face of ethnic-racial discrimination and ethnic-racial stressors. She is also interested in how ethnic-racial identity formation takes place in the school context. Her mixed methods work (e.g., longitudinal surveys, semi-structured interviews, daily diary surveys) seeks to bridge theory and empirical research with practice to inform school and community-based interventions that support youth well-being.
Project: “It definitely amplifies everything”: Examining the implications of racial and gender identity beliefs on Black women’s academic adjustment and psychological well-being in college
Seventy years following the forced racial integration of U.S. colleges, Black students still face significant challenges to their academic and social integration on campus. Black students often report experiencing higher discrimination (Del Toro & Hughes, 2020), a lower sense of school belonging (Hunter et al., 2019), and a more hostile campus racial climate (Pieterse & Carter, 2010) than their peers from other groups. These experiences threaten their psychological well-being (Bernard et al., 2020) and academic adjustment (Knight & Marciano, 2013), deepening the enduring inequities in college persistence and success between Black college students and their peers (Babineau, 2018). For Black women, gendered racial stereotypes further sour their college experiences (Porter & Byrd, 2021). For example, research suggests that when Black college-going women reported higher awareness of gendered racial stereotypes, their mental and physical health suffered (Jerald et al., 2017). Further, previous studies have demonstrated how the “Strong Black Woman” stereotype fuels both lower institutional support for Black college-going women and lower help-seeking behaviors among Black college-going women who internalize such messaging (West et al., 2016). More research is needed that explores the academic and psychological implications of the distinct messaging and barriers that Black college-going women face. This is especially true in our post-affirmative action, post-Roe, anti-DEI landscape, wherein Black college-going women may be experiencing heightened stress alongside further cuts to the limited institutional supports that centered them. Accordingly, my study leverages in-depth interviews with 48 Black college-going women to better understand: How do Black college-going women’s intersectional identity beliefs and experiences relate to their psychological well-being and academic adjustment in the current sociopolitical context?