You’re Not African:

1. You’re NotAfrican: The role of collective memory and diversity in group identification & cohesion among West African and African-American students Gabrielle Clark Ronald E. McNair Scholar Mentor: Donna Marie Peters

2. Statement of Purpose Find out the in-group and out-group narratives that shape the perception of Africans about African-Americans and vice versa. Find out what kinds of institutions foster the most cohesiveness, and why.

3. Statement of Purpose • Background • Literature • Historical Context • Research question • Hypothesis • Methodology • References Overview Overview

4. Background Background

5. Background Africans African-Americans The relationship between Africans and African-Americans has depended heavily on the state of the economy, immigration laws that controlled migration, and the historical context of their interaction. African-American West African

7. Collective Memory “A remembrance or series of remembrances, conscious or not, of an experience which has been lived through and/or mythified by a living collective identity of which history is a component part.” (qtd. in Lavabre) “Stories have been defined as "social events that instruct us about social processes, social structures, and social situations" (Aguirre, 2000:3). We … narrate our status, biases, and beliefs about the social order. Stories are not only central to narrating our individual lives but to social relations.” (qtd. in Silva)

8. Group Cohesion “the existence of an assumed group attitude with respect to its own reason for being that is accepted by the group membership as a context and framework of affiliation. When the group's system of attitudes and values become crystallized, it can be said to have cohered" (Kellerman 5).”

9. Collective Memory and Identity

10. Background “People of African descent, born in either Africa or the Americas, coalesced for the purpose of realizing a common objective. Free blacks also chose to cast their lot with those in legal bondage, after sober assessment revealed that their own status was precarious if not illusory” (Gomez 1998)

11. Research Question Yet in social arenas like public and private universities, the amount of cohesion and social identification between Africans and African-Americans varies.What are the presumed attitudes about the out-group that Africans and African-Americans share? What narratives does the in-group use to explain the amount of cohesion? Does the diversity of the institution matter?

12. Social Cohesion Close proximity within communities Acknowledgement of Similarities Spatial Awareness and Harmony Positive Perceptions of out-group Symbiotic Relationships Frequent and Voluntary Interaction

13. Methodology Demographics Recorded Interviews & Focus Groups

14. Methodology Demographics 7,176  79.8% Private 27,803  23.9%  Public 10,337 %Private

15. Hypothesis

16. References Hogg, Michael A., and Dominic Abrams. Social Identifications: a Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations and Group Processes. London: Routledge, 1998. Gomez, Michael Angelo. Exchanging Our Country Marks the Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South. Chapel Hill (Calif.): University of North Carolina, 1998. Kellerman, Henry. Group Cohesion: Theoretical and Clinical Perspectives. New York: Grune & Stratton, 1981. Lavabre, Marie Claire. "Historiography and Memory." A Companion to the Philosophy of History and Historiography. Tucker, Aviezer (ed). Blackwell Publishing, 2009. Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo, Amanda Lewis, and David G. Embrick. "I Did Not Get that Job Because of a Black Man...": The Story Lines and Testimonies of Color-Blind Racism." Sociological Forum 19.4 (2004): 555-581. *Tajfel 1972 *Turner 1982 *Abrams *Kellerman