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Race-Neutrality And Race-Consciousness In Students’ Sensemaking Of “Servingness” At Two Hispanic Serving Institutions, Nik Cristobal, Gina A. Garcia

Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs

Postsecondary institutions that enroll 25% or more Latinxs are eligible for federal designation as Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs). Yet few studies examine how students within HSIs make sense of what it means for an organization to be Latinx-serving. Utilizing interviews and focus groups with students at two HSIs in the Midwest, this study sought to understand how students make sense of the idea of “servingness.” We analyzed differences by students’ race/ethnicity within each institution, and by institution across the two sites. Data revealed a pattern of language that reflected race-neutrality and race-consciousness, with some differences by students’ race/ethnicity and stark …