Discourses of Whiteness: White Students at Catholic Women’s Colleges (Dis)engaging Race

To better understand how White college women understand and are influenced by whiteness, we discursively analyzed data from interviews and focus groups with 25 White seniors at two Catholic women’s colleges. Findings suggest that participants understood whiteness through discourses of insignificance, nominal difference, responsibility, and transformation and that these understandings affected students’ college experiences and envisioned futures.