This dissertation focuses on how Black students’ use of navigational capital reflects a quest for complex subjectivity that facilitates authentic identity formation and navigation through a private, predominantly white, four-year, R1 institution (PWI’s). A qualitative study that used portraiture methodology was conducted to collect stories of the lived experience and perceptions of two Black senior undergraduate students who attended a PWI. Their stories provided the foundation for constructing liberative meaning making (LMM), an ethic of praxis that uses a hermeneutics of listening to heighten students’ awareness of and living from interiority. The concept engages De La Torre’s theory of liberative ethics. LMM offers an alternative to faith development theory, which failed to include the salience of racial-ethnicity and culture for authentic identity formation. Interiority is posited as fundamental to authentic identity formation against external essentializing and oppressive forces that are often present in PWI's. The findings of the study indicate that the institutional culture of PWI’s does present barriers to Black students’ ability to engage in authentic identity formation. Also, participant stories support extending the definition of navigational capital to include the strategies for survival they bring with them to PWI’s, and the intentional choices students make to care for themselves amid the culture. Such choices represent a quest for complex subjectivity and signify a refusal to allow white racial ideology to reduce the totality of their existence to one of resistance, suffering, and survival.
","abstract_html":"<p>This dissertation focuses on how Black students’ use of navigational capital reflects a quest for complex subjectivity that facilitates authentic identity formation and navigation through a private, predominantly white, four-year, R1 institution (PWI’s). A qualitative study that used portraiture methodology was conducted to collect stories of the lived experience and perceptions of two Black senior undergraduate students who attended a PWI. Their stories provided the foundation for constructing liberative meaning making (LMM), an ethic of praxis that uses a hermeneutics of listening to heighten students’ awareness of and living from interiority. The concept engages De La Torre’s theory of liberative ethics. LMM offers an alternative to faith development theory, which failed to include the salience of racial-ethnicity and culture for authentic identity formation. Interiority is posited as fundamental to authentic identity formation against external essentializing and oppressive forces that are often present in PWI's. The findings of the study indicate that the institutional culture of PWI’s does present barriers to Black students’ ability to engage in authentic identity formation. Also, participant stories support extending the definition of navigational capital to include the strategies for survival they bring with them to PWI’s, and the intentional choices students make to care for themselves amid the culture. Such choices represent a quest for complex subjectivity and signify a refusal to allow white racial ideology to reduce the totality of their existence to one of resistance, suffering, and survival.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["George, Felicia Marie"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Miguel De La Torre","Debora Ortega","Theodore Vial","Jeremy T. Snipes"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2023,"date_issued":"2023-08-01T07:00:00Z","date_published":"2023-08-01T07:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:01:39Z","subjects":["Black college students","Complex subjectivity","Faith development theory","Identity formation","Meaning making","Navigational capital","African American Studies","Arts and Humanities","Education","Ethics in Religion","Higher Education","Other Religion","Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies","Religion"],"languages":["English (eng)"],"rights":["Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.
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"]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["The Struggle Is Real: Constructing Liberative Meaning Making that Facilitates Black Student’s Authentic Identity Formation and Navigation Through Predominately White Institutions"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Miguel De La Torre","Debora Ortega","Theodore Vial","Jeremy T. Snipes"],"dc:creator":["George, Felicia Marie"],"dc:date.available":["2025-09-12T07:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["This dissertation focuses on how Black students’ use of navigational capital reflects a quest for complex subjectivity that facilitates authentic identity formation and navigation through a private, predominantly white, four-year, R1 institution (PWI’s). A qualitative study that used portraiture methodology was conducted to collect stories of the lived experience and perceptions of two Black senior undergraduate students who attended a PWI. Their stories provided the foundation for constructing liberative meaning making (LMM), an ethic of praxis that uses a hermeneutics of listening to heighten students’ awareness of and living from interiority. The concept engages De La Torre’s theory of liberative ethics. LMM offers an alternative to faith development theory, which failed to include the salience of racial-ethnicity and culture for authentic identity formation. Interiority is posited as fundamental to authentic identity formation against external essentializing and oppressive forces that are often present in PWI's. The findings of the study indicate that the institutional culture of PWI’s does present barriers to Black students’ ability to engage in authentic identity formation. Also, participant stories support extending the definition of navigational capital to include the strategies for survival they bring with them to PWI’s, and the intentional choices students make to care for themselves amid the culture. Such choices represent a quest for complex subjectivity and signify a refusal to allow white racial ideology to reduce the totality of their existence to one of resistance, suffering, and survival.
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"],"dc:subject":["Black college students","Complex subjectivity","Faith development theory","Identity formation","Meaning making","Navigational capital","African American Studies","Arts and Humanities","Education","Ethics in Religion","Higher Education","Other Religion","Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies","Religion"],"dc:title":["The Struggle Is Real: Constructing Liberative Meaning Making that Facilitates Black Student’s Authentic Identity Formation and Navigation Through Predominately White Institutions"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:01:39Z"}