The traditional theories of student development have paid less attention to the meaning of being a minority student on campus. Hence, their philosophies and the associated instituted programs have not considered the needs of underrepresented students. The following sections focus on approaches that address minority student development.
Critical Race Theory in Relation to Identity
Critical Race Theory (CRT) has increasingly gained grounds in different disciplines including identity studies. It emerged originally in the American Legal Scholarship in the eighties of the past century (Harris, 2015) It came to be a comprehensive framework of theoretical and methodological orientations that strives “to understand, examine, and analyze how “race” is produced and reproduced in modern society in relation to cultural, economic, historical, intellectual, political, and social forces.” (Walker, 2013, p.150) CRT has expanded over the years to areas such as education, women’s studies, and sociology. The model of critical race theory focuses on the following areas: “(a) the centrality of race and racism and their intersectionality with other forms of subordination, (b) the challenge to dominant ideology, (c) the commitment to social justice, (d) the centrality of experiential knowledge, and (e) the transdisciplinary …show more content…
Critical examination of historical, social, political, institutional establishment and all manifestation of reality helps to better understand their influence on the formation and reformation of student identity development. Situational exploration of student identity, both in the narrow and broad sense of the word using CRT has been maximizing by highlighting the experiences of students of color as well as other minority