Examining awareness of privilege among midwestern college students: An analysis of race/ethnicity, gender, and religion.

Dominant group members often are not aware of the privileges they benefit from due to their dominant group membership. Yet individuals are members of multiple groups and may simultaneously occupy multiple categories of dominance and marginality, raising the question of how different group memberships work in concert to facilitate or inhibit awareness of multiple forms of privilege. Examining awareness of privilege is important as awareness may be linked to action to dismantle systems of privilege that maintain oppression and inequality. Grounded in intersectional scholarship, in this study we examined how occupying intersecting categories of race/ethnicity, gender, and religion corresponded to an awareness of White, male, and Christian privilege. In a sample of 2321 Midwestern college students, we demonstrated that students from marginalized groups broadly reported greater awareness of all forms of privilege than students from dominant groups, and the difference between marginalized and dominant groups was most pronounced when the specific group category (e.g., gender) aligned with the type of privilege (e.g., male privilege). We also tested interactions among race/ethnicity, gender, and religion, only finding an interaction between race/ethnicity and religion for awareness of White and male privilege. These findings helped to clarify that multiple group memberships tended to contribute to awareness as multiple main effects rather than as multiplicative. Finally, we examined mean differences among the eight intersected groups to explore similarities and differences among groups in awareness of all types of privilege. Taken together, these findings quantitatively demonstrate the ways in which group memberships work together to contribute to awareness of multiple forms of privilege. We discuss study limitations and implications for community psychology research and practice.

Exploring Community Narratives of Violence Against Women among Domestic Violence Responders in Guam.

In the Pacific Island of Guam, recent high-profile incidents of violence against Indigenous Chamoru women have sparked growing local concerns regarding rates of domestic violence and sexual assault. These and other indicators of elevated rates of violence against women in Guam are discordant with historical narratives of gender egalitarianism and community-based sanctions regarding violence against women in Chamoru culture. Using qualitative interviews with responders to violence against women in Guam, this study investigated current community narratives surrounding violence against women. Findings highlighted the centrality of culture in participant understandings of violence against women, particularly the complex interplay of themes of Indigenous cultural loss and desire for revitalization alongside a preference for Western cultural ideals. Curiously, in spite of a strong cultural framework in participant understandings of violence against women, few participants framed their professional response in cultural terms, other than to describe "culturally competent" approaches for commonly scapegoated communities in Guam. Study findings highlight the need for a closer analysis of culture in understandings of and responses to violence against women in Indigenous communities.