RECONNECTING THE PIECES: AFRICAN STUDENTS’ CONCEPTUALIZATION OF IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT IN U.S. HIGHER EDUCATION

Abstract

The adage, “When the drummers change their beats, the dancers must also change their steps,” originating in the West African region—Burkina Faso and Niger —symbolizes the changing trends among African students in global higher education. Thus, when the rhythm of the music changes, so must the dance steps. In the adage, the drummers represent scholar-practitioners, African college and graduate students are dancers, the beats (rhythm) are the praxis, and the steps designate identity development for African college and graduate students. Unfortunately, many scholars and practitioners in higher education and student affairs across the United States, Europe, Asia, and Africa are out of step with current events regarding the identity development of African college and graduate students. The foundational theories of student development that emerged from the Eurocentric paradigm (Patton et al., 2016) limit the cultural experiences of African college and graduate students. This concept corroborates Myrick’s (2002) assertion that these scholars and practitioners draw on Eurocentric frameworks to fill gaps in African college and graduate students’ beliefs and values. To what extent does the support meet the ontological standpoint of the international student who identifies as African? The philosophical underpinnings of these scholar-practitioners are framed within Global North theories, creating a deficit in addressing the needs of African college and graduate students.Are the available student identity development theories panaceas for all students’ needs? No, these theories reflect specific student cultures within a particular context and time and are thus deeply rooted in Eurocentric and American paradigms. I offer that there is no African-centered student identity development theory. The lack of African-centered student identity development raises the question: Which student development theory can help scholar-practitioners in higher education and student affairs support African college and graduate students? U.S. higher education has witnessed a tremendous increase in African college and graduate students (IIE, 2022, 2023). This increment prompts a swift adoption of inclusive and decolonizing practices in U.S. higher education. The changing dynamics resonate with the Guinean proverb that wherever a person goes to dwell, their character goes with them, which is a call for a theory that best suits African college and graduate students’ identity development. Therefore, what defines a person is his character, inseparable from him and following him everywhere he goes, just as African students attend colleges with unique identities distinct from those of students from other backgrounds. It is against this backdrop that this study seeks to develop a pathway for advancing African-centered student identity development theory and to examine how culture shapes their identity development. Grounded in the African epistemological paradigm, I develop an African Indigenous Research Methodology (AIRM) and Personal-Experience-Oral Tradition (PEOT) to obtain information from African college and graduate students to unearth their holistic identity development process in this dissertation. This PEOT is both a technique and a message of collective knowledge situated in this context. Instead of being broken down into strict topics, participant narratives, experiences, and oral traditions are given the freedom to develop, flow, and reverberate among themselves. Through holistic analytical approach, this dissertation curated anansesɛm identity vignettes that lead to the identification of four epistemic pathways with their multiple meaning layer enacting a progressive and fluid relationship. This progressive and dynamic relationship emphasizes that African college and graduate students must first recognize and acknowledge identity (being) as holistic, multilayered, and dynamic —not static, singular, or linear —before they can make meaning—interpreting, negotiating identity across cultures, and drawing on Indigenous knowledge systems—grounding their being within African Indigeneity. Ultimately, all this information leads us to the emerging BHAIC model, as connections across these epistemic pathways form a braid with three interwoven threads—temporal, spatial, and psychosocial. The interaction among these threads creates a dynamic relationship that expresses some of the tension people might experience. Using Indigenous frameworks and lived experiences as a foundation, the emergent model provides a theoretical and practical framework for understanding the ongoing process of identity construction and reconstruction in transnational and cross-cultural environments. This research, through the creation of African Indigenous research methodology, PEOT, and the BHAIC model, moved from the conceptual analysis of what African identities are to the practical, institutional, and policy domains, and to the search for new African education futurity. The results—anansesɛm identity vignettes, epistemic pathways, and the BHAIC model also highlight the need to broaden Indigenous and decolonial theories of identity and knowledge. The study’s wealth of four epistemic pathways, anansesɛm identity vignettes, findings, and information calls for a rethinking of current approaches to studying African students’ identity in the context of international research on higher education.