On the impossibilities of advancing racial justice in higher education research through reliance on the campus climate heuristic

Campus climates are often described as “hostile” for racially minoritized populations. However, growing recognition of complexities associated with intersecting and interwoven systems of social oppression compel the field of higher education to move away from overly simplistic portrayals of postsecondary environments as “welcoming/chilly” or “positive/negative.” More than this, there is a need to engage in a broader discussion of the field’s reliance on the metaphor of meteorological climate itself as a heuristic for characterizing the nature of college learning environments. The central argument presented in this theoretical article is that racial justice is impossible when operationalized through a lens of campus climate because this lens offers no theory of power or race to accomplish this purpose and instead, embodies logics and assumptions that fundamentally delimit the centralizing of students’ ontological experience of the race. We propose that the field move away from the campus climate heuristic to generate new frames that can engage with physiosocially situated subjective experiences of race and more complexly interrogate the dimensions of race, ethnicity, power, and culture that differentially shape students’ experiential realities

Climate change · Climate justice · Economic Justice · Educational research · Heuristic · Higher education · Mathematics education · Pedagogy · Political science · Race (biology · Racial bias · Social justice · Social science · Sociology · Computer Science · Gender Studies · Higher Education Research Studies · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology · Ecology

• Co-designing inclusive excellence in higher education

  Open Access•Liesbet Saenen, Katrien Hermans et al.•Humanities and Social Sciences…•2024

  Incluir item

• The Influence of the Trump Era on Sustaining Whiteness through Imperialist Reclamation on College Campuses

  Open Access•Darsella Vigil, M Munoz•Education Sciences•2023

  Incluir item

• Humanizing STEM Education Amidst Environmental Crises

  Open Access•Elvira J Abrica, Deryl K Hatch et al.•Education Sciences•2025

  Incluir item

• Educating for Social Responsibility

  Open Access•Hyun Kyoung Ro, Nicholas A Bowman et al.•Research in Higher Education•2026

  Incluir item

• The decoupling challenge for systemic sustainability in higher education

  Open Access•Natalia Semenova•International Journal of…•2026

  Incluir item

• Increasing diversity and racial emotions on campus

  Molly J Dingel, Gemma Puntí•Emotions and Society•2024

  Incluir item

• Communicating social justice in the public sphere

  I Casellas Connors, Hailey Feik•Public Management Review•2026

  Incluir item

• Intersectional cognitive schemas of diversity and inclusion in higher education

  Maristela do Nascimento Rocha, Sarah Doumen et al.•Gender and Education•2024

  Incluir item

• Reducing Cultural Taxation

  Edgar Schell, Clarissa Gutierrez et al.•The Journal of Higher Education•2026

  Incluir item

• Does race matter? An experimental vignette study on harm severity, college student discipline, and restorative justice

  Terrill O Taylor, Tamba-Kuii M Bailey•Journal of Diversity in Higher…•2022

  Incluir item