Fifteenth Annual

C of I   S T U D E N T   R E S E A R C H

C O N F E R E N C E

Saturday May 16, 2020

Outside the Classroom: Women's Perceptions of the Role of Their Closest Friends in Critical Consciousness Development

AUTHOR: Laurel Weiss
FACULTY: Dr. Jen Wallin-Ruschman
DEPARTMENT: Psychology

ABSTRACT

Critical consciousness is a transformative process in which individuals become aware of systemic inequalities and gain the ability and knowledge necessary to take action against oppression. Critical consciousness development has been tied to positive outcomes for young people, such as increased civic engagement. Though the potential exists for critical consciousness as a concept to be used more widely to explain how people navigate engaging in social justice, it’s study has largely been limited to the realm of formal education. In an effort to address this, my thesis is a qualitative exploration of women’s perceptions of the role of their closest friends in their critical consciousness development. I conducted six semi-structured interviews with women who were students at the College of Idaho, and who self-reported being invested in social justice and having close women friends on campus. I transcribed the interviews and conducted Thematic Content Analysis in order to develop themes that answered my research question; what are women’s perceptions of the role of their closest friend in developing critical consciousness? With my findings, I plan to illustrate processes though which critical consciousness development occurs outside of the classroom, and encourage other researchers to explore how to support critical consciousness development through this alternative pathway.

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