The impostor phenomenon among racially minoritised university students: ‘who knows how to get rid of this?’
Open accessAbstract
Less is known about the impostor phenomenon in undergraduate students and, more so, racially minoritised students in the UK. Impostorism has a constraining effect on constructing an authentic identity, leading to a feeling of phoniness. When impostorism intersects with a gendered and racially minoritised identity, individuals may face specific challenges, such as managing compound identity labels or struggling to achieve in their academic environment. This paper reports experiences of the phenomenon in Black female undergraduate students. Semi-structured focus group interviews with 10 students were analysed using inductive thematic analysis. Four themes were generated: contextual experiences of impostorism, finding sense of belonging, struggling to maintain and value an authentic self, and taming my impostor. The findings point to university environments as both barriers and enablers for taming the effect of the impostor phenomenon on academic and cultural identities and provide novel insights into an underrepresented student population.
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Other signs of IP amongst Black students may include avoiding taking risks for fear of failure, hesitating to participate in class due to fear of being perceived as unintelligent, confrontational, or aggressive, and overworking to prove they deserve to be at their institutions.
“Other signs of IP amongst Black students may also include them avoiding taking risks for fear of failure, hesitating to participate in class due to a fear of being perceived as unintelligent, confrontational, or aggressive, and overworking in order to prove to themselves and to others that they deserve to be at their institutions”
From Reframing the impostor phenomenon for Black college students (2024) · cites this paper as Husbands et al., 2024
In “Finding sense of belonging” (page unavailable), a participant describes isolating herself, trying to prove she was performing, and wanting to believe she deserved to be at university. “Struggling to maintain and value an Authentic Self” also reports pressure to avoid being seen as aggressive. The copy does not establish avoiding risks for fear of failure, hesitating to participate in class for the stated reasons, or overworking to prove one’s place as the specific signs claimed. (LLM, conf=0.83)
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- Authors
- Husbands, D., Linceviciute, S., & Yetkili, O.
- Affiliations
- University of Westminster (GB)
- University of Southampton (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Husbands, Deborah
- Venue
- Race Ethnicity and Education
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2024-08-07
- Volume
- 28
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 670-688
- ISSN
- 1361-3324 (ISSN-L)
- 1470-109X
- OpenAlex
- W4401392686
- Cited by
- 11
- References
- 81
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 1
- FWCI
- 5.54
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Race Ethnicity and Education (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- WestminsterResearch (University of Westminster) (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Diversity and Inclusion Research Community, University of Westminster
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Perfectionism, Procrastination, Anxiety Studies
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Critical Race Theory in Education
- Social Sciences › Education › Higher Education Research Studies
- Keywords
- impostor syndrome, Black female students, undergraduate students, sense of belonging, authentic identity, academic identity, cultural identity, student experience, intersectionality, underrepresented students
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