Testing Peggy McIntosh’s Claims about White Privilege

Among the information learned and knowledge gained in a young adults first year of college, white privilege is arguably not the topic they are running home to share with their family during the semester break. Peggy McIntosh’s Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack essay, which first entered academia in 1988, attempted to better quantify students understanding of white privilege based largely on a set of 50 statements asking participants to evaluate their everyday experiences; centered largely on the influence that race has on those everyday experiences. The quantitative study I intend to distribute evaluates the effectiveness of Peggy McIntosh’s theories to identify white privilege in college students. The researchers will revise the 50 statements originally provided by McIntosh to 45 statements, making modifications to the existing language to ensure modern day relevancy. I intend to survey a sampling of young adults attending college with the revised survey created. The results will provide insight into the effectiveness of the Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack piece, which is widely distributed in 100-level Psychology, Women and Gender Studies, and Sociology classes, among others.