Identity and academic performance in higher education: The effects of racial profiling on the motivation and psychological needs of foreign students in Europe

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to outline the effects of racial profiling and stereotypes on the motivation of foreign students and their academic performance. Foreign students tend to attribute lack of motivation and low academic performance to the struggle they face when they are classed as a minority. Many exhibit and adapt myriad social identities to survive such struggle. This study explores this struggle and its effects on foreign students’ perception of their identity and how they employ that to boost their academic achievement. This study approaches the above issue through autoethnography. The methodology is based on a reflective autoethnographic account, which sheds light on my personal experience as a foreign student from the Middle East in the UK. My autoethnographic accounts employ a set of timelines during which I experienced many racial profiling incidents that affected how I perceived my identity and how that affected my academic journey in the UK. The analysis of my reflective accounts outline that foreign students’ identity is hugely impacted by racial profiling and negative stereotypes. As I explored my motivation through relatedness and autonomy, the study concludes that racial profiling could be invested as a threshold for autonomous motivation. Foreign students may channel racial profiling’s negativity to achieve autonomous motivation and therefore better academic performance.