Across Contexts: Variations in Stress, Resilience, and the Mental Health and Wellbeing of American Indian and Alaska Native College Students at a Predominantly White Institution

Abstract

American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) undergraduates experience significant mental health disparities within higher education contexts, yet limited research has examined the specific stress and resilience processes shaping AI/AN students’ mental health and wellbeing at predominantly White institutions (PWIs). Existing literature often treats AI/AN students as a homogeneous population and primarily emphasizes deficits, overlooking both the heterogeneity of AI/AN students’ experiences and the diverse resilience resources they draw upon to navigate college environments. The present study explored the ecological stressors and psychosociocultural resilience resources influencing AI/AN undergraduates’ mental health and wellbeing at a PWI. Guided by Fish and Syed’s (2018) reconceptualized ecological systems model and Gloria and Rodriguez’s (2000) psychosociocultural (PSC) framework, this study employed Riessman’s (2008) thematic narrative analysis to examine the mental health experiences of AI/AN undergraduate students on a PWI campus. Analysis explored how students’ relationships to Native culture and community shaped their experiences of stress, resilience, and wellbeing within the PWI environment. Three major findings emerged. First, students’ chrono- and macrosystemic experiences shaped students’ relationships to Native culture and community in meaningful ways, which in turn influenced how students experienced and interpreted the PWI environment. Second, stress processes were ecologically patterned, with students experiencing different configurations of stressors across ecological system levels that reflected these relationships. Although students shared exposure to many of the same institutional stressors, the meaning, intensity, and psychological impact of these experiences varied according to students’ sociohistorical contexts and ecological positioning, producing qualitatively different ecologies of stress, including experiences of dislocation, intermediary strain, and cultural disconnection. Third, resilience emerged through the integration of psychological, social, and cultural resources that reflected students’ ecological contexts and cultural-community relationships. These resilience processes helped students sustain wellbeing through maintaining cultural continuity, navigating competing responsibilities, and restoring connection to Native culture and community. Importantly, findings highlighted the significant role of psychological resilience resources, an often understudied dimension of AI/AN resilience, with students utilizing sophisticated strategies for cognitive reframing, emotional regulation, meaning-making, and coping alongside social and cultural sources of support. Collectively, these findings demonstrate that AI/AN students’ mental health experiences within PWIs are contoured by ecological context, shaping the stress and resilience processes through which students navigate university life. Findings highlight the need for higher education institutions to move beyond pan-Indigenous and one-size-fits-all approaches and instead develop culturally responsive supports that recognize the substantial diversity within AI/AN students’ experiences. Implications for institutional practice, mental health support, and future research are discussed.