A Snapshot of College Access: Rural Black Students and Community Cultural Wealth

• In Event: Excellence in Education Research: Early-Career Scholars and Their Work

Abstract

The research on rural Black students has identified and characterized college access challenges experienced by this population of students compared to their White rural peers and Black urban and suburban peers but less attention has been paid to understanding the critical factors and mechanisms used by rural Black students to navigate their pathways to higher education despite challenges. In this qualitative case study, I used Community Cultural Wealth (Yosso, 2005) to study the knowledge, skills, abilities, and social networks of rural Black students and how they used these assets to inform their college choice process, while examining how forms of oppression shape their college-going experiences. Data include two semi-structured interviews with 23 rural Black senior high school students. In addition, students participated in photo-elicitation to document their knowledge, skills, abilities, and social networks that supported their pathways to higher education; this method produced 127 images. There are three current emerging findings. First, students had extensive support from their family members (e.g., parents, siblings, grandparents), peers, and school staff to pursue postsecondary education. Second, students enrolled in dual enrollment courses found them to be a critical mechanism to prepare for postsecondary education. Third, students had significant concerns about financial aid for higher education, which led some participants to feel the need to pursue the military or to work full time immediately following high school graduation. In addition, students who decided to join the military after high school described the importance of giving back to their country through military service, but, at the same time, many of these participants described how racism influenced their life experiences. These findings and others will be discussed in the poster presentation. Results have the potential to influence how educators work with rural Black students and shape curriculum and policies that are inclusive of and enhance educational outcomes of rural Black students.

Author

• Darris Roshawn Means, University of Georgia