“Push Through”: Postsecondary Education Trajectories for Rural Black Students Using a Qualitative Longitudinal Approach

• In Event: Supporting the Higher Education Access and Success of Rural Students With Additional Marginalized Identities

Abstract

Rural Black students experience inequitable pathways to and through postsecondary education (Chambers, 2021; Crumb et al., 2021; Gafford, 2021; Means et al., 2016; Strayhorn, 2009; United States Department of Agriculture, 2017). For example, only 17% of Black adults in rural areas have attained a postsecondary education degree compared to 29% of white adults in rural areas (United States Department of Agriculture, 2017). Researchers have attributed the disparity to limited access to postsecondary education information, resources, and opportunities (Boettcher et al., 2022; Crumb et al., 2021; Farmer et al., 2006; Flowers, 2021; Gafford, 2021; Griffin et al., 2011; Means et al., 2016; Means et al., 2022). Despite these challenges, rural Black students employ assets, resources, and networks to support their pathways to and through postsecondary education (Boettcher et al., 2022; Crumb et al., 2021; Flowers, 2021; Means et al., 2016; Means, 2019). However, researchers, policymakers, and educators still have a limited understanding of how perceptions of conditions (e.g., relationships, structures, knowledge) change through time to shape postsecondary education access and success for rural Black students.

Researchers have used longitudinal quantitative data to highlight postsecondary education access and success through time for rural Black students (e.g., Byun et al., 2012; Chambers, 2021; Crumb et al., 2021). While the longitudinal quantitative studies provide important context about the connection between time, data, and trajectories for rural Black students, the design is limited due to its inability to provide depth about students’ lived experiences pursuing pathways to and through postsecondary education (Neale & Flowerdew, 2003). Thus, the author employed a longitudinal qualitative study to investigate how perceptions of conditions change through time to shape postsecondary education access and success for rural Black students. Longitudinal qualitative designs require attention to time, context, place, and the interplay of micro and macro influences, such as family, school, community, and economic conditions (Hermanowicz, 2013; Saldaña, 2003).

For this qualitative longitudinal study, I employed a conceptual framework that both situates and troubles postsecondary education access and success by integrating Yosso’s (2005) Community Cultural Wealth framework and The Iloh Model of College-Going Decisions and Trajectories (Iloh, 2018, 2019). Iloh’s model helps to clarify how postsecondary education decisions, opportunities, and information change through time. Yosso’s framework helps to clarify assets, resources, and networks that support rural Black students’ pathways to postsecondary education, while recognizing how inequities shape their postsecondary education opportunities and experiences. For this study, eight students engaged in up to six interviews for two years during their senior year of high school and the first year post high school graduation. The findings will highlight: (a) how place-based inequities, anti-black racism, and other forms of oppression (classism, sexism) shifted postsecondary education decisions and trajectories across the two years; (b) how place-based inequities, anti-black racism, and other forms of oppression (classism, sexism) materialized in individuals’ postsecondary education trajectories and experiences; and (c) the assets, resources, and networks students used to support their postsecondary education trajectories despite inequities.

Author

• Darris Roshawn Means, Clemson University