The evidence of things not seen: College-going for young black women from inner-city metropolis.

Existing research on college going presents a bleak portrait for students from inner-city contexts: holding all things equal, the likelihood of these students attending college is low. In response to this bleak portrait of college going, existing research attention focuses on why inner-city youth are at-risk for not attending college. However, the experiences of youth living under the label of at-risk poses a powerful challenge to the paradigm of failure within which research on inner-city youth tends to operate: if nothing good can come out of the inner city one of the participants in this study asked, why am I here? This query calls for a recognition of the positive empirical reality that at-risk youth are college people. This study builds on recent research that focuses on the accomplishment of inner-city youth. The purpose is not to mitigate the conditions constraining marginalized youth, but to understand the structural and individual conditions enabling transformation. In this study, I examine the college going process through the eyes of six young, black women from the inner city. Using an ethnographically grounded biographical method, an approach relying on interviews, participant observation, journaling and the collection of relevant documents, this study reveals the pivotal experiences and interactions that shape the college choice process for young women living under the label of at-risk youth. Participants' stories reveal that the college going process intersects individual experience, immediate context, and society. The collective experiences in becoming college people (or not) reveal the students' courses to college pivots on the cusp of reproduction and transformation. The most pivotal experiences occur when the young women interact with colleges: during college summer programs and during the application process (admission and financial aid). These interactions reveal the norms embedded in the college choice process; norms that, in some instances, exclude these young women from the social location of college people. The life histories of these young women provide an opportunity to understand the mechanisms through which these young women challenge societal norms of at-risk youth and college people and navigate an educational process that transgresses societal norms and boundaries.PhDBlack studiesEducationEducational sociologyHigher educationSecondary educationSocial SciencesWomen's studiesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/124142/2/3122007.pd