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Since 1976, increased attention has been paid to the diminishing
numbers of Black males in higher education, and rightly so: the
total numerical enrollments of Black female undergraduates has
outstripped their male counterparts by a factor of nearly 2 to 1.
Since intervention, however, the enrollment growth rate among Black
males (60 per cent) exceeded that of Black females (40 per cent)
(NCES, 2008). Needless to say, this good news was welcomed by many.
However, as Cole & Guy-Sheftall (2003) have pointed out, it may
be misguided to assume that improving the status of black men will
single-handedly solve all the complex problems facing African
American communities. Are we indirectly neglecting Black females?
And what of their future? The purpose of "Black Female
Undergraduates on Campus" is to identify both successes and
challenges faced by Black female students accessing and
matriculating through institutions of higher education. In
illuminating the interactive complexities between persons and
place, this volume is aimed toward garnering an understanding of
the educational trajectories and experiences of Black females,
independent of and in comparison to their peers. Special attention
is paid to women pursuing careers in the high demand fields of
teacher education and STEM.
More than identity politics, intersectionality regards the
inability of institutional structures to remedy discrimination
because of the intersection between social dynamics which are often
discretely conceived (Crenshaw & Dill, 2009). For a set of
Black women workers in the manufacturing context, the court found
that they were not discriminated against on the basis of their
race, because Black male workers were hired for manufacturing
positions. Those Black women were not discriminated against because
of their gender, because there were White women hired for the front
office. Those Black women workers were caught at the intersections
of race and gender discrimination laws and left their employment
without an effective remedy (Crenshaw, 1989). This intersection
metaphor is worth examining in the higher education context as we
consider that the majority of students on most U.S. campuses are
women (Allen, Dean, & Bracken, 2008), and an increasing number
of these women are not White; yet, most campuses have support
services targeted at African American and/or multicultural student
affairs and women's services which are generally targeted at White
women. This volume will focus on the subpopulation of Black female
college students, examining institutional and non-institutional
supports for their persistence to the undergraduate degree.
Despite comprising the largest minority in rural settings, the
literature to date largely subsumes African American rural students
into a broader set of Black and African American students, with a
primarily urban focus. This volume focuses on the higher education
pathways of rural African American students and highlights their
experiences in US colleges and universities. Addressing the fact
that rural students have higher high school graduation rates than
their urban peers but are less likely to take paths towards higher
education, the authors identify research needs, areas of concerns,
and strategies to encourage and sustain greater postsecondary
participation among African Americans from rural settings.
Contributors to the volume address the meaning of race and place,
cultural capital, gender dynamics, gifted education, college
choice, teacher and education leader preparation, campus
programming and the role of Historically Black Colleges and
Universities, with specific reference to African American rural
students, to pin down a clear picture of the barriers and drivers
of their higher education journeys.
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