Newswise — What comes next after high school graduation? While this question can be vexing for many students, adolescents from low-income Black and Latinx communities face many barriers in imagining and actualizing life after high school. Many educators help these students persevere by adopting a “college-for-all” school culture, but few studies have looked at whether this strategy responds to these students’ broader goals and aspirations.
In a new study published in the American Educational Research Journal, Roderick L. Carey, assistant professor in UD’s College of Education and Human Development, offers a rich, ethnographic case study on how Black and Latinx boys imagine their postsecondary futures. With attention to the students’ first-person narratives about their school experiences and personal aspirations, Carey shows how their high school—a Mid-Atlantic college preparatory school in the United States—ultimately fails to understand and support their college, career and personal aspirations for life after graduation.
“College is just one facet of a broader interconnected life that adolescents need support in imagining,” said Carey, who teaches and conducts research within CEHD’s Department of Human Development and Family Sciences. “Postsecondary future selves is a concept that folds together three pieces of that broader life—college, career and life condition, or ‘the 3Cs.’ By focusing on one, and ignoring the other two, educators miss the mark.”
A “college-for-all” case study
Many studies on college preparatory schools illustrate the important role that high schools play in encouraging Black and Latinx boys to attend college. As a former high school English teacher in urban college preparatory schools, Carey witnessed firsthand some of the positive impacts of a college-going culture on his students’ lives. But, he also saw that many of his former students failed to complete even a year of college.
Carey offers an in-depth case study of three Black and two Latinx boys in 11th grade at a linguistically and ethnically diverse urban school, which he calls Metropolitan Collegiate Public Charter School (Metro). Over the course of an academic year, Carey interviewed the students about their school’s college-going culture and how it influenced their conceptions of their postsecondary future selves.
Metro employed what Carey calls a “college-over-everything-else” culture. College posters adorned the school walls year-round, students regularly attended college and recruitment fairs, teachers wore the insignia of their alma maters every week and students were required to apply to colleges.
Carey found that Metro prioritized the “what” and “how” of college access—answering “What is a college degree?” and “How do I secure one?”—but paid little attention to the “why” or how college would help a student fulfill his future ambitions. Answering the “why” question was especially important for this group of Black and Latinx boys; many of them would be the first in their families to attend and graduate from college.
Carey’s study also found that, while some students had clear career ambitions, their ability to align college majors with these careers varied. And, despite the school’s college-going culture, some students did not have a clear plan for a future career.
Finally, Carey found that the participants in his study struggled to envision their lives after the age of 23, around the time when they graduate from college. The study participants generally envisioned a modest life, characterized by minimal stress, financial stability and personal satisfaction.
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