| Description |
Grounded in poststructural feminist theory and feminist race theories, this qualitative study explores the education trajectories of three Women of Color for insights into their persistence to and in higher education. Specifically, through narrative analysis of the participants' authoring and re-authoring of their student subjectivities, this research investigates the relationship between lived experiences, complex identities, and education decision-making. Data were generated in a university class that employed (post)critical feminist pedagogy to center education experiences of underrepresented students. Data included participants' education histories, journals, and class assignments, participant interviews, and classroom observations. Findings illustrate how attending to students' situated contexts and lived experiences provides better understandings of persistence to and engagement with higher education. The three case studies presented point to the necessity of understanding the role families play in persistence to higher education in more complex ways to build upon the multiple forms of capital and support that families provide in students' trajectories to higher education. A second finding was that histories of participation in earlier schooling, specifically experiences with racism, sexism and classism, created challenges to engaging with education. Findings showcase the agency with which participants drew upon lived in re-authoring themselves to persist with and in higher education. |
