Choice Factors Impacting Black Canadian Students’ Decisions to Attend University in Ontario
Date
2018-10-10
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Abstract
The purpose of this study was to explore, with a sample of fifteen (15) Black undergraduate students in Ontario, their considerations of the various factors that influenced their university choice process, including the decision to attend university, and to attend a particular institution. This research employed a qualitative case study methodology to understand the lived experiences of participants. Two data-collection methods were utilized, including a survey questionnaire and individual interviews. A review of the literature was conducted to devise a conceptual framework for the design and analysis of the study. The data from individual interviews, surveys and the researcher’s field notes, revealed participants' perceptions and experiences during the university application and enrolment processes, and was reviewed against the literature as well as emergent themes. Having analyzed the findings, it became clear that as Black communities in Canada have historically struggled for physical access to educational spaces, then control over the apparatus of education within those spaces, then for the development of independent Black alternatives; the lived experiences of the participants in this study, all Black undergraduate students, mirrors this trajectory. Participants, through their interview responses, told a story that would be familiar to students of educational histories pertaining to Black communities and those with the lived experience of interacting with educational spaces as Black people.
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Higher Education, Secondary Education, Black Canadian students, University Choice, Recruiting Black Students, Secondary to Post-Secondary Transition
Citation
Chavannes, V. A. (2018). Choice Factors Impacting Black Canadian Students’ Decisions to Attend University in Ontario (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/33254