This paper focuses on the experiences of African American students enrolled in a graduate program at an Ivy League institution, specifically those pursuing master's and doctoral degrees in the field of education. With a goal of helping to improve the persistence, retention, and success rates of African American graduate students, this study seeks to understand the following questions: What has been the nature of the graduate school experience for African American students in the field of education at an Ivy League institution? What types of support do African American students have for succeeding in graduate school at an Ivy League institution? And finally, how are African American graduate students socialized for future faculty and professional roles at an Ivy League institution? Specifically, the authors use socialization theory to analyze the experiences of African American graduate students and draw their results from a qualitative survey. Overall, themes regarding the significance of mentoring and advising, peer support, academic isolation, financial stress, and spirituality were most prevalent in the survey results.
Since the late 1980s, there has been a significant increase in the number of doctoral degrees conferred upon underrepresented minority (URM) students. However, White students still account for the vast majority -approximately 80 percent -of all doctoral degrees conferred in the United States. As education stakeholders seek to diversify the professoriate, an updated examination of the baccalaureate origins of successful URM students is warranted to improve our understanding of where they are best prepared for doctoral degree programs. We used data from the Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED) and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) to identify the baccalaureate origins of African American, Latina/o, and Asian/Pacific Islander students who received doctoral degrees between 1995 and 2005, distinguishing the top ten producing institutions for each racial/ethnic group. Using extant research, we then identified and examined institutional characteristics of those top ten producers. Findings both confirm and build upon past research showing that institutional characteristics such as sector, racial/ethnic composition, selectivity, and geographic location matter in terms of producing successful URM doctoral students. The implications of the findings are discussed and suggestions for future research are presented for institutions that wish to recruit and retain URM students to their doctoral degree programs.Material published as part of this publication, either on-line or in print, is copyrighted by the Informing Science Institute. Permission to make digital or paper copy of part or all of these works for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that the copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage AND that copies 1) bear this notice in full and 2) give the full citation on the first page. It is permissible to abstract these works so long as credit is given. To copy in all other cases or to republish or to post on a server or to redistribute to lists requires specific permission and payment of a fee.
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