My ordinary life: understanding African American middle-class graduating students on historically white college campuses

Mainstream America needs a reorientation. Despite the focus portraying all Black Americans as living in inner-city poverty by mass media or social scientist, the African American middle-class is growing. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to understand African American middle-class graduating students on Historically White College campuses. Students attending Historically White Institutions (HWIs) across the country were selected to learn about the underlying patterns and techniques that African American middle-class students use to find success. There is limited information on this segment of the American population. Participants in this study were college sophomores, juniors, or seniors who were progressing toward graduation.

This qualitative study involved in-depth individual interviews and the data was analyzed to identify the recurring patterns and common themes around the students in this study. The themes and meta-themes were developed based on what the students shared during the interviews to attain a deeper understanding of the lived experiences and perceptions of the participants. The accounts of the findings are presented and discussed to answer the following research question: How do traditional-age middle-class African American college students’ academic, social, and personal–emotional experiences push them toward college success and graduation at HWIs?

The results of the interviews identified several key themes across the student population. Although these students live in different parts of the country, their experiences and stories are similar. College is an important milestone in their life’s journey, but none of the students felt as though it was the high-water mark defining their lives. Each student found a different way of thinking about this concept, but it became clear that the theme of attending college was simply a Steppingstone into Life. Other key themes included: the importance of family and role model support in the theme called Armed for Life. Over time, these students had an emergence of self-confidence in a theme called Belief in Self and the importance of Comfort in the Unspoken emerged. Finding students who share similar interests, desires, and goals was important to these students. This was expressed in the theme called I Belong Here emerged as well as the Importance of Exposing Students to College Early. The final highlighted theme is titled, Am I Exceptional? The lived experiences of the students in this project are not unique but their stories are untold, as their lives and lived experiences are ordinary. This, however, isn’t the segment of the African American experience, we hear the most about in mainstream America.

The recommendations provided can guide college administrators as they develop student success programs, and they may be helpful to African American parents looking for concrete ways of supporting their children. The findings also may provide an impetus for future research for this segment of the African American population, not only for those studying race but also social class and their intersections.