Abstract
This article employs quantitative critical race theory (QuantCrit), set against a historical context backdrop, to understand key aspects of Black religious engagement and post-college educational pathways. The variables selected for this study illuminate post-graduation outcomes for Black students valued by the Freedmen’s Bureau and other similarly focused organizations that coalesced immediately before, during, and shortly after the American Civil War. Data from the 1979-80 National Survey of Black Americans (NSBA) provides the content for an analysis herein of Black Americans engaging in the church following college graduation and their pursuit of advanced degrees. This survey conducted roughly 100 years following the Civil War, has remained influential to policymakers to the present day and allows an opportunity to reflect on today’s views on Black education at this sesquicentennial juncture. So doing provides for a reconceptualization of Black post-college success as originally imagined by organizations dedicated to social and educational initiatives for freedmen and remains independent of the metrics that often obscure the landscape and perception of Black post-college success.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Dr. Chad Clark for providing the venue in which we were able to explore this topic. We also appreciate his encouragement and willingness to review our drafts. Thank you to Dr. Miguel Casar Rodriguez and Karen Chapman for offering feedback on our draft. Thank you to Kristy Justice for her enthusiasm for this project and encouragement to us.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Emy Nelson Decker and Benjamin Lugu. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Emy Nelson Decker and Benjamin Lugu and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Decker, E.N., Lugu, B. Black Religious Engagement and Post-College Educational Pathways: The Role of Demographic Variables. Innov High Educ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-024-09698-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-024-09698-5