Black Males in Postsecondary Education: Examining Their Experiences in Diverse Institutional Contexts by Adriel A. Hilton J. Luke Wood Chance W. Lewis (review)

Abstract

Black Males in Postsecondary Education: Examining Their Experiences in Diverse Institutional Contexts, edited by Adriel A. Hilton, J. Luke Wood, and Chance W. Lewis. Charlotte, NC: Information Age, 2012, 231 pp., $85.99, hardcover; $45.99, paperback.As an African American male who persisted through the Ph.D., I often wonder, what are the salient supports that influenced my postsecondary experience that other African American males need as approximately two-thirds-who even make it to college-drop out? Is it faith, family and friends, mentors, peers, institutional choice, self-motivation, or engagement? Adriel A. Hilton, J. Luke Wood, and Chance W. Lewis, explored these same issues in their edited volume, Black Males in Postsecondary Education: Examining Their Experiences in Diverse Institutional Contexts. The text is composed of eleven chapters, each exploring the experiences of African American males who attend diverse institutional types.Lewis, in Chapter one, noted that scholarship examining the experiences of African American males in higher education has virtually ignored the impact of institutional context and culture. He concluded the chapter with an overview of the remaining 10 chapters.In Chapter two, Wood and Hilton conducted a meta-synthesis of the literature on Black males at community colleges over the past 40 years. They stated that three types of factors influence the experiences of Black males at community colleges: (a) economic, (b) academic, and (c) external. They concluded with policy recommendations included in the literature, presenting them by levels or groups (i.e., high school, institutional, state, federal), and called for additional research noting (at the time) that only eight peer-reviewed journal articles were published on Black males at community colleges in the past 40 years.Chapter three, written by Fountaine, included a literature review and overview of for-profit colleges and the access they provide African Americans. For example, Fountaine noted the University of Phoenix-Online Campus was the top producer of Black associates, bachelor's, and master's degrees. Because literature concerning African American males at for-profit colleges is narrow, at best, she concentrated on African American trends, generally. However, her overview of for-profit institutions was extraordinary as research and scholarship on these institutions is limited.A personal favorite, Chapter four by Berhanu and Jackson qualitatively investigated the experiences of two African American males who attended an Ivy League institution for master's degrees using an aspiration theoretical framework. The authors found that the males chose their institution because of prestige, they were engaged partly to deconstruct stereotypes about African American males, and faced issues of race and racism on the campus.Gasman, Lundy-Wagner, and Commodore, in Chapter five, wrote about experiences of Black males studying at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). The authors reviewed literature, and provided a descriptive overview of Black males at HBCUs using the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS, see https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds). They noted that Black males make up the majority of students at two-year HBCUs, and HBCUs are vital for Black males who transfer from two-year to four-year colleges.In Chapter six, Newman, Mmeje, and Allen explored the experiences of African American males at predominantly White institutions (PWIs), analyzing existing literature and exploring trends at the "top 50 national universities." They noted that Rice University had the highest graduation rate for African American students and California Institute of Technology had the highest percentage of males among African American students (81.8%). Newman, Mmeje, and Allen provided the most detailed list of recommendations for practice in the volume. …