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Education and Urban Society
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Right Directions, Wrong Maps

Understanding the Involvement of Low-SES African American Parents to Enlist Them as Partners in College Choice

Michael J. Smith

Portland State University

Research extols the benefits of parent involvement in college choice, but low-SES African American parents are unable to match efforts of wealthier parents. This qualitative study found that in their communities the high school diploma was the normative credential for upward mobility. To this end, parents used narratives of struggle to motivate their children while utilizing maps that charted the course to high school completion. Findings suggest that in these families a high level of involvement towards high school completion exists, but that to shift expectations from high school to college completion requires unified and coordinated efforts from the Academy to pull parents into the college pipeline as early as middle school. The Academy must assume parents support their child's education and work with them to aggressively deliver critical college knowledge in the form of co-constructed maps that chart the course to college completion.

Key Words: college choice • parental involvement • African Americans

This version was published on January 1, 2009

Education and Urban Society, Vol. 41, No. 2, 171-196 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0013124508324028
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