The Lived Experience of White Male Community College Students

This presentation is a report of the findings on a pilot study that I conducted for my dissertation. The purpose and research questions grew out of informal observations in my professional practice. In nearly 15 years of work in student personnel administration at public and private colleges, my colleagues and I noted a precipitous decline of male undergraduates enrolling in our institutions. We were at a loss for reasonable explanations why this was occurring.

I learned that these anecdotal observations have been identified across the globe for more than a decade and the trends continue to be supported by recent data. For example, the February 2005 edition of Postsecondary Education Opportunity featured a compendium of statistics, culled from four U. S. government agencies, which documented “the dismal participation and performance of males in college” (Mortenson, 2005, p. 1). Among the most salient facts contained in the report:

• For all age groups under 30 in the U. S. population, there are more males than females.
• In 2002, 19-year-old males were 51% of the population and 49.9% of college enrollments.
• Males aged 35-44 years were 48.7% of the population and 37.7% of enrollments that year.
• Historically speaking, males earned 85% of college degrees awarded in the U. S. in 1870.
• In 1940, males earned nearly 59% of college degrees.
• More females than males have been earning bachelor’s degrees since the early 1980’s.
• Females earned 80.3% of the total increase in degrees from 1970-2002 and males earned 19.7%.

I was intrigued by the gender disparity in postsecondary education participation. Why were men declining to pursue college, a lucrative contributor to career mobility? I knew that a successful career is intimately connected to definitive forms of masculine identity (Connell, 1995; Weiss, 1990) and that physical labor, in particular, is perceived by men in Western culture as a way of life to be celebrated (Cantano, 2001).

My research uncovered several associated facts related to men’s interest in education. Men aged 25 to 29 are less likely than women of the same age group to have a bachelor’s degree or even a high school diploma (U. S. Census Bureau, 2002). As a group, men’s level of aspirations for higher education and their perceptions of the benefits they might actually accrue from postsecondary study are markedly lower when compared with females at each age from 16 to 25 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2002). Compounding this problem is the fact that men in low status jobs with low levels of education are unlikely to participate in learning activities or continuing education programs (U. S. Department of Education, 2002). Thus, men who do not pursue learning opportunities after high school are not likely to do so and, without new skills, their options for career and social mobility are slim.

The prominent scholarly literature on masculinity, class, ethnicity, and aspirations for success is growing rapidly; however, nearly all of it is produced in Australia and the United Kingdom, where political trends and social customs interpret issues of masculinity, ethnicity, and class very differently than in the United States (Weaver-Hightower, 2003). Furthermore, there is a paucity of literature focused exclusively on the issues of men as students in the community college literature.

I decided to conduct this research in Indiana because the Ohio River Valley (a geographic area inclusive of Sellersburg, Indiana and Louisville, Kentucky) is a superb location to find and interview white males who are experiencing a lackluster economy and who are pursuing additional training. Furthermore, this site and its unique political and economic conditions were familiar to me and I knew they would provide a rich data set to be used in subsequent comparative studies of California Community Colleges. I hope that the results can provide insight into the lives of men in community colleges and can assist counselors and faculty who serve non-college bound men with a broader palate of viable learning options.

The purpose of this study was to identify trends and patterns in the personal histories, career trajectory, identity development, and support systems of white male students at a State Technical College in Sellersburg, Indiana.

This qualitative study collected data through audio-recorded interviews with 6 adult male, European-American college students. Large sample sizes are not a requirement of naturalistic studies and the small number of participants was also a function of the time that I had in the field.

Participants were selected through “criterion sampling,” in which the Dean of Students (a confederate) and I reviewed a pool of students who met the study’s “predetermined criterion of importance” (Patton, 2002). Men who responded to my written invitation were placed in the pool. The criteria were

• White male community college students within 3 semesters of their studies,
• Between 25-35 years old, and
• Attending classes primarily to improve their career prospects.

Prior to the interview, I explained the general thrust of my project and any foreseeable risks of participation. Each participant was instructed that there was no penalty for non-participation and that he could withdraw from the study at any point, even during the interview itself, without forfeiting the $20 stipend for participation. No one witdrew from the study.

The data analysis process mirrors one outlined by Creswell (1998), and adapted from Moustakas (1998). I conducted 6 individual interviews lasting an average of 90 minutes each. I also conducted a site observation at a OneStop career center and two additional interviews with Career Counselors. The observations were captured in field notes, photographs, and tape recorded interviews.

I personally transcribed each interview, resulting in approximately 200 single-spaced pages of data. Each participant received a copy of his individual transcript and I asked each of them to assess the accuracy of my data collection. This “member checking” procedure was declined by four of the participants, citing limited time or that they were satisfied with my work.

Within each transcript I identified statements about how each man was experiencing a return to education. I listed out his statements, eliminating repetitive ones. I grouped the statements into paragraphs of similar concepts and then combined them across allsix participants. For each concept I wrote a thematic description, including verbatim examples. I tied my construction of the theme descriptions to appropriate literature. Finally, I wrote an overall description of the meaning of the experience under study.