A Sociohistorical Analysis of the Black Church as an Educational Institution: Understanding Parishioners Engagement and Motivation to Seek Higher Education

Abstract

Learning from the experiences of Black adult learners within the Black church provides an opportunity to learn from a culturally relevant space that has deeply rooted historical ties in the Black community. The over-arching research question in this study is: How does the Black church meet the needs of its adult learners, and what can higher education institution learn from these practices to retain Black students while creating a more inclusive environment? While research on adult learners is plentiful, the intersection of the Black church as a lens in which to design more culturally relevant spaces and pedagogy has not been as prominent. These experiences provide insight into how higher education institutions can provide a more learning centered and welcoming environment for Black students. This mixed methods study centered on the experiences Black adult learners who engaged in educational programs within the Black church. The quantitative analysis focused on preset motivational dimensions to measure how they impacted the adult learners' reasons for participating in church based adult education using a survey instrument. The qualitative analysis centered on their experiences during their engagement in the educational programs and their reasons for engaging through utilizing semi structured interviews. The findings suggest that adult learners perceived their experiences within the Black church as ones in which they developed a greater sense of empowerment and achievement. The participants' construction of their experiences was guided by their conceptualizations of what it meant to be Black student in an educational setting, and more specifically in the Black church. There were four major themes that highlighted the experiences of these adult learner learners, which included: (1) The Black church shielded learners from negative identity association, (2) Advocacy from the Black church was considered significant to learner engagement, (3) Trust in the educational spaces contributed to the learners' success, (4) Culturally relevant learning spaces positively influenced learner engagement. The findings of this study continue the discussion on how adult learners make sense of their experiences related to the Black church and higher education, and more importantly how create more inclusive learning spaces that remove barriers for Black students.