Date of Award
8-2025
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Agricultural Education
Committee Chair/Advisor
Golnaz Arastoopour Irgens and Dale Layfeid
Committee Member
Karen High
Committee Member
Rachel Wagner
Committee Member
Chris Eck
Abstract
Across the nation, agricultural industry professionals have bemoaned the shortage of qualified professionals, expressing an expanding need for graduates with a blend of discipline-specific and employability skills to advance the sector. Research indicates that the future of the US agriculture sector hinges on a diverse and skilled workforce. Yet, a paucity of literature exists on Black women's enduring legacy, experiences, and how they understand and develop 21st-century critical transferable professional competencies needed to address complex challenges in modern agriculture. Black women have a long tradition in agriculture and a wealth of cultural knowledge, skills and innovations that are untapped. This cultural knowledge has been historically suppressed and disregarded in the Employability Skills framework, which many agricultural employers prioritize in hiring decisions of incoming graduates. The agriculture industry accounts for over $400 billion in U.S. GDP and employs more than 2.8% of the nation’s workforce. If America is to remain a competitive global leader, investing in all Americans, particularly Black women, must be an integral part of the US response to these challenges.
Much of the debate regarding employability skills, such as critical thinking, problem solving, and communication skills, has been addressed from a deficit perspective. In this research, I qualitatively examined the experiences of Black women enrolled in an undergraduate agricultural program at a predominantly white institution (PWI) to understand how they utilize community cultural wealth (CCW) to navigate their college experiences effectively. Specifically, I seek to identify the strategies and resources within CCW that contribute to developing employability skills essential for success in the dynamic and globally interconnected agricultural industry. The study uses a thematic inquiry to examine the experiences of 10 Black women enrolled in an agricultural program in the southeastern U. S. through a series of three semi-structured interviews, including card and photo elicitation activities. Findings revealed that these Black women drew on multiple forms of community cultural wealth (Aspirational, Familial, Navigational and Social capital) in different ways to support their persistence and development of employability skills in their agricultural programs. The findings also underscore the implications of mentorship and support, and how Black women voice the need for diverse institutional curriculum and assessment practices in agricultural programs. We found that preparing students to meet industry demands not only requires greater collaboration among stakeholders but also recognizing and valuing the skills students bring with them from their homes and communities to the learning environment. This study redirects the narratives about communities of color away from a deficit perspective to aid educators in recognizing how to leverage the various skills, talents, abilities and networks marginalized groups often bring, which frequently go unnoticed and uncredited in the classroom.
Recommended Citation
somers, Rose Marie, "Empowering Employability: Voices of Black Women Leveraging Community Cultural Wealth in an Undergraduate Agricultural Program" (2025). All Dissertations. 4091.
https://open.clemson.edu/all_dissertations/4091
Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0009-0004-6246-8298