"It's Not About Blood, It's About Who Shows Up for Me": Black College-going Foster Youth Disrupting Family Privilege and Creating Chosen Family Networks

Abstract: Utilizing narrative inquiry, this study collected individual interviews to understand how nine Black students who experienced the carceral nexus of foster care navigated college. Utilizing BlackCrit and Community Cultural Wealth as a theoretical framework, findings show how the foster care system was dehumanizing and stripped students of their family privilege. Findings also show how the students resisted the foster care system by (re)defining family in their own way by creating chosen family. Lastly, findings show the unique ways their chosen families provided the love, care, and capital needed to thrive in college, they leaned on their chosen family as support throughout their college experiences. Implications focus on the ways in which family privilege operates in higher education and how it disadvantages Black foster youth. Recommendations focus on creating more inclusive and equitable spaces for Black students with foster care histories.