This section provides a summary of the key findings that emerged from the study. To respond to the first key research question about the experiences of successful black poor students, findings were similar to other research studies, such as that by Lehmann (2014), Reay (2018), Wong and Chiu (2019) and Crozier, Reay and Clayton (2019), which reported that successful students from low socio-economic backgrounds often found ways to
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negotiate the university context, namely, adopting a middle-class habitus in order to integrate into the university. This study revealed that successful black students' performance was influenced by their experience of basic education, as a result of teachers' lack of dedication and skills, and inadequate access to resources, such as textbooks, library, computer and science laboratories.
According to Du Plessis and Mestry (2019), rural schools often encounter problems that are unique to their setting, such as lack of resources, insufficient funding from government, lack of parental interest in children’s education, underqualified teachers, lack of teacher discipline, commitment, and preparation. What was significant in this study, which other research studies have not found, was the resiliency and agency that students displayed.
Within a context that was steeped in inequality, participants reported how they drew strength from relationships with peers and teachers from other schools. According to Van Zyl (2016), successful black students who did not receive a quality education in their previous schools often end up in poverty or experience challenges in their transition to higher education.
Participants in this study reported deficiencies in the education that they had received in the basic education system.
The absence of teachers can affect learners where they fall behind with their work.
Participants in this study received support from their peers, lecturers and mentors. The participants in my study reported having been taught by their peers from other classes some aspects of the curriculum, given the fact that teachers were not always available or willing to teach. This suggests commitment and motivation to succeed from students, despite the challenges that they were facing. Whilst this helped them to obtain the necessary knowledge and to be admitted to university, they lost out on some skills that they were supposed to have been taught. This affected them emotionally, which led to them experiencing feelings of self- doubt, insecurity, uneasiness, alienation and low self-esteem as they did not have the skills that were required for them to achieve academically at university.
This study revealed that funding manifested as a serious barrier to education for the participants. Lack of financial support meant that they could not take control of their lives and affected them emotionally. When the participants were still waiting for the release of funds from NSFAS, they had to find alternative ways of meeting their basic needs.
Participants, for example, split food expenses to ensure that they had enough money to meet
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other expenses. Participants referred to gaining new knowledge when they joined the university, developing a new disposition and aspiration to build a better future for themselves.
These findings are similar to those of Lehman (2014) and Reay (2018), both of whom conducted studies on successful working-class students who went through habitual transformation. Habitus transformation for some of the participants was important at the university but caused problems in their relationships with their families and friends. When this happened, it caused a disconnect between the participants and their friends and families.
However, other participants were able to maintain healthy relationships with their families, who supported them financially and emotionally. Support from their families helped them to negotiate university life. There is a distinction between international and local studies that focus on successful working-class students’ university experiences and the manner in which their social class positioning played out. Local studies go beyond social class position, but there is evidence that these experiences disproportionately affect black, working-class students. For instance, some people in South Africa are still living in the same racially segregated zones that they were assigned to under apartheid, even though the country is now democratic (Vincent & Hlatshwayo, 2018).With South Africa celebrating the 27th year of the country’s democracy, participants in this study still struggled to form interracial relationships with students of a different race. Participants in the study often felt inferior based on the fact that their White and Indian counterparts from the middle and upper social classes had material possessions, such as expensive clothing brands and drove fancy cars.
Therefore, social class in South Africa must be understood as a lived experience in order to see the differences in social class experiences.
The finding of this study in this regard relives the fact that many students only interact with peers of their own ethnicity and, to a lesser extent, class (Vincent & Hlatshwayo, 2018). For instance, attending a historically white university, such as the UKZN created an alienating environment for some of the participants. For these participants, making friends was difficult. Participants attributed this to not understanding how to make friends with people from different racial groups, given the fact that it was their first-time for the participants to learn together with individuals from other racial groups.
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What the study also revealed were experiences of racial incidents on campus. Researchers, such as Kessi and Cornell (2015) and Boonzaier and Mkhize (2018), found that black students who were admitted in elite universities were often marked by “feeling black”. That is, these students were often seen through a stigmatising gaze of their blackness, which resulted in them questioning their abilities. Like participants in this study, successful black students who enter a historically white university often feel that they are seen for their racial identity. Participants in this study developed a sense of otherness when relating to other race groups who they believed were privileged.
The participants in this study felt inadequate since their privileged White and Indian classmates drove cars and dressed nicely on campus. While participants voiced this, their socioeconomic status served as a constant reminder that they were not on an equal playing field with their counterparts from wealthier backgrounds, which made them feel different in a negative way. Academically, participants also felt excluded, especially by their fellow Indian students, who were unwilling to include them in their study groups. Faced with this kind of exclusion, participants often gravitated to their own black group. That is, participants reported feeling a sense of shared community even with black students, who were from middle class backgrounds, who they believed shared the same beliefs and struggles with them, simply because they were black.
Students' narratives highlighted challenges regarding language and access to education.
Participants raised challenges with the university's choice of English as a medium of teaching and learning and felt that they were being intentionally excluded. This is in keeping with the argument of Kanno and Cromley (2013) who have pointed out that students from disadvantaged families are already entering higher education with various limitations, such as funding and the absence of support from their illiterate parents, and that this was often compounded by inadequate competence in English. Participants reported that they were taught in their home language in schools. Often, teachers did not teach subjects in in English, although it was a language of teaching and learning. This had serious implications for their transition to higher education, which required English competence for academic purposes.
Often, participants resorted to rote-learning to try and escape the challenge of English. In some instance, participants shied away from using English for fear of ridicule.
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However, participants showed their agency and resilient, often findings strategies to negotiate the university context, utilising support services to improve their academic performance. Thus, whilst students complained about the language of teaching and learning at the university, they also appreciated the support they were receiving from the university, especially from lecturers, mentors, and academic peers.