Historical impact of Catholic schools in the African Diaspora

This research effort proposes to examine, from a comparative perspective between East Africa and the African Diaspora, how student experiences in Catholic schools have impacted immediate, lifetime, and intergenerational outcomes. This cross-national longitudinal analysis will employ a mixed-methods approach that utilizes historiographical, ethnographic, microeconomic, and anthropological methodologies to trace various long-term outcomes of students enrolled in Catholic schools serving African or African Diaspora populations located in historically black schools in the Southern United States (i.e. New Orleans), Jamaica, and an East African context. This project proposes a new way of looking at educational experience and measuring educational impact by examining it in a longitudinal and comparative perspective. Drawing from family interviews, family archives, school documentation/archives, and public record, the project will explore the holistic contribution of these Catholic schools to the lives of its students, their children and grandchildren, and their communities with an emphasis on social and economic mobility.