Education Commons^™

Connecting The Dots: Social Capital And The College-Going Beliefs Of Rural Appalachian Students, Amanda R. Butz

Theses and Dissertations--Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology

First-generation students and students of lower socioeconomic status often prepare for postsecondary education without the benefit of information provided by their families, resulting in lower levels of college access (Lundberg, 2007). Few researchers have sought to understand how potential first-generation college students might go about obtaining the necessary information for a successful transition to college. The purpose of this dissertation was to determine to whom students talk about college and to explore the potential reciprocal relationship between resources for and information about college provided by others and students’ educational beliefs.

This dissertation consisted of two empirical studies. In the first …