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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Unequally Adrift: How Social Class And Institutional Context Shape College Academic Experiences, Mary Scherer Jul 2018

Unequally Adrift: How Social Class And Institutional Context Shape College Academic Experiences, Mary Scherer

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on how class background and institutional context shape students’ experiences of faculty mentorship, academic success strategies, and the relationship of college values and academic decision-making. In this comparative study, I draw from 68 interviews with working- and upper-middle-class students at a regional and flagship university to identify how institutional variation matters across moderately-selective public universities, the kind where the majority of four-year college students matriculate. Mentorship, often informal, is a resource most easily accessed by students with preexisting cultural capital—specifically, the knowledge that mentoring relationships are available and advantageous, and the skills for cross-status interaction with professors. …


Food Insecurity At A Four-Year College Campus, Danielle Corrado Jan 2018

Food Insecurity At A Four-Year College Campus, Danielle Corrado

School of Public Policy Capstones

This paper, through an adaption of the United States Department of Agriculture Adult Food Security survey tool, aims to identify food insecurity rates at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the demographic characteristics associated with food insecurity, potential financial factors that contribute and predict food insecurity rates, and the relationship between food insecurity and academic performance. Lastly, this paper examines on and off campus resources available to students and students perception of food insecurity before college as compared to actual food security status in college.