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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Family Dimensions Of Unequal College Experiences: Students’ Talk Of Self And College In Relation To Family Resources And Relationships, Michael Carl Ide
Family Dimensions Of Unequal College Experiences: Students’ Talk Of Self And College In Relation To Family Resources And Relationships, Michael Carl Ide
Doctoral Dissertations
The “college experience” is normatively presented as enacting independence, often while financially relying on parents. This view normalizes white, middle-class models of college and family. The three interrelated papers comprising this dissertation investigate race, class, and gender differences and inequalities at college through the lens of students’ talk of family. These inductive, qualitative studies draw on semi-structured intensive interviews with undergraduates to explore divergent ways they make sense of college, family, and their self-development. Analyses highlight the multifaceted, and sometimes contradictory meanings participants attach to themes commonly presented as simple and objective (i.e. “paying for college,” “independence,” and “adulthood”). Findings …
Dropping The Invisibility Cloak: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis Of Sense Of Belonging And Place Identity Among Rural, First Generation, Low Income College Students From Appalachian Kentucky, Brenda Abbott
Doctoral Dissertations
In a country that once was 95% rural in the late 1700s, only 19.3% of the population of the United States now live in rural areas (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). The shift in population from rural to urban areas is not simply demographic; it imbues a shift in who and what matters. Only 13.6% of adults over 25 in Appalachian Kentucky have earned bachelor's degrees, 18.9% below the national average (Appalachian Regional Commission, 2016). This phenomenological study seeks to understand how rural, first generation, low income college students from Appalachian Kentucky experience a sense of belonging in their first year …
Unequally Adrift: How Social Class And Institutional Context Shape College Academic Experiences, Mary Scherer
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. …