The Use of an Academic Mentorship Model to Enhance the Transition, Retention, and Success of Disadvantaged Students in Higher Education

2019 ◽  
pp. 117-130
Author(s):  
Gerry M. Rayner ◽  
Juliey Beckman
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Disadvantaged Students

scholarly journals The social class gap in bachelor’s and master’s completion: university dropout in times of educational expansion

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens-Peter Thomsen
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Bachelor's Degree ◽  
Disadvantaged Students ◽  
Educational Expansion ◽  
Master's Level ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
The Social ◽  
Upper Secondary ◽  
University Dropout

While many papers have focused on socially unequal admissions in higher education, this paper looks at the persistence of class differentials after enrolment. I examine the social class gap in bachelor’s programme dropout and in the transition from bachelor’s to master’s in Denmark from the formal introduction of the bachelor’s degree in 1993 up to recent cohorts. Using administrative data, I find that the class gap in bachelor’s departures has remained constant from 1993 to 2006, with disadvantaged students being around 15 percentage points more likely to leave a bachelor’s programme than advantaged students, even after adjusting for other factors such as grades from upper secondary school. Importantly, the class gap reappears at the master’s level, with privileged students being more likely to pursue a master’s degree than less privileged students. The size of the class gap is remarkable, given that this gap is found among a selected group of university enrolees. As other studies have found that educational expansion in higher education is not necessarily a remedy for narrowing the class gap in educational attainment, scholars need to pay more attention to keeping disadvantaged students from leaving higher education.

scholarly journals What Limits College Success? A Review and Further Analysis of Holzer and Baum’s Making College Work

2021 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 546-573
Author(s):  
Philip Oreopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Quantitative Data ◽  
College Success ◽  
Career Transition ◽  
Disadvantaged Students ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Meaningful Difference ◽  
Financial Barriers ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
College Work

Harry J. Holzer and Sandy Baum’s recent book, Making College Work: Pathways to Success for Disadvantaged Students, provides an excellent up-to-date review of higher education. My review first summarizes its key themes: (i) who gains from college and why, (ii) mismatch and the need for more structure, (iii) problems with remediation, (iv) financial barriers, and (v) the promise of comprehensive support. I then critique the book’s proposed solutions using some of my own qualitative and quantitative data. Some recommendations are worth considering, while others are too expensive or unlikely to make a meaningful difference without addressing the underlying lack of preparedness and motivation of college students. I argue that making mandatory some existing services, such as application assistance and advice, proactive tutoring and advising, and greater career transition support, has the most immediate potential. (JEL I22, I23, I24)

Transitional trajectories of academic progress for low-status students at a University in South Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 275-292
Author(s):  
Bhekimpilo Mpofu ◽  
Musawenkosi Khanyile
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Academic Progress ◽  
Disadvantaged Students ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Academic Records

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceptions of university undergraduate students who originate from disadvantaged South African schools. The perceptions probed are those that relate to their material circumstances, learning and teaching environment and academic progress. Design/methodology/approach The paper draws on a theoretical framework that underscores the primacy of the environment blended with transition theory to explain environmental influences on disadvantaged students’ academic progression at university. Data were gathered through detailed face-to-face interviews with eight participants and from the open-ended section of a questionnaire administered to 41 students from which the 8 students were drawn. Findings The findings demonstrate that disadvantaged students require both physical and socio-psychological support in order to succeed at university. Research limitations/implications A university in South Africa and the students from low quintile schools provide the case study for the explication of the findings of this study. Ethical issues such as seeking the informed consent of the participants to access their academic records weighed against the potency or robustness of the results of this study, because few of the participants allowed this researcher to access their results. Thus, this study focussed on potentially sensitive areas such as the academic records of students and poverty. As such it was extremely difficult to persuade disadvantaged students to participate in this study. Practical implications The study is thus useful for the school system, families and higher education institutions in the quest to provide the much-needed socio-psychological or “empathetic infrastructure” that acts as the cytoplasm for disadvantaged students’ academic progress at university. Social implications By invoking the primacy of the environment under the rubrics of epigenetics, this study also sought to contribute to the debate around the human genome – a grand ambitious global scientific project launched in the late 1980s to generate a catalogue of all the genes present in humans. However, this was a smokescreen because there are simply not enough genes to account for the complexity of the human life or human disease. By invoking the theory of transition, this study sought to fathom how to promote a favourable teaching and learning environment for poor students at university in a holistic manner. Originality/value This study utilised an empirically supported definition of disadvantage: that of students coming from no fee schools, as classified by the Department of Education based on Household Expenditure statistics of 2002 using the quintile system. The quintile system is based on average measures of income, unemployment rates and educational levels. To date, there is no published research utilising the school quintile system to define disadvantaged students in higher education in South Africa. This paper, which investigates such a sample from a university, is therefore ground-breaking and novel.

Implication of Cyberbullying on Under-Represented Students in Post-Secondary Education

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiyoon Yoon ◽  
Katie Koo
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Secondary Education ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Disadvantaged Students ◽  
Post Secondary Education ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
Academic Achievements ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Important Pathway

Cyberbullying is an emerging issue in the context of higher education as information and communication technologies increasingly become part of daily life at universities. This article offers a review of the major literature regarding cyberbullying, its victims and perpetrators, and its implications that impact disadvantaged students in higher education, specifically those who are in lower socio-economic situations. Post-secondary education has been an important pathway to guide students out of poverty by helping them lead successful lives. However, as in higher education, cyberbullying incidents have increased in educational situations, the bullied victims are more likely to report feelings of depression that cause an obstacle to their academic achievements in post-secondary education. The anonymous environments associated in cyberbullying can cause immorality of the cyberbullying perpetrators. To prevent cyberbullying on campus, this article provides cyberbullying rules and policies and suggests specialized treatment and interventions for cyber-bullies as a solution.

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