Understanding the Career Aspirations of Diverse Community College Students

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margo A. Gregor ◽  
Heather V. Ganginis Del Pino ◽  
Alejandra Gonzalez ◽  
Samsara Soto ◽  
Marianne G. Dunn
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Community College ◽  
Community College Students ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Educational Aspirations ◽  
Career Barriers ◽  
Coping Efficacy ◽  
Achievement Aspirations ◽  
Partner Perceptions ◽  
And Coping

The purpose of the study was to examine the relative contributions of career predictors (self-efficacy, career barriers, and coping-efficacy for overcoming barriers) in predicting educational and achievement aspirations in a diverse sample of community college students. Data from 236 community college students were utilized. Results from hierarchical regressions suggested that career-decision self-efficacy, college self-efficacy, compromising career for partner, perceptions of barriers, and coping efficacy in overcoming barriers were unique predictors of achievement and educational aspirations. As hypothesized, coping efficacy accounted for variance above and beyond the contributions of self-efficacy and barriers in predicting aspirations. Implications of these findings for research and practice are discussed.

How Political and Ecological Contexts Shape Community College Transfer

2020 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren Schudde ◽  
Huriya Jabbar ◽  
Catherine Hartman
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Community College ◽  
Community College Students ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Educational Aspirations ◽  
Complex Structure ◽  
Community College Transfer ◽  
College Transfer ◽  
Strategic Action ◽  
Primary Means

Broad higher education contexts shape how community college students and postsecondary personnel approach transfer from community colleges to baccalaureate-granting institutions. We leverage the concept of strategic action fields, an organizational theory illuminating processes that play out as actors determine “who gets what” in an existing power structure, to understand the role of political-ecological contexts in “vertical” transfer. Drawing on interviews with administrators, transfer services personnel, and transfer-intending students at two Texas community college districts and with administrators, admissions staff, and transfer personnel at public universities throughout the state, we examine how institutional actors and students create, maintain, and respond to rules and norms in the community college transfer field. Our results suggest university administrators, faculty, and staff hold dominant positions in the field, setting the rules and norms for credit transfer and applicability. Students, who hold the least privilege, must invest time and energy to gather information about transfer pathways and policies as their primary means of meeting their educational aspirations. The complex structure of information—wherein each institution provides its own transfer resources, with little collaboration and minimal alignment—systematically disadvantages community college students. Although some community college personnel voice frustration that the field disadvantages transfer-intending community college students, they maintain the social order by continuing to implement and reinforce the rules and norms set by universities.

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