scholarly journals I Just Don’t Want to Be Judged: Cultural Capital’s Impact on Student Plagiarism

SAGE Open ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 215824401882238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer A. Strangfeld

This research explores how college students’ broader educational histories affect their decisions to plagiarize. While research typically categorizes plagiarism as intentional or unintentional, explanations revealed in interviews of first-generation, working-class, and/or racial minority students suggests that these typologies inadequately capture the complex reasons some students express for plagiarizing. Specifically, students in this study plagiarize primarily because they are concerned that not only are their vocabulary and writing skills subpar, but that they do not fit into the college student role. Their explanations are situated within Bourdieu’s framework of cultural capital, whereby students’ decisions to plagiarize are rooted in the outcomes stemming from educational practices that reinforce class hierarchies. Consequently, students’ plagiarism experiences are contextualized within their broader educational histories rather than limited to the immediate circumstances surrounding their academic dishonesty.

Author(s):  
Rayshawn L. Eastman ◽  
April Eddie ◽  
Kelli Johnson

Through narratives, this chapter explores the perspectives of three higher education professionals who served diverse student bodies during a pandemic. Detailing their experiences, the authors address efforts made to support underrepresented students during a pandemic. The effects of COVID-19 were vast and even more impactful for underrepresented students. The challenges of taking classes during a pandemic, combined with the known social challenges of 2020, made for an unforgettable period of time. This chapter addresses lessons learned, best practices, and suggestions for supporting students during a pandemic. The authors define underrepresented students as first-generation, LGBT+, low-income, and ethnic/racial minority students.


2020 ◽  
pp. 014616722093648 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susie Chen ◽  
Kevin R. Binning ◽  
Kody J. Manke ◽  
Shannon T. Brady ◽  
Erica M. McGreevy ◽  
...  

Identifying as a “science person” is predictive of science success, but the mechanisms involved are not well-understood. We hypothesized that science identity predicts success because it fosters a sense of belonging in science classrooms. Thus, science identity should be particularly important for first-generation and racial-minority students, who may harbor doubts about belonging in science. Two field studies in college Introductory Biology classes ( Ns = 368, 639) supported these hypotheses. A strong science identity predicted higher grades, particularly for minority students. Also consistent with hypotheses, Study 2 found that self-reported belonging in college mediated the relationship between science identity and performance. Furthermore, a social belonging manipulation eliminated the relationship between science identity and performance among minority students. These results support the idea that a strong science identity is particularly beneficial for minority students because it bolsters belonging in science courses. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.


2008 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Won-Pyo Hong ◽  
Peter Youngs

This article draws on research from Texas and Chicago to examine whether high-stakes testing enables low-income and racial minority students to acquire cultural capital. While students' performance on state or district tests rose after the implementation of high-stakes testing and accountability policies in Texas and Chicago in the 1990s, several studies indicate that these policies seemed to have had deleterious effects on curriculum, instruction, the percentage of students excluded from the tests, and student dropout rates. As a result, the policies seemed to have had mixed effects on students' opportunities to acquire embodied and institutionalized cultural capital. These findings are consistent with the work of Shepard (2000), Darling-Hammond (2004a), and others who have written of the likely negative repercussions of high-stakes testing and accountability policies.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susie Chen ◽  
Kevin R Binning ◽  
Kody J. Manke ◽  
Shannon Therese Brady ◽  
Erica M. McGreevy ◽  
...  

Identifying as a “science person” is predictive of science success, but the mechanisms involved are not well-understood. We hypothesized that science identity predicts success because it fosters a sense of belonging in science classrooms. Thus, science identity should be particularly important for first-generation and racial-minority students, who may harbor doubts about belonging in science. Two field studies in college Introductory Biology classes (Ns=368; 639) supported these hypotheses. A strong science identity predicted higher grades, particularly for minority students. Also consistent with hypotheses, Study 2 found that self-reported belonging in college mediated the relationship between science identity and performance. Furthermore, a social belonging manipulation eliminated the relationship between science identity and performance among minority students. These results support the idea that a strong science identity is particularly beneficial for minority students because it bolsters belonging in science courses.


AERA Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 233285842110218
Author(s):  
Lovenoor Aulck ◽  
Joshua Malters ◽  
Casey Lee ◽  
Gianni Mancinelli ◽  
Min Sun ◽  
...  

Freshman seminars are a ubiquitous offering in higher education, but they have not been evaluated using matched comparisons with data at scale. In this work, we use transcript data on over 76,000 students to examine the impact of first-year interest groups (FIGs) on student graduation and retention. We first apply propensity score matching on course-level data to account for selection bias. We find that graduation and re-enrollment rates for FIG students were higher than non-FIG students, an effect that was more pronounced for self-identified underrepresented racial minority students. We then employ topic modeling to analyze survey responses from over 12,500 FIG students to find that social aspects of FIGs were most beneficial to students. Interestingly, references to social aspects were not disproportionately present in the responses of self-identified underrepresented racial minority students.


Author(s):  
Laura Coleman-Tempel ◽  
Meghan Ecker-Lyster

Limited college knowledge often impacts underrepresented students’ ability to navigate the college setting, creating institutional barriers for these students once arriving on campus. Students who are first-generation, low-income, and/or minority students have been shown to be less “college ready” than their peers. This discrepancy in preparedness can be conceptualized as a cultural mismatch between the student’s background knowledge and the higher education institution's expectations and norms (Lohfink & Paulsen, 2005). This qualitative evaluation provides an in-depth investigation into first-generation, low-income, and minority students’ perceptions and experiences with a yearlong college transition program. The study explores how a college transition program can impact students’ social development.


1999 ◽  
Vol 85 (2) ◽  
pp. 417-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos P. Zalaquett

The ethnicity, grade point average (GPA), and retention characteristics of 202 students whose parents never attended college, 244 students whose parents had some college experience, and 394 students whose parents graduated from college were examined. Analysis showed that a significantly higher percentage of minority students were first-generation students. No significant differences were found between the GPA and retention rates of first-generation students and those of the other two.


Author(s):  
Mingsheng Li

Student plagiarism is a pervasive issue at all levels of study in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) around the world. Plagiarism is considered as a cultural phenomenon and students from certain cultures are often stereotyped as ‘persistent plagiarists'. This chapter reports the findings of a research project and examines the issues of academic dishonesty reported by Chinese students in New Zealand universities. Four lecturers and six university graduates participated in the interviews and the focus group discussion. The study has identified seven forms of disguised plagiarism deriving from four interrelated variables: inadequate language proficiency, lack of discipline knowledge and conventions, issues of assessment, and situational variables. The university is morally responsible to teach the students the concept of Academic Integrity (AI) and plagiarism, discipline conventions and rules of games in academic writing, and develop their language, writing, and research skills to help them avoid the traps of plagiarism.


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