This chapter considers the processes of constructing an academic identity for first-generation students. It discusses challenges to building an academic identity among first-generation college students, both for those whose parents are unambiguously supportive of their child's college attendance and those who are ambivalent. The chapter reveals that the identities that students take on as college students and as members of their family are two aspects of the self that students described as being central to who they are. For many students, tensions between their academic and family identities are moderate to none. For first-generation students, however, the very decision to enroll in college may mark a divergence from their parents' trajectories and the trajectories expected of them. This is because schooling plays a large role in socialization, and college plays a particularly large role in shaping people's beliefs, habits, preferences, and behaviors.
Self-Regulated Learning and Ethnic/Racial Variables: Predicting Minority First-Generation College Students' Persistence