Accountability Strain, College Readiness Drain: Sociopolitical Tensions Involved in Maintaining a College-going Culture in a High “Minority”, High Poverty, Texas High School

2015 ◽  
Vol 98 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anjale Welton ◽  
Montrischa Williams
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
College Readiness ◽  
High Poverty ◽  
College Going ◽  
College Going Culture ◽  
Texas High School

scholarly journals College Ready at a Cost: Underrepresented Students Overwhelmed, Scared, Increasingly Stressed, and Coping

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (5) ◽  
pp. 734-758
Author(s):  
Melissa A. Martinez ◽  
Katherine Lewis ◽  
Jocabed Marquez
Keyword(s):  
College Readiness ◽  
Underrepresented Students ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Public High Schools ◽  
Descriptive Case Study ◽  
College Ready ◽  
College Going ◽  
College Going Culture ◽  
And Coping

As the push and expectation to attend college continues to increase, making the process of getting into college more competitive than ever before, there is a need to interrogate whether and how efforts to create a college-going culture and increase college readiness among students, particularly those from historically marginalized backgrounds, might have an adverse impact on students. This study illuminates 59 students’ voices who participated in a multisite descriptive case study examining the strong college-going culture and college readiness efforts at three racially and economically diverse urban public high schools in different regions of Texas. Although students revealed positive aspects of their schools’ efforts, this study focuses on some of the negative, unintended consequences related to how students felt and coped with being overwhelmed, scared, and increasingly stressed as a result of the narrow focus on college readiness. Such findings must be considered by scholars, policymakers, and practitioners alike.

scholarly journals Broadening conceptions of a “college-going culture”: The role of high school climate factors in college enrollment and persistence

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 314-340
Author(s):  
David S Knight ◽  
Julia C Duncheon
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
School Climate ◽  
School Safety ◽  
College Enrollment ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Climate Factors ◽  
Linear Modeling ◽  
College Going ◽  
College Going Culture

As workforce participation increasingly requires a college degree, ensuring that more students from traditionally underrepresented populations have the opportunity to enter and complete college is an equity imperative. To that end, high school reforms have promoted “college-going cultures” in low-performing high schools through interventions such as rigorous course offerings and college counseling. College access research has focused on issues specific to academics and college-going processes. Yet this research has tended to ignore broader school climate factors such as school safety and extracurricular programming, which may play a critical role in postsecondary opportunity, especially for historically underserved students. The current study applies hierarchical generalized linear modeling to the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 to 2006 to examine the role of college-going culture and high school climate characteristics on college enrollment and persistence. We find that while some components of college-going culture are associated with the likelihood of college enrollment and persistence, that relationship is moderated by school climate factors. We conclude that efforts to implement a college-going culture may struggle if extracurricular opportunities, school safety, and overall school climate issues are ignored.

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