Moving Up without Losing Your Way

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Morton
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
College Students ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
Ethical Dilemmas ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
College Experience ◽  
Career Opportunities ◽  
Community Finding

Upward mobility through the path of higher education has been an article of faith for generations of working-class, low-income, and immigrant college students. While we know this path usually entails financial sacrifices and hard work, very little attention has been paid to the deep personal compromises such students have to make as they enter worlds vastly different from their own. Measuring the true cost of higher education for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, this book looks at the ethical dilemmas of upward mobility—the broken ties with family and friends, the severed connections with former communities, and the loss of identity—faced by students as they strive to earn a successful place in society. The book reframes the college experience, factoring in not just educational and career opportunities but also essential relationships with family, friends, and community. Finding that student strivers tend to give up the latter for the former, negating their sense of self, the book seeks to reverse this course. It urges educators to empower students with a new narrative of upward mobility—one that honestly situates ethical costs in historical, social, and economic contexts and that allows students to make informed decisions for themselves. The book paves a hopeful road so that students might achieve social mobility while retaining their best selves.

scholarly journals The Achievement of University Access: Conversion Factors, Capabilities and Choices

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Walker
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
First Year ◽  
Conversion Factors ◽  
Her Family ◽  
University Access ◽  
Low Income Families

In the light both of persistent inequality of education opportunities for low income families and a wide equality gap in South Africa, this article explores students’ university access by applying Amartya Sen’s capability approach to a South African case study. The article demonstrates empirically that access is more than an individual project, shaped both by objective conditions and subjective biographies, that is by general conversion factors and a person’s social and personal options. Key conversion factors are material (income) and social (family, community, school, information), which produce an interlocking system of opportunity. Access thus requires more than formal opportunity to enable social mobility for all. The case study comprises qualitative interviews with diverse students in their first year at one university; illustrative narratives are selected to show different pathways, conversion factors and choices. Agency and self-efficacy emerge as especially important for making choices but also for constructing a higher education pathway where none exists for that person and her family. The article suggests that higher education has the potential to advance social mobility provided that it moves in the direction of expanding the capabilities of all students to have the choice of higher education.

“I Took a Screenshot”

2021 ◽  
pp. 53-67
Author(s):  
Joan A. Swanson ◽  
Allison A. Buskirk-Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Higher Education ◽  
College Students ◽  
Emerging Adults ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Common Assumption ◽  
Online Platforms ◽  
The Impact

There is a common assumption that today’s college students do not know a world without phones, screens, and online platforms specifically designed for connecting and sharing every facet of daily living. While college students use technologies on a daily basis, its use is contextualized between academic and nonacademic use. This chapter focuses on the technology experiences of today’s emerging adults, both in and out of the higher education classroom. It discusses how technology impacts sense of self, relationships, mental health, and learning. A case study and guiding questions facilitate application of the material and help readers understand the impact of technological experiences (or lack thereof) on emerging adults.

scholarly journals Schoolcraft vs. Becoming Somebody: Competing Visions of Higher Education among Working-Class College Students

1970 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison Hurst
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
College Students ◽  
Academic Success ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Occupational Interests ◽  
Working Class Students ◽  
Official View

By exploring the meanings working-class students attribute to college and academic success, this article uncovers important and surprising disjunctures between the official view of college as a pathway to social mobility and students’ own needs and aspirations. While some working-class college students do use college as a “ticket out of the working class,” others reject this view, arguing that the twin functions of college as educative and credentialing should be delinked. It is important for researchers, as well as educators and policymakers, to recognize that working-class college students are not homogenous with regard to occupational interests and expectations of social mobility.

scholarly journals “I Wanted to Know More”: A Narrative Exploration of Community College Students’ Goals and Aspirations

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason VanOra
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Community College ◽  
Community Colleges ◽  
Community College Students ◽  
Graduation Rates ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Complete Understanding

The literature on community colleges is overwhelmed by outcomes-oriented data concerning retention, attrition, and graduation rates. What we lack is a more complete understanding of why community college students choose to enroll in the first place. The current study seeks to fill this gap. Through a series of semi-structured interviews, students reported feeling motivated to attend community college by their desires to reconstruct themselves as scholars, make proud their families and communities of origin, achieve social mobility, and develop a more accomplished and purposeful sense of self. Implications of these findings for teaching and learning are discussed, as is the importance of using identity as a lens for understanding students’ motivations.

scholarly journals College Students’ Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Participation in Study Abroad

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly M. Bryant ◽  
Krista M. Soria
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
College Students ◽  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Study Abroad ◽  
Students With Disabilities ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Research University ◽  
Low Income Students ◽  
Studying Abroad ◽  
Multicultural Students

In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of students studying abroad; however, researchers have discovered that some student populations are not as likely to study abroad, including students with disabilities, multicultural students, and low-income students. Amid these growing bodies of literature that highlight disparities between students’ participation in study abroad, research fails to address whether lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning or queer students (LGBTQQ) study abroad at lower rates than their peers given that some cultures are not accepting of students’ sexual orientation or transgender identities. This lack of research is troubling because LGBTQQ students face challenges many of their peers do not normally have to confront in higher education.  The purpose of this study, then, is to fill this gap in research by answering the following question: are LGBTQQ students significantly less likely to study abroad compared to their peers?  Utilizing student data from the multi-institutional Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) survey, the results of this study suggest that LGBTQQ students are significantly more likely than heterosexual and cisgender students to participate in study abroad opportunities in several areas

Recognizing the Ethical Costs of Upward Mobility

2019 ◽  
pp. 17-42
Author(s):  
Jennifer M. Morton
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Low Income ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
Cost Benefit Analysis ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Benefit Analysis ◽  
Low Income College Students ◽  
The Cost

This chapter describes the ethical costs of upward mobility and presents an argument for why they are different from other costs that strivers face on their path. It argues that understanding the nature of the ethical goods move people well beyond the cost-benefit analysis that might be appropriate when thinking about money, time, or effort. The ethical costs of upward mobility are particular and not easily offset. Consequently, loss is felt keenly by those who succeed even if they ultimately have much to gain from the sacrifices they have made. The chapter emphasizes how people who are concerned with the challenges faced by first-generation and low-income college students often fail to appreciate the significance of the potential ethical costs that strivers encounter in pursuing a better life for themselves.

Reimagining Higher Education as Response to Ongoing Crises

2022 ◽  
pp. 29-46
Author(s):  
Tamar Davis Larsen
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Higher Education ◽  
United States ◽  
College Students ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Online Teaching ◽  
Narrative Identity ◽  
College Experience ◽  
The United States ◽  
Almost All

College students and professors have experienced dramatic change in how they are able to attend and participate in classes, convey information, interact with one another, and teach in a meaningful, dynamic way. This chapter explores what worked and what did not work during this shift to online teaching as universities in the United States closed down for almost all in-person classes. Research includes narrative identity, with data derived from collecting stories of the lived experience during COVID-19. Topics explored are issues of how higher education relates to the traditional U.S. college experience, ethics, leadership, money, equitable technology, and mental health. Suggestions will be presented in terms of what can be learned from this particular crisis that can be enacted in framing better practices in higher education as future domestic and global crises emerge.

Adult workers in higher education: enhancing social mobility

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (9) ◽  
pp. 1101-1117
Author(s):  
Ana Sofia Patrício Pinto Lopes ◽  
Pedro Manuel Rodrigues Carreira
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Academic Achievement ◽  
Adult Education ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Multinomial Logit Model ◽  
Adult Student ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Student Workers

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to verify if adult education can contribute to social mobility by analysing how the socioeconomic and professional background of the students affects dropout and graduation hazards in higher education. Design/methodology/approach An event history analysis approach, with competing risks and discrete time, implemented under a multinomial logit model, is used to investigate how an extensive set of covariates affects the risk of graduation, dropout and persistence of 834 adult student workers from a higher education institution in Portugal. Findings Adult education may indeed be effective in promoting social mobility, as academic achievement is higher for student workers that have low educated parents and low income levels. Also, the probability of achieving graduation seems to be higher for those seeking for higher transformation. Practical implications Adult education should be encouraged as it generates both efficiency and equity benefits. Some policy recommendations are suggested for the higher education system to adapt better to the particular characteristics of adult workers and provide conditions to improve the job–study–family conciliation, namely, by adjusting the schedule and composition of classes, appreciating the curriculum and providing orientation to candidates, and introducing shorter/simplified versions of the degrees. Originality/value A separate treatment is given to adult student workers, whose characteristics are very particular, enriching the literature on academic achievement that has been focussed on traditional students. Additionally, the studied data set merges five sources and provides extensive and original information on personal, degree and employment variables of the students.

scholarly journals Research Studies in Higher Education: Educating Multicultural College Students

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 206-207
Author(s):  
Cory Hamilton ◽  
Raul A. Leon
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
College Students ◽  
Academic Success ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Underrepresented Students ◽  
Traditional Students ◽  
First Generation College Students ◽  
First Generation College ◽  
Non Traditional Students ◽  
Research Studies

Research Studies in Higher Education: Educating Multicultural College Students is a collection of nine studies that examine the experiences of underrepresented students enrolled in colleges and universities across the US. Presenting both quantitative and qualitative findings, this book enhances our understanding of current topics such as equity, access, achievement, and retention, focusing on the experiences of students. For international students and scholars, this book offers an insight into significant hurdles faced by many multicultural and non-traditional students and recommendations presented to improve college retention and academic success. This book examines the effectiveness of programs and policies intended to assist students of color, first generation college students, low-income students, undecided students, and non-traditional students.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document