From First to First: Black, Indigenous, and People of Color First-Generation Faculty and Administrator Narratives of Intersectional Marginality and Mattering as Communal Praxis

While the education of first-generation students (FGS) has garnered the attention of scholars, educators, and policy makers, there is limited dialogue on how first-generation faculty and administrators (FGF/A)—that is, first-generation students who went on to become faculty and/or administrators—experience higher education and are engaged in enhancing equity, inclusion, and justice. Intersectional approaches, which illuminate the nexus of race, gender, and class in education, are necessary for appreciating the complexity of FGF/A experiences and liberatory practices taking shape in higher education. Narrative analysis examining nine Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) FGF/A oral histories reveal how stories of mattering and intersectional marginality are sites of communal praxis that aim to dislodge systems of power, including racism, classism, and patriarchy. This praxis involves validating the complexity of students’ academic and social lives and engaging vulnerability. The discussion encourages reflection of how communal praxis can be cultivated toward transforming the linked conditions of faculty and students.

Turning Adversity into Capitals among Low Income First Generation Students of Color: Exploring Interdependence of Multiple Capitals

Much literature have documented that low income, first generation college students tend to contend with challenges and hardships such as financial constraints, low parental support, lack of college information, and lack of social networks. However, a growing number of the studies reverse such “deficit” view on first generation students of color, and assert that resources of traditionally disadvantaged students become a community cultural wealth for accessing privilege. This study collects the experiences of low income students of color who graduated from PWIs in the U.S. higher education system. In so doing, the study uses Yosso’s Community Cultural Wealth as a theoretical framework, and analyzes the experiences in terms of how they transform their resources into capitals. The analysis of the data shows that each participant leverages Yosso’s six capitals in the way to gain successful educational attainment. Unfulfilled parental dream and pitying parents turn to valuable family and aspirational capitals; lack of clear goals and lack of guidance compelled the participants to be able to navigate through possible social networks. The data also shows how one capital reinforces and intersects with other capitals.

Perspectives of learning during the transition from secondary school to university: A comparative study of first generation university students in Chile and New Zealand

<p>While tertiary education has grown rapidly in most countries in recent years, retention rates and educational success of many first generation students is still below that of their counterparts from tertiary-educated family backgrounds. This presents a significant challenge to universities seeking to better understand and support such students. This comparative study explores the perspectives of learning along educational transitions between school and university that were experienced by two groups of first generation university students in Chile and New Zealand. The research draws on the narratives of 24 working class university students enrolled in teacher education programmes and studying to become teachers. Unlike some previous studies of first generation students that take a deficit approach to the educational under-achievement of working class students, this research assumes that the barriers these students face are primarily located within institutional structures and that the distinctive perspectives of first generation university students make a positive contribution to institutional development. A photo-elicitation methodological approach was undertaken whereby the participants were asked to collect images that represented their school and university experiences. These images were then assembled onto a storyboard. Group and individual interviews were also conducted. Through a dialogical approach derived from Bakhtin, the thesis examines the cultural, social and emotional tensions and accomplishments they encountered in the course of their educational journeys through school and university. Employing Bourdieu’s notion of habitus, and Quinn’s notion of imagined social capital, this study found that for New Zealand students, imagined social capital was largely located in institutional contexts, while in Chile these were more closely associated with social groups and peers. The findings show that New Zealand has a more flexible and supportive system of school to university transitions than Chile. In both countries, however, students placed considerable value on experiences that allowed them to connect their own social background with what they learned at university.</p>

Perspectives of learning during the transition from secondary school to university: A comparative study of first generation university students in Chile and New Zealand

<p>While tertiary education has grown rapidly in most countries in recent years, retention rates and educational success of many first generation students is still below that of their counterparts from tertiary-educated family backgrounds. This presents a significant challenge to universities seeking to better understand and support such students. This comparative study explores the perspectives of learning along educational transitions between school and university that were experienced by two groups of first generation university students in Chile and New Zealand. The research draws on the narratives of 24 working class university students enrolled in teacher education programmes and studying to become teachers. Unlike some previous studies of first generation students that take a deficit approach to the educational under-achievement of working class students, this research assumes that the barriers these students face are primarily located within institutional structures and that the distinctive perspectives of first generation university students make a positive contribution to institutional development. A photo-elicitation methodological approach was undertaken whereby the participants were asked to collect images that represented their school and university experiences. These images were then assembled onto a storyboard. Group and individual interviews were also conducted. Through a dialogical approach derived from Bakhtin, the thesis examines the cultural, social and emotional tensions and accomplishments they encountered in the course of their educational journeys through school and university. Employing Bourdieu’s notion of habitus, and Quinn’s notion of imagined social capital, this study found that for New Zealand students, imagined social capital was largely located in institutional contexts, while in Chile these were more closely associated with social groups and peers. The findings show that New Zealand has a more flexible and supportive system of school to university transitions than Chile. In both countries, however, students placed considerable value on experiences that allowed them to connect their own social background with what they learned at university.</p>

“We Support You … to an Extent”: Identities, Intersections, and Family Support Among First-Generation Students in a School of Social Work

Family support is a critical part of college student retention. Given the strength of parental educational attainment in predicting access and persistence among college students (Choy, 2001), some have questioned the capacity for families to support first-generation college students. Family support may be especially critical for first-generation college students, who value interdependence more highly than continuing generation students (Stephens et al., 2012). This paper centers the perspectives of first-generation students in a school of social work and their experiences of family support. Focus group conversations were analyzed using the Listening Guide/Voice-centered relational data analysis (Brown & Gilligan, 1992). My interpretations were also guided by Black Feminist Thought (Crenshaw, 2000; Hill Collins, 1990) and Post-Modern Feminism (Campbell & Wasco, 2000), offering an intersectional, relationally-focused analysis of the nuances of family support. Findings highlight students’ perceptions of family support, and the role that cultural expectations related to gender, race, and class play in shaping contradictory messages of family support. I offer implications for educators in schools of social work, including troubling narratives of social mobility, as part of the larger project of enhancing social justice in academia (Saulnier & Swigonski, 2006).

Diversifying the field: Activities to make linguistics more relevant

Students find linguistics at times abstract and intimidating and they have a hard time understanding how they can apply what they learn in our classes to the real world and how to relate their cultural/community experiences to it. As a consequence, we inadvertently restrict the pool of linguistic students. Inspired bywork done by Hudley et al. (2017), Trester (2017), Chávez & Longerbeam (2016), and by my personal experiences, I created a series of activities for my introduction to linguistics and syntax courses to respond to this problem. I offer some suggestions on how to make our linguistics courses more practical and relatable to our students, in particular first-generation students. The long-term goal is to organically engage and retain a diverse pool of students, thus enriching our field with their perspectives. We can achieve this goal by balancing teaching practices across cultural frameworks.

eHealth Literacy of 2-Year and 4-Year College Students: Implications for Health Education in a Post-Truth Era

The COVID-19 pandemic and simultaneous “infodemic” have amplified the need for electronic health (eHealth) literacy, one’s ability to find, evaluate, and apply online health information to make health decisions. To date, only a few studies have examined eHealth literacy among U.S. college students. The purpose of this study was to assess and compare the eHealth literacy of students attending 4-year and 2-year colleges in the Pacific Northwest. A purposeful sample of 781 college students enrolled in nonhealth- and health-related programs completed an electronic version of the eHealth Literacy Scale (eHEALS). Descriptive, bivariate, and logistical regression were used in the data analyses. Results showed that while there were no significant differences in composite scores by the demographic variables explored, differences on individual eHEALS items emerged between 2-year and 4-year college students, by the first-generation status, and by gender. First-generation students’ mean scores were lower in all areas of eHealth literacy when compared with non-first-generation students. Chi-square tests revealed significant differences in first-generation students’ perceived ability to know how (χ2 = 5.4, p = .020) and where (χ2 = 6.7, p = .010) to find health resources on the internet, as well as how to tell high-quality from low-quality health resources (χ2 = 5.0, p = .025). Students who identified as male were more likely than females to agree that they are “confident in using information from the internet to make health decisions” ( p = .028). Our findings underscore the need to strengthen higher education curricula and pedagogy to improve students’ eHealth literacy.