OBSTACLES PREVENTING HIGH ACHIEVERS FROM LOW SOCIOECONOMIC BACKGROUNDS TO ENTER UNIVERSITIES: A REVIEW

All students, regardless of socioeconomic status, deserve equitable access to universities. However, many high-achieving students are excluded from this privilege, most of whom come disproportionately from families on the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder. This study aims to identify the barriers that influence high achievers from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds to pursue higher education. A total of ten relevant articles from prominent publication databases were chosen for this review. The results show that the majority of researchers believe that parents' negative attitudes, parents' low expectations, first-in-family, vogue career identity, financial factor, and thinking style factor are the primary impediments to high achievers from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds attending university. The results also enable university career counsellors to assist high achievers from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds to overcome any obstacles to effectively join universities and fulfil their educational goals.

‘…having people that will help you, that know the ropes and have walked that road before you’: How does first in family status impact graduates in the employment field?

Increasing competitiveness in the graduate employment field combined with growing numbers of degree bearing applicants means that gaining employment after completing university studies can be a lengthy and complex undertaking. This is even more the case for students who do not have ready access to the social or family capital often required for successful employment, such as those who are first in their family to attend university. This article reveals hidden tensions within the post-graduation employment market when this is negotiated without the benefit of necessary capitals required to do so successfully. Drawing on interview and survey data from recent first in family graduates and alumni in Australia, the ways in which they negotiated employment was explored. This exposed an alternative perspective on graduate employment that highlights the somewhat ‘hidden’ inequities and unfair expectations within a hyper competitive job market. Participants’ written and spoken reflections reveal the ways in which the graduate landscape is far from being an ‘even playing field’. The perspectives presented contribute to broader understanding about the difficulties of moving towards desired employment goals or social mobility particularly when intangible relational and personal capitals are needed. Such insights are needed to inform both policy and practice globally, particularly as nation states come to terms with the repercussions of the current health crisis.

Block Mode Study: Opportunities and Challenges for a New Generation of Learners in an Australian University

This article is an update on a university-wide overhaul of its pedagogy, curriculum and delivery to support the expanding non-traditional, new generation learners while enhancing opportunity and success for traditional learners. The Block Model developed by Victoria University (VU), Australia for its undergraduate cohort, was a bold response to support all students including its high proportion of First-in-family (FiF), low socio-economic status (LSES), and non-English-speaking background (NESB) students. In this radical new hybrid Block model, students study one unit/subject at a time over four weeks. The article reports on preliminary results after two years of implementing the VU Block Model. While both traditional and new-generation cohorts significantly improved their performance, there was a higher improvement in the pass rates of LSES, NESB and FiF students, compared to the improvements in the traditional cohorts of students. These initial results confirm the value of the institution-wide strategy to expand opportunity and enhance success for all.

“I Felt I Arrived Home”: The Minority Trajectory of Mobility for First-in-Family Hungarian Roma Graduates

This chapter explores the upward social mobility trajectories, and the corollary prices of them for those 45, first-in-family college educated Roma in Hungary who come from socially disadvantaged and marginalised family and community background. We argue that among the academically high-achieving participants of our study the most common upward mobility trajectory, contrary to the common belief of assimilation, is their distinctive minority mobility path which leads to their selective acculturation into the majority society. This distinctive incorporation into the mainstream is close to what the related academic scholarship calls the ‘minority culture of mobility’. The three main elements of this distinct mobility trajectory among the Roma are (1) The construction of a Roma middle class identity that takes belonging to the Roma community as a source of pride, in contrast of the widespread racial stereotypes in Hungary (and all over Europe) that are closely tied to the perception of Roma as a member of the underclass, (2) The creation of grass-roots ethnic (Roma) organizations and (3) The practice of giving back to their people of origin that relegate many Roma professionals to a particular segment of the labour market, in jobs to help communities in need. However, we argue that in the case of the Hungarian Roma, these elements of the minority culture of mobility did not serve the purpose of their economic mobility as the original concepts (Neckerman et al. Ethnic and Racial Studies 22(6):945–965, 1999) posits, but to mitigate the price of changing social class and to make sense of the hardship of their social ascension.

Accumulating Roma cultural capital: First-in-family graduates and the role of educational talent support programs in Hungary in mitigating the price of social mobility

Based on 165 in-depth, narrative life story interviews with first generation graduates, fieldwork with educational support initiatives and auto-ethnography, this article contributes to the literature on whether and how structural educational inequality can be compensated by talent support programs and whether and how these programs can mitigate the price of education-driven upward social mobility for those Roma and nonRoma Hungarians who come from socio-economically disadvantaged families. Upwardly mobile Roma who achieve social ascension through academic high achievement usually travel vast social distances that straddle class and ethnic context. Many of their mobility trajectories are accompanied by a set of challenges that are unique to college educated, racialized, underrepresented minorities. To overcome these challenges, and to compensate for the inequality of life chances that originate from their socially and economically disadvantaged family backgrounds and from an unequal and highly selective educational system, upwardly mobile minority students join educational support initiatives or organisations. This paper, drawing on the narratives of our research participants, argues that particular types of these initiatives or charitable foundations that deploy an ethnically targeted complex approach, can equip their beneficiaries with different types of capital. Amongst these, one of the most important is the Roma cultural capital. The newly gained capitals are necessary for the first-in-family Roma mentees to get through higher education and succeed in the labour market in the context of the specific challenges they face. These initiatives mitigate the price of social ascension the most. The paper uses a case study of Romaversitas to demonstrate its main findings.