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Intersections of Identity: Low-Income and Working Class Students
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Intersections of Identity: Low-Income and Working Class Students
Outcomes of social class and classism in first- and continuing-generation college students
This study sought to examine perceptions of classism to better understand academic and well-being outcomes among first generation, low-income college students. More than 1,200 participants—most of whom identified as continuing-generation students (n = 922)—took part. The authors examined first generation status and social class as predictors of classism and, in turn, as a predictor of life satisfaction, academic satisfaction, and GPA. They found that social class and first-generation status predicted perceptions of classism, which, in turn, predicted life satisfaction and academic satisfaction. Students also shared that some of the classism they experienced was institutional, which often led to low participation in sports teams, clubs and organizations, and social activities.
The privileged poor: How elite colleges are failing disadvantaged students.
In this qualitative study, Jack focused on the experiences of first generation, low-income students at an elite, private institution. His interviews make clear that not all of these students experience the university in the same way, and he notes that the “privileged poor” typically adjust more quickly to school because of their prior exposure to elite institutions while in high school. Alternatively, the so-called doubly disadvantaged have a harder transition. Jack argues that institutions must be cognizant of the heterogeneity within the first-generation and low-income populations, and he stresses that college access is not enough to create equitable outcomes for these students.
Upwardly Mobile: Attitudes Toward the Class Transition Among First-Generation College Students
Using Bourdieu’s cultural capital theory and Hurst’s class identity model (2010) as the frameworks for the study, Hinz interviewed 12 students and four faculty/staff members at a large, public, selective Midwestern university. The study aimed to answer the following two questions: How do first generation students explain their “class identity reformation”? And what factors influence their attitudes toward class transition when they are in college? The author found that first-generation students could identify differences between working- and middle-class traits but did not hold loyalty to one class or another. Hinz proposes an expansion of Hurst’s categories of types of first-generation students from two categories (Loyalists and Renegades) to four: Loyalists, Mobile Loyalists, Renegades, and Converts. Hinz suggests that the new categories of Mobile Loyalists and Converts indicate that first-generation students experienced positive experiences with the class transition, and that these nuanced categories of class identity were assisted by coursework, role models, and a reassuring student organization.
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