First-Generation College Students: A Guide to Resources: Home

"[E]xplores class identity reconstructions among working-class students attending a public university. Rather than focus on working-class failure, this book takes a critical look at the psychological and social costs of academic success. Based on several hours of interviews with a diverse group of working-class students, this book describes how successful students respond to, react to, and manage their academic success. The book does for class what other theorists have done for race, examining the dynamic interplay of class identity and education; and in doing so, presents a new way of understanding social mobility in the United States today and the limits of the American Dream."--BOOK JACKET.

Google Books Preview: https://books.google.com/books?id=2aTHaRr74dUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA66#v=onepage&q&f=false

"Rebecca D. Cox draws on five years of interviews and observations at community colleges. She shows how students and their instructors misunderstand and ultimately fail one another, despite good intentions. Most memorably, she describes how easily students can feel defeated-by their real-world responsibilities and by the demands of college-and come to conclude that they just don't belong there after all. Eye-opening even for experienced faculty and administrators, The College Fear Factor reveals how the traditional college culture can actually pose obstacles to students' success, and suggests strategies for effectively explaining academic expectations."

Google Books Preview: https://books.google.com/books?id=sTBIKRk1LJ4C&lpg=PP1&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false

"This book reveals the powerful patterns of social inequality in American higher education by analyzing how the social background of students shapes nearly every facet of the college experience. Interviews with students from Yale and Southern Connecticut State University highlight how American higher education reinforces the same inequalities it has been aiming to transcend. -- Book Jacket"

Special issue of the journal, New Directions for Teaching and Learning (issue #127)

"... this volume's chapters extend previous research by examining the multiple transitions experienced by both undergraduate and graduate FGS. This volume's cutting edge research will help college and university administrators, faculty, and staff work better with FGS through more effective pedagogy and institutional programs. Ultimately, this volume affirms how learning communities are strengthened when they include diverse student populations such as FGS and meet their particular emotional, academic, and financial needs."

"I have traveled the U.S. and abroad collecting the voices of youth, then bringing their words into print and mixed-media forms. Grounded in the rough and subtle realities of adolescence, these voices cut close to the bone -- illuminating "best practices" in education, and revealing the fault lines that divide students along lines of class, color, and money. I aim to bring young people's vivid experiences and insights to an even wider audience, by speaking, writing, and collaborating with you who share a commitment to equity, opportunity, and powerful learning for all."

Google Books Preview

[pt. 1] How many first-generation college students are there? --
[pt. 2] The observable behaviors of first-generation college students --
[pt. 3] The internal psychology of first-generation college students --
[pt. 4] In their own words --
[pt. 5] Narrative analysis --
[pt. 6] Recommendations.

"A long way from home: deepening our understanding of first-generation students -- Strangers without codebooks: isolation and marginalization -- Re-imagining the university: theoretical approaches to serving first-generation college students -- Toward community, connectedness, and care -- Rationale and design for the multicultural learning community -- Belonging and finding place -- Claiming self: identity and academic voice -- On critiques and possibilities."

"In this book, Jenny Stuber argues that the experiential core of college life-the social and extra-curricular worlds of higher education-operates as a setting in which social class inequalities manifest and get reproduced. As college students form friendships and get involved in activities like Greek life, study abroad, and student government, they acquire the social and cultural resources that give them access to valuable social and occupational opportunities beyond the college gates. Yet students' social class backgrounds also impact how they experience the experiential core of college life, structuring their abilities to navigate their campus's social and extra-curricular worlds... By focusing on student' social class worldviews, this book provides insight into how identities and consciousness are shaped within educational settings. Ultimately, this examination of what happens inside the college gates shows how which higher education serves as an avenue for social reproduction, while also providing opportunities for the contestation of class inequalities."

Google Books Preview: https://books.google.com/books?id=4Tg6rDGQdFQC&lpg=PP1&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false

Section I. Introduction and pedagogical foundations --
1. Introduction and overview of book's objectives / Teresa Heinz Housel and Vickie L. Harvey --
2. Guiding class consciousness in first-generation college students: a pragmatic approach to classism in the academy / Brandi Lawless --
3. Until Mr. Right comes along: social mobility, higher education, and the lure of cultural elitism / JoAnne M. Podis --
Section II. Meeting the challenges of first-generation students through academic programs --
4. The role of generational status, program affiliation, and cultural background in the performance of college students / Alice Araujo and Andreas Anastasiou --
5. Humble and hopeful: welcoming first-generation poor and working-class students to college / Kenneth Oldfield --
6. Understanding the impacts of socioeconomic status on first-generation students: a case study / Harmony Paulsen and Jena Griswold --
7. Opportunities and challenges in a university-level program for first-generation students / Keith Nainby --
8. Creating living and learning communities that engage our first-generation students: suggestions for policy and practice / Rita L. Rahoi-Gilchrest, Sarah Olcott, and Ron Elcombe --
9. The nine needs of lower-income, first-generation college students / Charlie Johnson --

Google Books Preview: https://books.google.com/books?id=EFhkUUjEPQ0C&lpg=PP1&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false
"These autobiographical and analytical essays by a diverse group of professors and graduate students from working-class families reveal an academic world in which "blue-collar work is invisible." Describing conflict and frustration, the contributors expose a divisive middle-class bias in the university setting. Many talk openly about how little they understood about the hierarchy and processes of higher education, while others explore how their experiences now affect their relationships with their own students. They all have in common the anguish of choosing to hide their working-class background, to keep the language of home out of the classroom and the ideas of school away from home. These startlingly personal stories highlight the fissure between a working-class upbringing and the more privileged values of the institution."

This book is currently not available via CLICnet. However, you can submit an Interlibrary Loan request for it from this page. Note that there is a Google Preview available.
"While stories of working-class and minority students overcoming obstacles to attend and graduate from college tend to emphasize the individualistic and meritocratic aspect, this book - based in extensive empirical study of American high school classrooms, and in theories of social and cultural capital - examines the social relations that often underpin such successes, highlighting the significant formal and informal academic interventions by educators and other education professionals"

Praise for First-Generation College Students "Who students are when they start college does not dictate how much they can benefit, provided they take advantage of the myriad learning opportunities institutions offer. This book is replete with informative insights into the invisible minority we call 'first-gen students' as well as the policies, programs, and practices institutions should use to help them succeed." -George D. Kuh, Chancellor's Professor of Higher Education Emeritus, Indiana University