Urban Middle School Students’ Experiences of College Life

• In Event: Roundtable Session 19
  In Roundtable Session: Urban Learning, Teaching, and Research: Roundtable

Abstract

As students from economically impoverished areas continue to drop out of high school at alarming rates, we need to look at their critical middle school experiences. “College Immersion” is a university-middle school collaboration that strived to enrich the academic experiences of middle grades students from two high poverty urban middle schools by providing students with four days of college life. After analyzing data from 138 students over three years, we began to develop a framework for college readiness in middle school. Following College Immersion, students (1) began to envision themselves as college students (2) gained deeper understandings of college (3) expressed confidence negotiating college life experiences and (4) made direct connections between their present schoolwork and their future life-chances.

Author

• Mary Beth Schaefer, Saint John's University