Effects of Siblings on the Literacy Development of First-Generation College Graduates

• In Event: Surviving and Thriving in the College Context

Abstract

This study in an inquiry into the reading habits, attitudes about books and literacy, supports, and social milieus that contributed to allowing our research participants--40 individuals who have achieved graduate degrees while neither of their parents attended college--to achieve academic success. How do these individuals explain their academic success? And what might educators, parents, and researchers learn from these individuals? The study pays particular attention to the habits of independent and social reading throughout the life course, availability of support for reading at home and school, relationships that fostered or hindered reading habits, the social supports and tensions that participants encountered as they experienced academic success, and the influence of older siblings in the literacy development of participants.

Authors

• Matthew Knoester, University of Evansville

• Mari Plikuhn, University of Evansville