Navigating Spaces and Tensions Through Voice and Media: The Experience of First-Generation College-Going Students

• In Event: 16.019 - "We All Have Stories to Tell": Pedagogical Possibilities Toward Educational Justice Through Digital Storytelling

Abstract

Defined as students whose parents’ highest educational attainment is a high school diploma, first-generation college-going students have been cited in the research literature as entering higher education institutions as academically, financially, and socially disadvantaged when compared to their peers (Inkelas, Daver, Vogt & Leonard, 2007; Lohfink & Paulsen, 2005; Naumann, Bandalos, & Gutkin, 2003; Padgett, Johnson & Pascarella, 2012; Pascarella, Pierson, Wolniak, & Terenzini, 2004; Vuong, Brown-Welty & Tracz, 2010). Such deficit portrayals of first-generation college-going students ignores the valuable knowledge and experiences that these students bring with them into the college setting. Specifically, the research literature ignores the “cultural wealth” (Yosso, 2005) that these students draw from that lends to their teaching and learning experiences in their new environment. Defined as the skills, abilities, knowledge, and social support that underserved students utilize to resist oppression, cultural wealth represents the resources that these students are utilizing in order to persist academically (Yosso, 2005). In order for faculty members to understand how first-generation college-going students develop meaningful learning experiences in the classroom, it is important for them to understand the resources from which these students draw from that inform and enhance their learning experiences.

This case study examines one student’s experiences using media, music, and technology to share her stories and experiences. For the participant, Kendra (pseudonym), her first year in college was met with many challenges, the biggest being the adjustment she had to make in navigating an unfamiliar and unwelcoming environment. Having experienced several instances of class and racial tensions in her residence hall and in the classroom, Kendra turned to the college radio station to be used as a medium for expressing her frustration and sharing her experience with others who would, hopefully, relate. As a DJ, Kendra felt that she could bring out and share the music, artists, and authors that painted a picture for how she was feeling during times of tension and frustration. Through the radio, Kendra was building her niche on campus, sharing her experiences with a network of students who had experienced the same kinds of tensions and frustrations she had during her first year in college. By understanding Kendra’s cultural wealth, faculty and administrators could understand better what has shaped and informed Kendra’s college-going experiences, and what about these experiences can be drawn from and utilized to motivate further develop and motivate Kendra’s academic persistence. More importantly, by using the concept of “cultural wealth,” faculty teaching practices and practitioner methods can arrive at a more inclusive and nuanced definition of what it means to be a first-generation college-going student, and to one that moves beyond a framework of deficit to one of reciprocal of these students’ experiences.

Author

• Dianne Delima, Teachers College, Columbia University