A Model Recognizing the Community Cultural Wealth of Students of Color Within an Institutional Context

• In Event: Debunking the Grit Narrative and Drawing on the Strengths of Black and Latinx College Students

Abstract

Latinx/African American students differ from their white counterparts (see Natour, Locks, & Bowman, 2011). Similar trends and patterns are also true for their college, choice, access, persistence, and retention once they transition to college (Author, 2013). The socioeconomic realities for many first-generation, students of color from low-income backgrounds attending college can be a unique experience as they navigate a new college environment while managing multiple responsibilities (Author, 2013). Often, these realities lead scholars to view students as deficient and often lacking the drive and commitment to solely focus on their academics, which is reminiscent of the grit debate in K-12 arena. A lack of grit is not the only explanation for students’ persistence and retention in college; a lack of appropriate financial aid, academic and social support, coupled with hostile racial campus climates, create challenges and inadequate pathways into, through and out of higher education (Gross, 2011; Harper, 2012). Thus, we must continue to think differently about who are the students we are serving as well examine the systems and structures that create or hinder opportunities.

In examining databases from the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) at UCLA and the National Survey on Student Engagement (NSSE) at Indiana University, we present a conceptual framework that could be used for institutional studies to reimagine what questions can be asked of data that take into account the strengths of African American and Latinx students. We combine the anti-deficit models and work of Yosso (2006) on community cultural wealth and Ladson-Billings (1995; 1998; 2006) on challenging the notion of the ‘achievement gap.’ In her work on challenging the traditional interpretation of Bourdieu’s theory of reproduction on cultural capital in education (1986), Yosso outlines six forms of capitals, or strengths that Latinx students possess due to their lived experiences (2006): aspirational, familial, social, linguistic, navigational, and resistant capital. Most recently, drawing upon her corpus of scholarship, Ladson-Billings (2015) challenges the widely held notion of grit (by the work of Duckworth et al., 2007) discussing five key elements of how African American students already possess grit, effectively debunking the notion that students are void of grit: perseverance, resilience, optimism, confidence, and creativity.

Our model 21st Century Student Persistence at Broad Access 4 Year Institutions assumes that African American and Latinx students already have merit and grit: perseverance, resilience, optimism, confidence, and creativity (Ladson-Billings, 2015). We propose new ways of examining secondary and institutional data available from research centers such as those at HERI and NSSE., influenced by Carter and Hurtado’s (2007) work on critical quantitative work. By reporting on revised and reimagined HERI/CIRP and NSSE constructs, we use factor analyses to better capture experience and realities of diverse students. Our work presents opportunities to not just report lower alphas and loadings for constructs for African American/Latinx students, but to extend work done by HERI and NSSE and offer appropriate factors such that researchers are positioned to ask more thoughtful, intentional and appropriate research questions of this secondary data for racially and ethnically diverse college students.

Authors

• Angela M. Locks, California State University - Long Beach

• Rocio Mendoza, Claremont Graduate University