Leveraging Rural Resources: How Community Cultural Wealth Helps Rural Students Navigate College Campuses

• In Event: 31.078 - Rural Postsecondary Aspirations and Access

Abstract

Rural students enter higher education with unique knowledge and skills developed in their rural context. Using Yosso’s (2005) community cultural wealth model this study examined how rural students leveraged different forms of capital within the new context of higher education. Acknowledging that Yosso’s work focuses on communities of color, this work did not seek to equate race and rurality; however, it allowed the capacity for understanding the diverse racial and ethnic identities of the students who participated in the study and that are too often erased from rural narratives. This work highlights rich resources that students bring into higher education from their rural communities and explores how students can use various forms of capital to help them persist to graduation.

Author

• Ashley N. Stone, The George Washington University