Using Social Theory to Empower First-Generation Students at an Elite College

• In Event: Moscone Center West Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Marginalized Voices in Higher Education

Abstract

This qualitative study explores the effects of explicitly teaching social theory to underrepresented college students. Rather than treat nontraditional students as lacking or in need, this approach strives to use a “desire-based” (Tuck, 2009) approach to support social and academic success in college through exposure to concepts in the study of social class, including: social reproduction and mobility, cultural capital, habitus, and code-switching. After one or two years as undergraduates in an elite college, students who took the course report feeling empowered in three ways: by having language to describe what they are experiencing, through exploring structural inequality in their own lives in and out of college, and by resisting elite cultural norms on campus.

Author

• Heather Curl, Antioch University