(Re)Structuring and (Re)Imagining the First-Year Experience for Graduate Students of Color Using Community Cultural Wealth

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session Ten
  In Roundtable Session: "I Spy With My Little Eye" Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Reimagining Graduate Education (Table 1)

Abstract

The existing literature on graduate students of color portrays them and their communities with a deficit perspective. This study explored the Community Cultural Wealth of graduate students of color during their first-year of graduate education. Utilizing a phenomenological research approach, we found that graduate students of color relied on their social and navigational capital to combat structural, systematic, racial and personal challenges during their first-year of graduate studies. Findings indicated that graduate students of color created and discovered communities where they belonged, negotiating their support systems, and benefitted from faculty of color and their validation. Implications of this work challenge graduate schools to restructure and reimagine how their programs and institutions are benefiting first-year graduate students of color.

Authors

• Ivan Valdovinos, University of California - San Diego
  Presenting Author

• Lillie Ko Wong
  Presenting Author