Self-Authorship and Cultural Wealth in the Liminal Space of First-Generation College Student Status

• In Event: Thursday Roundtable Session 4:20 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Navigating Higher Education: Exploring Belonging, Identity, and Resilience Among Undergraduate Students (Table 30)

Abstract

This conceptual analysis brings together literature on the identity development of first-generation college students. The underpinnings of this analysis are three theoretical concepts: first, the theory of self-authorship, second, a third-wave student development framework of liminality, and third, an anti-deficit lens for viewing social capital. While challenges that first-generation college students face are well-studied, fewer researchers have mapped the experiences of these students onto the stages of self-authorship in the context of the highly unique liminality in which these students often exist. A visual model is proposed as a novel critical framework through which first-generation college student development may be studied by intentionally situating the population at the intersection of self-authorship, liminality, and social capital.

Author

• Susannah W Townsend, The Ohio State University