A Study of the Experiences of Queer Alumni with Virtual Communities and Environments During College

• In Event: AERA Graduate Student Research-in-Progress Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: Examinations of Teaching and Learning From Pre-School to Graduate School (Table 9)

Abstract

This paper is a working paper for dissertation research that examines the ways in which queer-identified people who have completed their baccalaureate degree describe and characterize their involvement virtual environments and communities during their undergraduate career. By employing Goffman's (1959, 1967) symbolic interactionist framing to situate these experiences within Tinto's (1997) Suggested Model Linking Classrooms, Learning, and Persistence, this phenomenological study seeks to understand how queer alumni describe their role in and use of virtual environments and communities to persist to degree-attainment.

Author

• Bret R. Beaufeaux, Teachers College, Columbia University