Educated Out: The Hidden Geography of College Opportunity

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 9:50 am Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Navigating College Access and Rural Identities in Higher Education (Table 10)

Abstract

This paper shares the results of a five-year-long ethnographic study of rural, first-generation students’ college aspirations, transitions, and experiences. The study uses extensive interview data to trace the experiences of nine rural, first-generation students at an elite liberal arts college. Rurality influences each part of the students’ college path: their college aspirations and admissions, their rocky first years, the political and cultural straddling of their subsequent years, and their post-graduation plans to leave rural America. Using the concept of spatial injustice (Soja, 2010)—that is, the uneven distribution of resources across geography—I argue that college opportunity has an uneven geography that determines who gets a college education and what these graduates and their communities must pay in return.

Author

• Mara C. Tieken, Bates College