Near-peer Mentors Draw On and Build Cultural Capital as Mobile Making Facilitators

• In Event: Scaling Out, Up, and Deep: Mobile Making Afterschool Program across Four California State University Campuses

Abstract

In Mobile Making, university students act as facilitators for youth engaged in STEM-Making. This reflects a Mobile Making design principle on the importance of diverse near-peer mentors (Price et al., 2023). This design principle is motivated by research suggesting that near-peer mentors with shared experiences or similar backgrounds can be transformative for minority students (Brown, 2004) and that near-peer mentors can help students develop a sense of belonging and identity in STEM, where minority students are historically underrepresented (Zaniewski and Reinholz, 2016). This poster explores how undergraduate STEM major facilitators draw on and develop their cultural wealth to be effective near-peer mentors in the Mobile Making program.
California State University San Marcos (CSUSM) is located in a diverse region in southern California and is a minority- and Hispanic-serving Institution. In the CSUSM Mobile Making program, the paid undergraduate facilitators major in STEM and are members of underrepresented groups (mostly Hispanic/ Latino/ Latina), most are female, and most are first-generation college students. As a regional university, CSUSM draws students from the surrounding region. Many undergraduate STEM major facilitators are members of the same community as the children they work with at school sites. In some cases, our undergraduate facilitators attended the same school at which they implemented the Mobile Making after-school program.
We conducted virtual interviews with 12 Mobile Making facilitators who are members of minoritized groups. Interview topics included students' motivation to participate in the program, experiences working with youth, and connections to their own previous experiences. Drawing on Yosso's (2005) community cultural wealth model, we coded interview transcripts for instances of cultural capital and then analyzed coded segments to identify themes. For example, when asked to reflect on similarities between their own childhood and the youth they interact with, one undergraduate said, "leading some of these activities has been kind of my way of giving back... I wanna try to put kids on the same path that I was..." This was coded as aspirational capital, indicative of the student's hopes for the future. Across the interviews, in segments coded as aspirational capital, students described both wanting to support and seeing themselves in the youth participants. Students also talked about their own goals and career interests.
Our findings suggest Yosso's forms of cultural capital are assets students bring to their work and an important part of their effectiveness as near-peer mentors. Conversely, in many cases, the experience of being a Mobile Making facilitator helps students further develop their cultural capital. This poster will summarize our findings and implications for programs involving near-peer facilitators.

Authors

• Kayleen Diaz, California State University - San Marcos

• Edward Price, California State University - San Marcos

• Brean Prefontaine, Duke University

• Raquel Yoshinaga, California State University - San Marcos

• Mallory Rice, California State University - San Marcos