Narrative Insight Into How Rural, First-Generation College Students and Their Families Establish Nondeficit, Multi-Sited Identities

• In Event: Lived Experiences in Negotiating Diverse Rural Identities

Abstract

This study examines experiences of rural, first-generation college (RFGC) students as juniors and seniors as they navigate questions of identity, belonging, and life-course possibilities in relation to multiple commitments including “home” and “school” cultural worlds. Evidence is drawn from 4, in-depth narrative interviews with 15 RFGC students conducted both at school and in students’ home communities. We examine how identity is negotiated across places and relational networks that students construe in varied ways – e.g., synergistic, contrasting, potentially incommensurate. Preliminary findings show RFGC students putting place and community to use as identity and ideological resources in different ways. The study contributes to anti-deficit understanding rural students’ college experiences and identity, focusing on the cultural strengths that rural students leverage to succeed.

Authors

• Sarah Jusseaume, University of New Hampshire

• Andrew D Coppens, University of New Hampshire

• Jayson Seaman, University of New Hampshire

• Erin Sharp, University of New Hampshire

• Cindy Hartman, University of New Hampshire