Help-seeking Behaviors as Cultural Capital: How Schools Shape the College Experiences of Low-income First-generation Students

• In Event: 2484 - Section on Sociology of Education Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 05. Cultural Capital

Abstract

This paper problematizes the view of educational institutions as functioning exclusively to reproduce social inequality. Instead, it breaks new ground by arguing that educational institutions can transmit cultural capital in the form of help-seeking values and behaviors that can positively impact students’ academic outcomes. The study draws on interviews with graduates of King and Chavez respectively, two high schools that approached college preparedness based on the Early College model. Even so, King graduates were more strategic help-seekers than their Chavez counterparts because this skill was taught systematically as part of their school’s “gateway” curriculum. These student narratives show how a specific educational intervention can contribute to transforming college students approach to help-seeking. In particular, it highlights the significance of high school teachers and administrators as “cultural guides” who can bolster students’ opportunities for social mobility. Such guides can decode the unwritten rules for successfully navigating higher education institutions, providing the kind of coaching that middle class youth take for granted, but that working-class parents typically cannot provide. These findings suggest that educational institutions have the potential to disrupt the intergenerational transmission of class privilege in ways that the academic literature has not previously acknowledged.

Author

• Bedelia Nicola Richards, University of Richmond