Faith Communities and Educational Cultural Capital Transmission

• In Event: Cross-national perspectives on schooling and religious identities within institutions and individuals

Proposal

This mixed-methods study explores the question “How do community-based and faith-based organizations support academically successful students from low-income backgrounds?” using a framework of educational cultural capital. Through a survey (n=520) and interviews (n=17) with first generation students at a four-year research university, participants are invited to reflect back on relationships and experiences through community-based or religious organizations during their K-12 years that provided the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed academically.
Students from low-income backgrounds achieve academic success in part through “pivotal moments” (Espinoza, 2011; Lareau, 2015), interactions with college-educated adults that can give them specific information to navigate educational systems. Many schools are working diligently to provide these pivotal moments through teachers, counselors and programs within schools (Bernhardt, 2013), driven by the perception that they may be the only college-educated adults their students will ever see. This study investigates the possibility that, nestled in the corners of students’ and parents’ social networks, could be co-workers, neighbors, coaches, godparents, club leaders, and faith community participants who could also provide some of the educational cultural capital that students need, if these out-of-school influencers are trained or incorporated into partnerships. Schools and teachers need partnership from adults in their surrounding communities (Epstein, 1996; Warren, 2014; Ream, Ryan, & Espinoza, 2012). Adults in these out-of-school and faith community networks also need the expertise of educators to effectively provide the information and guidance students need to achieve academic success and social mobility (Foley, McCarthy, & Chavez, 2001).
In the literature review, it becomes clear that students from low-income backgrounds benefit from the social ties and educational cultural capital constructed through participation in community organizations and faith communities. However, the quantitative analyses here demonstrate that students who are the first in their family to attend college (first generation) who participate in out-of-school activities at equal rates as their non-first generation peers still report knowing fewer college-educated adults and receiving less information about college through those experiences. This indicates there are missed opportunities for college-educated adults to transmit educational cultural capital to youth in their communities. The results of the path analysis also reveal that when first generation students are connected to college-educated adults in their parents’ peer networks, they have greater academic success.
To identify examples of how these social ties facilitate educational cultural capital, the qualitative side of the study examines the networks and relationships in the K-12 experiences of first generation students through semi-structured interviews. Since faith communities provide one of the few consistent out-of-school spaces for interactions across social classes (Foley, McCarthy, & Chaves, 2001; Putnam, Campbell, & Garrett, 2012), the interviews focus on students who were involved in Muslim, Jewish, Protestant, and Catholic faith communities. Fourteen of the seventeen participants were first-, 1.5, or second-generation immigrants. Interview participants emphasized the importance of non-parental adults in providing information and support for both them and their parents. Providing access to networks in which college-educated adults intentionally transmit academic messages to low-income youth and where parents have the opportunity to create interclass ties is key to helping students succeed academically.
One of the ways that faith communities helped students was by supporting their whole family, giving their parents the opportunity to be involved and empowered, to have leadership. Sometimes in schools, parents and students from working class backgrounds are reluctant to get involved. They may keep a distance from authority. But participating in faith communities and interacting with priests, pastors, and other leaders provided an opportunity for them to interact with those authority figures in a positive way and learn those patterns and behaviors.
The opportunities for Pivotal Moments were greatest when students were in socially heterogeneous faith communities which provided a setting in which multiple social classes were all interacting together rather than a homogeneous group. Lina was part of this kind of community that spanned social classes; though there were challenges in navigating as one of the only people of color there, there were also advantages of being able to interact with other students with college-educated parents. When Catarina’s family joined the English-speaking church, she also became part of a community that gave her the opportunity to interact with college student and recent college graduates. Sherryen described her intergenerational experiences of learning to know educated adults, such as her Arabic tutor and the UC Riverside alumnus who talked with her on the phone. Teresa, through having the opportunity to attend the parochial school, had the opportunity to live in a “hybrid habitus.” She could see the church in her own community that was more socially homogeneous, where there were expectations of remaining in the area and not necessarily attending college. Yet she was also part of the Catholic high school, where there was a range of students from different social classes, and the college expectation was built into the explicit and implicit messaging.
A unique component of this study is the decision to include students from four different faith communities. Most educational research studies that include a discussion of faith communities focus on only one religious group. Here, the inclusion of students from various religious groups allows for emergence of common themes and comparisons across groups to provide a more robust discussion on the various relationships and experiences that allow for transmission of educational cultural capital. As the religious landscape in the United States continues to diversify, it will be increasingly important for scholars to find ways to work across religious lines.

Author

• Elizabeth Jill Claassen Thrush, Claremont Graduate University