The Impact of Discrimination on First-Generation College Students’ Belonging and GPA during the COVID-19 Pandemic

• In Event: Racism and Other Identities on Youth Wellbeing and Learning: Use of Intersectionality

Abstract

First-generation college students (FGCS; i.e. individuals whose parents/guardians have not completed college) are enrolling in university at increasing rates, but continue to face disparate academic outcomes (Ishitani, 2006). A powerful yet understudied factor that contributes to FGCS’ lower graduation rates is campus discrimination. FGCS face risk of class and income discrimination at both the structural and individual level, in addition to other forms of discrimination that target additional marginalized identities (e.g., race, immigration status; Ellis et al., 2019). Importantly, discrimination undermines feelings of belonging on campus, a critical component for college success (Duffy et al., 2019; Garriott, 2019). Belonging has been found to predict academic performance, self-potential, and persistence to graduation (Walton & Cohen, 2007, 2011; Yeager et al., 2016) and unsurprisingly, FGCS report lower belonging than their more privileged peers (Stephens et al. 2014). Given the climate of the current COVID-19 pandemic, it is expected that all college students are facing threats to their belonging due to structural changes (e.g., shifts to online learning). However, the pandemic may be particularly harmful to FGCS’ experiences with discrimination, further jeopardizing their belonging and, in turn, their academic performance. The current study aims to examine how campus discrimination contributes to FGCS’ academic performance via their sense of belonging, during the COVID pandemic. Participants were 260 FGCS (76.9% female; 27.3% Latinx, 26.5% White, 21.5% Black, 10% Asian, 14.7% multiracial or other) attending three U.S. institutions (a predominantly White institution in the southeast, a historically Black university in the southeast, and a private, Catholic institution with a majority commuter population in a midwestern city). Data were collected during spring 2020, when COVID intensified in the U.S. A mean of frequency items on the Everyday Discrimination Scale (Williams et al., 1997) was used to assess campus discrimination. The 18-item revised Psychological Sense of School Membership (Goodenow, 1993) was averaged to represent students’ belonging to their university. Self-reported GPA during the spring 2020 academic term was used to capture student’s academic performance. Mediation analyses were conducted on the relationship between discrimination and GPA through belonging, covarying for site, biological sex, race, income, and COVID-related stressors. Results indicated a significant total effect of discrimination on GPA. Mediation analyses, using 5000 bootstrapping iterations, demonstrated a significant full mediation effect such that when controlling for belonging, the direct effect of discrimination on GPA was no longer significant. The bootstrapped indirect effect was -.07 [-.140, -.003]. Figure 1 illustrates the standardized regression coefficients for all pathways. Given the lower graduation rates among FGCS, it is critical to elucidate how discrimination shapes FGCS’ belonging and, in turn, their academic performance. Existing research often points to deficits among FGCS that contribute to their disparate outcomes instead of exploring the direct impact that college culture has on their well-being and academic trajectories. Moreover, it is particularly important to look at this relationship during the current pandemic, which may present an additional disproportionate risk factor that will further perpetuate social inequities.

Authors

• Nicola Forbes, Fordham University
  Presenting Author

• Jasmine Cosby, Fordham University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Elizabeth Raposa
  Non-Presenting Author