Academic Identity Development Among Students From Two Early College High Schools

• In Event: College Identity Development in Students

Abstract

This study of academic identity development has followed students at two separate Early College High Schools (ECHSs) – one in Southern California and one in the Midwest. Researchers conducted in-depth interviews with approximately 70 students over eight years, using grounded theory to analyze students’ evolving conceptions of themselves as learners. Findings reveal how ECHS both supports and complicates students’ transitions to, and through, college. Students describe struggling to balance their schools’ expectations of them with their own personally set and evolving goals; they also discuss learning to identify and access needed resources and social supports particularly salient to first-generation college-goers. Recurring themes and implications for the approximately 50,000 students currently served by the ECHS initiative are discussed.

Authors

• Laura Carolyn Murray, University of Pennsylvania

• Gina M. Arnone, University of Pennsylvania

• Michael J. Nakkula, University of Pennsylvania