Redefining Success: The Importance of Communal Success for First-Generation Latino Students

• In Event: Roundtable Session 3
  In Roundtable Session: The Importance of Relationships and College Knowledge for First-Generation College Students

Abstract

This study analyzes qualitative in-depth interviews with 17 first-generation Latino and Bi-Racial (Latino and White) students to uncover how students described the importance of communal success in serving as motivation to persist during college. As students described their success in college they emphasized their ability to serve as a role model to family members. Findings reveal that students attribute their motivation to persist, in part, to serving as role models so that other family members may learn to follow suit, potentially altering their college-going habitus (their ability to view different opportunities as either available or unavailable to them (Bourdieu, 1979/1984). Findings reveal the need for expansion of current notions of what comprises student success.

Author

• Courtney Lauren Luedke, University of Wisconsin - Whitewater