Investigating College Students' Lived Experiences Through Archival Research: An Organizational Culture Approach

• In Event: Meaning-Making and Making-Meaningful in Life Stories

Abstract

One of the challenges that researchers studying college students face when doing archival research is how to situate collections of student-created archival materials into a broader analysis of students’ meaning-making activities. This paper proposes an analytical lens for these materials rooted in the study of organizational culture and four means through which it is perpetuated: language, stories, rituals, and symbols. When considered as vessels for the transmission of multiple variants of organizational culture, these archival materials take on added significance in helping researchers to interpret the socioemotional changes, identity development, and individual meaning-making that constitute “the college experience.”

Author

• David M. Brown, Ohio University