Exploring Overlooked Sites of Social and Cultural Capital Accrual Among First-Generation College Students

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Making Good Trouble: Thinking With Abolition, Cultural Capital, Transgender Studies, and Student Agency

Abstract

A frequently invoked explanation for student success is access to social and cultural capital. This qualitative study draws upon 18 interviews with first-generation college students and examines how students’ most salient learning experiences push back against mainstream conceptualizations of social and cultural capital. Two questions guide this inquiry: (1a) What kind of social and cultural capital do first generation college students garner through their most salient learning experience? and (2) Where do first generation college students apply the social and cultural capital they garner? Students share their most salient learnings as have taken place in non-formal academic contexts and describe how they pragmatically translate these learnings into capital that is recognized by social institutions.

Author

• Socorro Cambero, University of California, Irvine