Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Transition to College Experience of Low-Income Students

博士论文研究：低收入学生向大学经历的过渡

• 批准号: 1702995
• 负责人: Mary Waters
• 金额: $ 1.2万
• 依托单位: Harvard University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-07-01 至 2018-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1702995&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Transition; College

This study examines the experiences of low-income Americans who enroll in college, identifying reasons so many of them drop out. Most low-income Americans now enroll in college, but only 11% earn a bachelor's degree within six years. The project documents the many challenges low-income college students face and observes how they deal with these challenges. This research will provide new insights for sociology on why the American Dream can be so elusive. It will also identify ways that high schools, colleges, and federally funded financial aid programs can better support low-income students.The researcher is spending two years with a small group of students from New Orleans, following them through their senior year of high school and their freshman year of college. As an ethnography of attempted upward mobility focused on the period of the life course when upwardly mobile trajectories are most often derailed, this study will document the most proximate causes of class reproduction for low-income Americans. The study asks two questions: First, what challenges do low-income students face during the transition to college, both in school and out of school, that affect their academic progress? Second, how do students cope with these challenges and make sense of them? Answers to these questions will have important implications for the sociological study of poverty, higher education, and class reproduction. Previous ethnographic work on poverty in America focuses primarily on how low-income people survive poverty and make meaning within it, so this new focus on the experience of trying to escape poverty could shed light on why so few succeed. Moreover, qualitative sociology research to date on the experiences of low-income college students has focused almost exclusively on the small portion of these students who attend selective residential colleges. By studying the experiences of students who live at home while attending community colleges and lower-tier public four-year colleges, this study will provide a needed glimpse of the contexts in which upward mobility most often falters.

这项研究调查了低收入美国人在大学入学的经历，确定了他们中许多人辍学的原因。大多数低收入的美国人现在都上大学，但只有11%的人在六年内获得学士学位。该项目记录了低收入大学生面临的许多挑战，并观察他们如何应对这些挑战。这项研究将为社会学提供新的见解，解释为什么美国梦如此难以捉摸。研究人员花了两年时间对一小群来自新奥尔良的学生进行跟踪调查，跟踪他们的高中四年级和大学一年级。作为一个民族志的尝试向上流动集中在生命历程的时期，向上移动的轨迹是最经常出轨，本研究将记录最接近的原因，阶级再生产的低收入美国人。这项研究提出了两个问题：首先，低收入家庭的学生在向大学过渡的过程中，无论是在学校还是在校外，都面临着哪些影响他们学业进步的挑战？第二，学生如何科普这些挑战并理解它们？这些问题的答案将对贫困、高等教育和阶级再生产的社会学研究产生重要影响。以前关于美国贫困的民族志工作主要集中在低收入人群如何在贫困中生存并在贫困中创造意义，因此这种对试图摆脱贫困的经历的新关注可以揭示为什么很少有人成功。此外，迄今为止，关于低收入大学生经历的定性社会学研究几乎完全集中在参加选择性住宿学院的一小部分学生身上。通过研究那些住在家里，同时就读社区大学和较低层次的公立四年制大学的学生的经历，这项研究将提供一个必要的一瞥，在这种情况下，向上流动最经常动摇。