Doctoral Dissertation Research: College and Community Cultures and Upwardly-Mobile of Mexican-Origin Students

对于来自低收入和工人阶级背景的学生来说，向上流动的过程涉及采用与其原籍社区的观点和做法形成对比的观点或做法。本研究的目的是了解大学，家庭和社区文化如何相互作用，以塑造学生的经验，因为他们过渡到大学。学生的种族/民族和社区文化在他们融入学院和大学文化以及中产阶级时扮演什么角色？该方法包括对大约60名大学生的采访和对8名学生的观察，他们都在同一个墨西哥裔美国人的工人阶级社区长大。访谈和观察将比较参加中等选择性学校的学生和参加选择性较低的学校的学生。这项研究推进了围绕大学在减少不平等方面所起作用的研究。鉴于高等教育的迅速扩张及其对工人阶级背景的学生的更大可及性，本项目研究属于中产阶级的含义是否在大学背景下有所不同，以及现有社会阶级等级制度的再现程度。此外，学生与原籍社区的接触是否因大学的选择而异也具有重要意义，因为它关系到大学校园学术和学生生活的政策。先前的研究发现，与中产阶级同龄人不同，工人阶级大学生很难调和与中产阶级和工人阶级文化相关的言论，习惯和实践形式。然而，以前的研究集中在精英大学或名牌大学学生向上移动的大学经历上，除了少数例外，没有普遍评估文化是如何扎根于学生的？种族-族裔认同有助于他们融入中产阶级。 这项研究借鉴了布迪厄和同事？惯习的概念，了解大学，家庭和社区文化如何影响墨西哥裔学生的类惯习。本研究采用半结构化访谈和参与观察，对来自一个工人阶级社区的学生的经验进行了比较评估，这些学生参加了一个中等选择性的旗舰机构，而来自同一社区的学生参加了一所竞争力较低的当地大学。首席研究员研究了种族在调解大学影响学生的方式中所起的作用？中产阶级习性的发展以及大学文化是否因学校选择和/或社区背景而异。该项目推动理论辩论超越假设，即大学的中产阶级文化在学校选择性和社区背景下保持静态，并考虑对属于中产阶级意味着什么的理解可能也会因社会背景而异。由于这项研究还探讨了大学文化如何帮助学生建立或打破与家乡社区的联系，它具有重要的政策意义，因为它涉及到大学如何构建学术课程以及校园和学生生活的重要方面。

For students from low-income and working-class backgrounds, the process of upward mobility involves adopting perspectives or developing practices that contrast with the perspectives and practices of their communities of origin. The objective of this study is to understand how college, family and community cultures interact to shape the experience of students as they transition to college. What role do students' racial/ethnic and community cultures play as they assimilate into the college and university culture and the middle-class? The methodology includes interviews with approximately 60 college students and observations of eight students, all of whom grew up in the same Mexican-American, working-class community. The interviews and observations will compare students who attend a moderately selective school with students who attend a less selective school. This study advances research surrounding the role that the university plays in reducing inequality. Given the rapid expansion of higher education and its greater accessibility to students from working-class backgrounds, this project examines whether what it means to belong to the middle-class differs across university contexts and the extent to which existing social class hierarchies are reproduced. Moreover, whether student engagement with their communities of origin varies across university selectivity also carries important implications as it relates to policies surrounding academic and student life on college campuses. Previous research finds that unlike their middle-class peers, working-class college students struggle to reconcile forms of speech, habits and practices associated with both their middle-class and working-class cultures. Previous research, however, has concentrated on the upwardly mobile college experiences of students attending elite or selective universities and, with few exceptions, has not generally assessed how culture rooted in students? racial-ethnic identity contributes to their assimilation into the middle class. This study draws on Bourdieu and colleagues? concept of habitus to understand how university, family and community culture influence Mexican-origin students' class habitus. Using semi-structured interviews and participant observation, this study takes a comparative assessment of the experiences of students from one working-class community who attended a moderately selective, flagship institution and students from the same community who attended a less competitive, local university. The lead researcher examines the role that race plays in mediating the way in which the university influences students? development of a middle-class habitus as well as whether university culture varies based on school selectivity and/or community contexts. The project pushes theoretical debates to move beyond assumptions that the middle-class culture of the university remains static across school selectivity and community contexts and to consider that understandings of what it means to belong to the middle-class likely vary across social contexts as well. Because this study also examines how university cultures help students build or break ties with their home communities, it carries important policy implications as it relates to how colleges structure academic curriculums and important aspects of campus and student life.