Figure 3. Revised Diagram of Theoretical and Conceptual Frames
The findings of the study provide a more complex and nuanced understanding of the role of social capital within first-generation students’ experiences transitioning into and within the undergraduate academic community. In the initial conceptual framework, I implicitly defined the social capital that students brought with them from high school to college as positive relationships they developed with their high school teachers. However, most students reported developing positive relationships with their high school teachers, and this did not seem to influence students’ overall transition experiences or how they initially perceived their initial
positionality in the undergraduate academic community. The findings indicate that the “college knowledge” students derive from these relationships and their pre-college academic experiences, as well as students’ success in transferring and applying that knowledge in the undergraduate academic community, are important to how students perceive their initial positionality in the community. This suggests that accumulated pre-college social capital may play an indirect role in students’ transition experiences. Although the findings of this study provide a more nuanced understanding of the role of accumulated pre-college social capital, they cannot provide definitive understanding of its relationship to first-generation students’ experiences transitioning into the undergraduate academic community and should be considered in future research. In the revised framework, students’ pre-college academic experiences and accumulated social capital intersect with students’ entry into the undergraduate academic community, because participants’ reflections indicate that students bring these both to bear on their engagement with courses, assignments, and faculty early in their collegiate careers.
The findings also provide a more nuanced understanding of the accumulation of social capital within the undergraduate academic community, in that this accumulation may have a relationship with students’ perceived positionality when they enter the community and as they transition within the academic curriculum. The applicability of the college knowledge derived through pre-college social capital seems to be related to students’ accumulation of social capital in college, a relationship which appears to be mediated by students’ initial perceived positionality in the community. Students who successfully transferred and applied the college knowledge they gained in high school were more likely to position themselves as insiders in the new community and quickly began developing an academic support network. In addition, the findings suggest that the academic curriculum not only serves as a mechanism to introduce
students to a community’s cultural values, it also is a mechanism by which students develop “institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance” (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 248) and accumulate social capital within the undergraduate academic community. Students’ entry into their college major(s) seemed to indicate a shift from supportive interactions, which could either be voluntary or required, to the development of relationships with faculty. In addition, research assignments, as sites of situated learning, throughout the academic curriculum, presented opportunities for students to accumulate social capital through voluntary or required supportive interactions with faculty about their academic performance. In the revised diagram, I demonstrate the shift from interactions to relationships with faculty through experiences with research assignments, the accumulation of social capital, and movement from lower-level courses to upper-level courses in the college major.
In the initial diagram of the undergraduate academic community, the habitus was a single layer that included the core academic literacies valued in the community that students needed to develop and demonstrate in their work to reach full participation. The findings indicate that the relationship between full participation in the community and the core values contained within the community’s habitus may not be as clearly defined as initially suggested. Lave and Wenger (1991) do not elaborate on the nature of full participation; however, based on their discussion of the process leading to full participation in a community, I implicitly surmised that full participation was achieved when peripheral participants incorporate the community’s core values (embodied in the habitus of the community) into their participation in the community and established members validate the newer participants’ membership. However, the findings suggest that peripheral participants may not have to incorporate the community’s core values in their participation to be accepted as full participants. Because of this, the revised diagram
includes two layers of full participation. The outer layer, acceptable full participation, indicates that students may not have completely developed and incorporated the academic literacies contained within the community’s habitus into their participation. A student who successfully completed their capstone experience by relying on a checklist approach to finding, evaluating, and using information is representative of acceptable full participation. Ideal full participation, however, resides fully in the habitus of the community. The permeable boundary between acceptable and ideal full participation indicates that students may demonstrate the academic literacies within the community’s habitus in their participation; however, the demonstration of these literacies may not be consistent and it may not manifest in their capstone experience. Faculty and other institutional agents, such as administrators or librarians, may have idealized expectations for the characteristics and dispositions that students develop throughout their collegiate experiences. However, the findings of this study suggest that, in practical terms, students do not necessarily achieve the ideal before becoming full participants in the community and “good enough” or acceptable may suffice.
A students’ goal orientation to situated learning experiences (i.e. research assignments) and their ability to draw upon their funds of knowledge are not adequately accounted for in this revised framework. A student’s goal orientation to a research assignment, which may have a relationship to the incorporation of a students’ funds of knowledge, seemed to be important for both the development and demonstration of the dispositions and knowledge practices associated with information literacy, which is contained within the community’s habitus. This may be critically important for students with extra-minoritized identities, who may feel that they are navigating two distinct cultures—their home culture and academic culture (Jehangir, 2010). However, students’ goal orientations were inconsistent across research assignments and goal
orientation appears to be highly dependent on the particular assignment. Nor was goal orientation associated with students’ progression toward full participation, as participants could demonstrate a mastery goal orientation for an assignment in their first year of college and a performance goal orientation for their capstone experience. Despite its apparent relationship with the demonstration of the academic literacies in the community’s habitus, the irregular and inconsistent application of goal orientations throughout a student’s college academic experience makes it difficult to adequately represent in the revised conceptual framework.