Anchoring Comunidad: How First- and Continuing-Generation Latinx Students in Stem Engage Community Cultural Wealth

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-13-2020

Publication Title

International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education

Volume

33

Issue

8

First page number:

840

Last page number:

854

Abstract

© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Using a phenomenological approach, we interviewed 16 Latinx college students pursuing STEM degrees at four Northeastern universities to explore the forms of capital that first- and continuing-generation Latinx students use as they enter and navigate postsecondary STEM pathways. Findings suggest that both first- and continuing-generation Latinx students in STEM entered college with community cultural wealth (CCW). Unlike their first-generation peers, however, continuing-generation Latinx students also entered their institutions with traditional (i.e. Bourdieuian) forms of capital. Students who entered college utilizing CCW, however, engaged various ‘moves’ or acts of resistance in response to the incongruence between these forms of capital and their institution’s values and expectations. In this way, students’ ‘moves’ became ways of resisting postsecondary spaces.

Keywords

Capital; College students; Community cultural wealth; Latinx; STEM

Disciplines

Science and Mathematics Education

Language

English

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