Cultural Social Capital Impact for Male Latino Students at the Community College

<p>The purpose of this study is to apply Yosso’s community cultural wealth framework to understand the role of cultural social capital on the successful attainment of the higher education goals of Latino male students at the Community College while identifying the best methods to increase engagement including creating a sense of belonging. The researcher conducted 24 semi-structured face to face interviews with 20 Latino male students enrolled full or part time, three tenured faculty members and one staff member at a single community college in southern California. Findings revealed that the important role the development of cultural social capital on the successful navigation of college structures when students use their community cultural wealth as a source of strength to overcome institutional barriers and build relationships with faculty and staff at the college. Students relied on their familial, resistant aspirational capital in order to develop navigational capital and ultimately the social capital to access resources to increase their persistence and achieve their goal of a community college certificate, graduation or transfer to the four-year institution of their choice. Overall the Latino male students believed that they experienced a sense of belonging, but had little evidence of the types of behaviors such as socio-academic engagement or participation in academic support programs or seeking help directly from their faculty. Instead, the faculty participants highlighted the lack of an institutional culture that embraces Latino male student to aid in their higher educational success. Despite the many barriers that exist for Latino male students at the community college, they exhibit the type of strength and grit that stems from their community cultural wealth that aids them to develop the needed social capital to continue in their quest to achieve their academic goals of a certificate, graduation, or transfer to a four-year institution.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Education, PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Open Access Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

School of Educational Studies

Year dc:date.available

2020

Author dc:creator

• Nashua, Lisa Christine

Contributors dc:contributor

• Linda Perkins
• Deborah Faye Carter

• Community College
• Critical Race Theory
• Latino
• Male students
• Social Capital
• Higher Education

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgu_etd/645

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarship.claremont.edu:cgu_etd-1667