Changes: Understanding How Military-Connected Students Acquire Social and Cultural Capital in Higher Education

Since the Post-9/11 GI Bill went into effect in 2009, there has been tremendous growth in the number of military-connected students enrolling in U.S. colleges and universities. In response to this influx, higher education stakeholders developed dedicated resources and services to remove barriers students often faced when transitioning from the military to civilian cultures. This study introduces a critical analysis to understand how institutions with diverse resources and services for military-connected students transition those students to a civilian higher education culture and whether those resources and services effectively facilitate this transition. Using social and cultural capital as a theoretical framework, this institutional ethnography investigated how military-connected students transitioned into higher education at four non-profit universities in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States: two campuses with military-connected student resource centers, one with a dedicated office to serve military-connected students, and one with a dedicated administrator to certify GI Bill benefits. Methods included observations of campus structures and military-connected student interactions with different campus stakeholders, semi-structured interviews with students, alumni, and campus administrators and faculty, and analysis of government, non-government organizations, and campus documents. Results indicated how some campuses created military-connected-specific services that sometimes provided social and cultural capital that primarily served to meet federal regulation requirements. The mil-con students utilizing all-encompassing services were successful as students but centered their military-connected identity without fully integrating elsewhere in the campus community. Campuses that embedded transition services for military-connected students facilitated opportunities for students to cultivate social and cultural capital in both military-connected-specific and civilian spaces to transition to campus.

Author

• Hezel, LeNaya

• Higher Education
• Military-Connected Students
• Social and Cultural Capital
• Student Resource Centers

Identifier

hdl:1920/13834

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:MARS:1920/13834