I conducted this study to examine Hmong American college students' perspectives on sense of belongingness and their idea on the American Dream. The college experience can serve as a precursor to improving the social and economic situation of the Hmong students when aligned with the personal desire to gain upward mobility and motivation to circumvent social and academic inconsistencies. The methodology of the study was designed for one-on-one phenomenological informal interviews with Hmong American college upper-classmen using a two-part interview protocol to elicit demographic and experiential information. Moustakas' approach to the analysis of data provided guidelines to review individual transcripts and to group, remove, cluster, and thematize lived experiences. The findings of this study indicated that Hmong college students: (a) enrolled out of obedience to the parents, especially their fathers, regardless of the educational level of the parents and (b) thrived when authority figures on campus reached out to help their humble situation. . . it not only made them belong to the campus family but it strengthened their self-esteem.
","abstract_html":"<p>I conducted this study to examine Hmong American college students' perspectives on sense of belongingness and their idea on the American Dream. The college experience can serve as a precursor to improving the social and economic situation of the Hmong students when aligned with the personal desire to gain upward mobility and motivation to circumvent social and academic inconsistencies. The methodology of the study was designed for one-on-one phenomenological informal interviews with Hmong American college upper-classmen using a two-part interview protocol to elicit demographic and experiential information. Moustakas' approach to the analysis of data provided guidelines to review individual transcripts and to group, remove, cluster, and thematize lived experiences. The findings of this study indicated that Hmong college students: (a) enrolled out of obedience to the parents, especially their fathers, regardless of the educational level of the parents and (b) thrived when authority figures on campus reached out to help their humble situation. . . it not only made them belong to the campus family but it strengthened their self-esteem.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Daugherty, Janet"],"institution":"University of Central Florida","degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Cintron Delgado, Rosa"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2015,"date_issued":"2015-01-01T08:00:00Z","date_published":"2015-01-01T08:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T05:10:09Z","subjects":["Hmong college student","us born hmong","american dream","sense of belongingness","faculty warnth","pedagogical caring","higher education","denominational college","diversity","cross cultural","culture","model minority myth","phenomenology","interviewl qualitative research","content matrix analysis","Education"],"languages":["English"],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["CFE0005596"],"render_values":[{"text":"CFE0005596","href":null,"code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/1333","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.uri"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Cintron Delgado, Rosa"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Daugherty, Janet"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:publisher","label":"Institution","values":["University of Central Florida"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access)"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Hmong college student","us born hmong","american dream","sense of belongingness","faculty warnth","pedagogical caring","higher education","denominational college","diversity","cross cultural","culture","model minority myth","phenomenology","interviewl qualitative research","content matrix analysis","Education"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["English"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["CFE0005596"]},{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/1333"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)","College of Education and Human Performance","Education; Higher Education"]},{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["I conducted this study to examine Hmong American college students' perspectives on sense of belongingness and their idea on the American Dream. The college experience can serve as a precursor to improving the social and economic situation of the Hmong students when aligned with the personal desire to gain upward mobility and motivation to circumvent social and academic inconsistencies. The methodology of the study was designed for one-on-one phenomenological informal interviews with Hmong American college upper-classmen using a two-part interview protocol to elicit demographic and experiential information. Moustakas' approach to the analysis of data provided guidelines to review individual transcripts and to group, remove, cluster, and thematize lived experiences. The findings of this study indicated that Hmong college students: (a) enrolled out of obedience to the parents, especially their fathers, regardless of the educational level of the parents and (b) thrived when authority figures on campus reached out to help their humble situation. . . it not only made them belong to the campus family but it strengthened their self-esteem.
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