Social capital and higher education success for first-generation college students

The study will examine the ego networks (i.e. personal networks) of first-generation college students who started their first term of college during the AY2021-22 academic year at a private, non-profit, Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) in an urban setting in the midwestern United States. The dissertation uses Lin’s (1999) definition of social capital: resources embedded in a social network that an actor uses for purposive action as well as Lin’s three phases of social capital: availability of social capital, access to social capital, and activation of social capital as an analytical framework to understand the role of social capital to aid a first-generation college students’ first term success. The study features social network analysis while taking a convergent mixed methods (Creswell & Creswell, 2018) approach to examine the role social capital plays in 14 first-generation college students. The study findings social capital scarcity is not an issue for first-generation college students and proposes a taxonomy of beneficial social capital for first-generation college students. Other findings include: first-generation college students turn to strong ties with whom they frequently interact, especially family, when accessing social capital, especially expressive social capital and have fear about forming new ties with classmates and institutional agents once arriving on campus. They’re able to overcome their fear to form new ties with institutional agents who provide access to necessary and valuable schoolwork social capital.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ed.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2023

Author dc:creator

• Bartelmay, Ryan

Contributors dc:contributor

• Cope, William
• Kalantzis, Mary
• Goodnight, Melissa
• Montebello, Matthew

• Social Capital
• Higher Education
• First-generation College Student

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2023 Ryan Bartelmay

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/121472

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F121472