“This book does not focus simply on the employment prospects of first generation higher education entrants but rather engages with the wider possibilities of social engagement and transformation that can arise from participation in higher education. It provides essential reading for administrators, policy-makers, managers, academics and indeed anyone else interested in how to widen the socio-economic base of higher education so that the process is informed by a significant concern with social justice and reducing inequality.” Rosemary Deem, Professor of Education, University of Bristol This book examines the proposition that parental education is a key factor contributing to the access and success of students, but that insufficient attention is paid to this by researchers, national systems and institutional interventions. Analysis of research findings from ten countries, plus a UK wide study, indicates that parental education is more important in determining access to higher education than parental employment or financial status. The book provides a clear conceptualisation of first generation entry, exploring its complex interrelationship with social class. Furthermore, it demonstrates that when first generation entry is used as a lens, it disrupts the taken for granted assumptions regarding widening participation and helps produce much more effective approaches to targeting access and supporting student success. First Generation Entry into Higher Education provides a unique and insightful examination of how first generation entrants are supported or otherwise by different national approaches and institutional responses. The book is essential reading for all with an interest in widening participation in higher education.

"Supporting Today's Students in the Library collects current strategies from all types of academic libraries for retaining and graduating nontraditional students, with many of them based on learning theories and teaching methodologies. The book explores methods for overcoming language barriers, discusses best practices, and presents case studies that support the changing student population. Additionally, Supporting Today's Students in the Library provides a variety of ideas for new services, spaces, and outreach opportunities that support nontraditional students on campus and beyond"--

The experiences of first-generation college students are not monolithic. The nexus of identities matter, and this book is intended to challenge the reader to explore what it means to be a first-generation college student in higher education. Designed for use in classrooms and for use by the higher education practitioner on a college campus today, At the Intersections will be of value to the reader throughout their professional career.The book is divided into four parts with chapters of research and theory interspersed with thought pieces to provide personal stories to integrate the research and theory into lived experience. Each thought piece ends with questions to inspire readers to engage with the topic.Part One: Who is a First-generation College Student? provides the reader an entrée into the topic, with up-to-date data on both four-year and two-year colleges. Part One ends with a thought piece that asks the reader to pull together some of the big ideas before moving on to look more closely at students’ identities.Part Two: The Intersection of Identity shares the research, experience and thoughts of authors in relation to the individual and overlapping identities of LGBT, low-income, white, African-American, Latinx, Native American, undocumented, female, and male students who are all also first-generation college students. Part Three: Programs and Practices is an introduction to practices, policies and programs across the country. This section offers promise and direction for future work as institutions try to find a successful array of approaches to make the campus an inclusive place for the diverse population of first-generation college students.

This book highlights the effects of power within the higher educational process, and argues that in order to understand the student experience we have to take seriously the institution as a context for learning. It considers key questions such as: Why is the student experience of higher education sometimes negative or restricted? How does power operate within the institution? What are the forces that limit or enable student agency? How can institutions of higher education create conditions which best support more enabling forces? Higher Education has its own particular culture, social relations and practices, governed by social and discursive norms. It is always implicated in relations of power through its function in society and its effects on individuals. This book considers how, for the student, these effects can be enabling and engaging, or limiting and diminishing. In exploring the effects of the institutionalization of learning and the workings of power implicated within this, it sets out to add to more cognitive and pedagogic ways of understanding student experience in higher education. Study, Power and the University provides key reading for educational researchers and developers, academics and higher education managers.

FIRST-GENERATION COLLEGE STUDENTS "…a concise, manageable, lucid summary of the best scholarship, practices, and future-oriented thinking about how to effectively recruit, educate, develop, retain, and ultimately graduate first-generation students." —from the foreword by JOHN N. GARDNER First-generation students are frequently marginalized on their campuses, treated with benign disregard, and placed at a competitive disadvantage because of their invisibility. While they include 51% of all undergraduates, or approximately 9.3 million students, they are less likely than their peers to earn degrees. Among students enrolled in two-year institutions, they are significantly less likely to persist into a second year. First-Generation College Students offers academic leaders and student affairs professionals a guide for understanding the special challenges and common barriers these students face and provides the necessary strategies for helping them transition through and graduate from their chosen institutions. Based in solid research, the authors describe best practices and include suggestions and techniques that can help leaders design and implement effective curricula, out-of-class learning experiences, and student support services, as well as develop strategic plans that address issues sure to arise in the future. The authors offer an analysis of first-generation student expectations for college life and academics and examine the powerful role cultural capital plays in shaping their experiences and socialization. Providing a template for other campuses, the book highlights programmatic initiatives at colleges around the county that effectively serve first-generation students and create a powerful learning environment for their success. First-Generation College Students provides a much-needed portrait of the cognitive, developmental, and social factors that affect the college-going experiences and retention rates of this growing population of college students.

This major text for Education Studies students provides a critical account of key issues in education today. The text features: A critical analysis of key issues in Education Studies to encourage students’ thinking about education in the broadest terms Themed sections with introductions to link the issues discussed in each chapter Use of specific examples of educational diversity to illustrate how concerns such as ethnicity, gender and class operate in educational institutions An examination of educational issues as they relate to other phases of educational provision, such as home schooling and universities Education Studies: Issues and Critical Perspectives is an essential text for Education Studies students. It is also of value to students on QTS courses and students and professionals in areas such as sociology, childhood studies, community studies and education policy.

Is access to higher education really open to all? How does the experience of higher education vary between social groups? Are graduate jobs harder to find for some than for others? The transformation of higher education from an elite experience to a mass system delivering advanced education to a socially mixed clientele has often been conflated with a process of equalization through wider access. But is this really the case? Andy Furlong and Fred Cartmel fear not, arguing that young people from social and economically disadvantaged families suffer from unfair access arrangements, have a poorer student experience and have limited contact with their middle class peers. Moreover, students from less advantaged families who successfully complete their courses tend to face greater difficulty securing graduate jobs and may be left with higher levels of debt. Taking a holistic approach that focuses on access to higher education, experiences in higher education and gains derived from participation, the book explores the barriers that impede the progress of young people from less advantaged families and outlines the various forms of stratification that help limit the possibilities for social mobility through education. Higher Education and Social Justice provides essential reading for anyone who has an interest in higher education or a concern for social justice, including lecturers, administrators and policy makers in higher education.

Engage and Activate: Navigating College and Beyond introduces readers to the cultural and social tools they will need to be successful in higher education while identifying opportunities within academic life to connect with others, effect change, and create communities that are more just, humane, and sustainable. The authors address important issues for beginning students such as cross-cultural appreciation and understanding, self-care, navigating institutional rules, study habits, relationships and consent, mental and physical health, finances, and the environment, all with a focus that situates the contexts in social justice. Throughout, engaging exercises, class activities, and personal accounts encourage the development of transformative thought. Designed to help readers navigate higher education to become successful students and responsible, democratically-minded citizens, Engage and Activate is an ideal book for first-year and college success courses or programs, as well as people who will participate in U.S.-based higher education spaces. C. Kyle Rudick (Ph.D., Southern Illinois University) is an associate professor of communication and graduate program director at the University of Northern Iowa. His research explores how power, privilege, and oppression are constructed and marshaled through everyday communicative practices. Katherine Grace Hendrix (Ph.D., University of Washington) is a professor of communication studies at The University of Memphis. Her research examines the challenges faced by professors and graduate teaching assistants of color, including those with English as a second language, and the types of research that are generally published within the communication discipline versus what is generally left out. Nicholas A. Zoffel (Ph.D., Bowling Green University) is the executive director for the Global Forum for Civic Affairs, an NGO that facilitates partnerships in education and civic affairs. His research focuses on collaborative innovation, the social influence of identity, and performances of power in routine interpersonal and organizational relationships.

The steady expansion of college enrollment rates over the last generation has been heralded as a major step toward reducing chronic economic disparities. But many of the policies that broadened access to higher education—including affirmative action, open admissions, and need-based financial aid—have come under attack in recent years by critics alleging that schools are admitting unqualified students who are unlikely to benefit from a college education. In Passing the Torch, Paul Attewell, David Lavin, Thurston Domina, and Tania Levey follow students admitted under the City University of New York’s “open admissions” policy, tracking its effects on them and their children, to find out whether widening college access can accelerate social mobility across generations. Unlike previous research into the benefits of higher education, Passing the Torch follows the educational achievements of three generations over thirty years. The book focuses on a cohort of women who entered CUNY between 1970 and 1972, when the university began accepting all graduates of New York City high schools and increasing its representation of poor and minority students. The authors survey these women in order to identify how the opportunity to pursue higher education affected not only their long-term educational attainments and family well-being, but also how it affected their children’s educational achievements. Comparing the record of the CUNY alumnae to peers nationwide, the authors find that when women from underprivileged backgrounds go to college, their children are more likely to succeed in school and earn college degrees themselves. Mothers with a college degree are more likely to expect their children to go to college, to have extensive discussions with their children, and to be involved in their children’s schools. All of these parenting behaviors appear to foster higher test scores and college enrollment rates among their children. In addition, college-educated women are more likely to raise their children in stable two-parent households and to earn higher incomes; both factors have been demonstrated to increase children’s educational success. The evidence marshaled in this important book reaffirms the American ideal of upward mobility through education. As the first study to indicate that increasing access to college among today’s disadvantaged students can reduce educational gaps in the next generation, Passing the Torch makes a powerful argument in favor of college for all.