This research examines the involvement of the parents of secondary school children in career education and guidance (CEG). It is based on a secondary analysis of existing data from a research project I was involved in. This initial research evaluated the impact of a parent-involved career intervention, 'Parents Turn', in which six career teachers delivered four successive sessions to parent(s) accompanied by their child in the third or fifth year of their secondary school (HAVO) in the Netherlands. The study is important both to the field and to practitioners. Examples of parentinvolved career intervention in CEG are limited, scantily researched, and most were not sustained, which may explain why knowledge on involving parents in CEG is underdeveloped. I discuss these gaps in the evidence by providing an overview on the literature on parental influences and roles in their child's career development, an international inventory of and taxonomy for parent-involved, school-based career interventions, and providing relevant knowledge on parental-involvement in education in general. I then present new analysis of data collected by an earlier evaluation of the 'Parents' Turn' intervention. My secondary analysis approaches this data with new research questions, in-depth analyses and a non-parametric methodology. I integrated the quantitative and qualitative results to understand who was involved in the intervention, why, and whether the impact differed for the learning of parents with and without higher education (HE) qualifications. I also sought to understand the role of the school in the intervention. The findings suggest that a school-initiated career intervention involving parents, in the form of family learning and community interaction, can build and enhance parents' capacity to be involved in and support the career development of their child: their knowledge and skills, parental self-efficacy and parental role-definition. However, the career intervention works differently for parents who have different levels of HE level attainment. Lower-educated parents seem less aware of the consequences of early educational decisions in their child's career and also have different needs for being involved in the career intervention compared to highereducated parents. Despite the impact of the career intervention on their parental capacity, lower-educated parents remain unsure as a parent of how to make use of gained information, guidance and support tools. Third-year (14-16-year-olds) parents' information and support needs are the greatest and they are open to changing their attitude to grant their child autonomy in managing their own career development. The study also finds that features of the present school system are major barriers to sustaining the intervention. Recommendations for policies and practice at school level are offered. A more focused public policy for parental involvement in career education and guidance in secondary schools could both improve the efficiency of the education system and combat social injustice.

First generation college students, defined as students whose parents did not attend or complete education after high school, currently make up about one in three college undergraduates. First generation students often face difficulties adapting to the college environment and find their identities challenged in efforts to find success. Much research about first generation students positions students as having “risk factors” due to their backgrounds rather than the institution as inadequate to meet their needs. In order to explore how a four-year institution was and was not meeting the needs of some first generation students, I conducted an analysis of White and Latinx-identifying students’ experience of mattering and marginality using Critical Discourse Analysis as my method. The purpose of this study is to understand how first generation student represent their sense of belonging through language use. Based on qualitative analyses of focus group comments, students described mattering and marginality as occurring within multiple areas of the college experience. Throughout these areas, or “spheres,” participants described the roles of interpersonal and institutional communication that positioned them to feel a sense of belonging or marginality. Students reported experiencing marginality because of 1) issues of money, 2) not knowing things they might be expected to know, and 3) others not understanding their experiences and identities. Students experienced mattering with 1) community and 2) administrators. They also described feeling mattering and marginality simultaneously in some situations. Furthermore, students experienced campus differently based on their racial and ethnoracial identities. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed to better serve the needs of first generation students.

This study offers recommendations for community college personnel in assisting first-generation Mexican American male college students access and properly utilize college agents and services to succeed and transfer to a four-year institution. Students must recognize that colleges have many programs and services designed to help them become successful, but they need to be open to the idea of asking for assistance and honest with themselves about the assistance they need.

his research addressed educational persistence among first-generation, low-income college students. The educational paths of 22 first-generation, low-income undergraduate students attending a large, urban university in the Northwest region of the United States were examined through a narrative framework. Half of the participants had persisted from year one to year two, and the other half left the university after their first year. Analytic procedures consisted of thematic qualitative coding, an analysis of student trajectories over educational histories, and the reconstruction of narrative stories. Data were used to examine: (1) How first-generation, low-income students understood and described their journey through their first year, (2) Reasons some students gave for leaving the university, (3) Meanings students gave to their experiences in college and how those meanings influenced future decisions, and (4) Differences between the stories of students who persisted versus those who left. The first-generation, low-income students who participated in this study were individually diverse and took various paths through college. After prolonged contact, evidence of interrupted enrollment and transfer among colleges was shown for approximately half of the participants. The descriptive codes most frequently discussed were financial issues, aspects of self, and family. Students described motivations for college in terms of themes related to family, gaining practical skills, existential discovery, desire for the college adventure, and affirmation of personal attributes. Students left the institution as a result of academic challenges, external life events, financial difficulties, dissatisfaction with the college process, unclear goals or reasons for continuation, and a need to stay near family. Students who persisted in college indicated adequate pre-college academic preparation, social connection to the university, family support for continuation, adequate financial resources, and support from social and cultural brokers that helped them navigate college. Findings from this study suggest social class, financial, individual and family contextual variables be added to Tinto's (1975, 1993) classic model of student departure. Higher education policies suggested by data include partnering with families, reducing social class barriers and providing better information to students about the hidden costs of transfer and interrupted enrollment.

Often considered the gateway to the middle class in the United States, community colleges are struggling to find ways to support all students in career planning and preparation. Unfortunately, increasing numbers of first generation students who enter community colleges through the door of open access, place into developmental education (remedial) courses and must satisfactorily complete this often-rigid sequence before beginning college level classes. For many first-generation, under-prepared, underresourced students, this is a frustrating and often insurmountable barrier, causing many students to abort their postsecondary training. Creating intentional conditions and instructional strategies that support student learning is essential in increasing the number of first-generation, under-prepared and under-resourced students who enter and complete postsecondary training and degrees. Advancement via Individual Determination Higher Education (AVID HE) is one identified holistic support strategy showing positive trends in supporting this student population on one community college campus. This study used a mixed methods approach which included both a statistical analysis of a treatment group in a combined reading/writing course called WR91 Mt Hood Community College AVID HE Learning Communities and two stand-alone reading/writing courses called RD90/WR90 courses, along with a case study qualitative methodology to investigate how AVID HE supports pre-college developmental education students to develop sufficient social capital to transition from non-credit (pre-college) to credited courses and programs.

Latina/o first-generation college students, along with their families, are learning a new culture when considering going to four-year universities. While the conversation involving Latina/o first-generation college students can often focus on attrition, I am interested in exploring what, from participants' point of view, are the successes they experience as well as the most challenging obstacles they encounter on their journey to graduating from four-year universities. Employing the theoretical frameworks of constructivism, critical race theory, and cultural capital, the purpose of this study was to go beyond the conversation of Latina/o first-generation college student attrition by examining how they navigate postsecondary institutions and explore the implications associated with how higher education affects them. I intend to highlight the already powerful voices of Latina/o first-generation college students who are brave enough to be the first in their immediate families to embark on a demanding odyssey to attain four-year degrees. My participants were recruited from classes in the Chicano/Latino studies department as well as a cultural resource center, both at a four-year university in the Pacific Northwest. Using qualitative research methods, including semi-structured interviews, Draw-A-College-Student, and participant written reflections, I examined the lived experiences of persisting Latina/o first-generation college students from their own perspectives. To provide a well-rounded account of the Latina/o postsecondary experience, I engaged the voices of eight participants in this study. This research found that while Latina/o first-generation college students feel that they are trailblazers in working to improve family life through education, they often feel unseen and underrepresented in higher education. Through highlighting Latina/o first-generation college student voices and experiences instead of just focusing on attrition, this study also recommends actions for change based on participant feedback. Ultimately, participants in this study felt that more support is needed for Latina/o first-generation students to attain four-year degrees in higher education.

The vast underrepresentation of minority, first-generation, and low-income students in postgraduate programs is cause for serious concern in the growing workforce. Despite the increase of college enrollment among underrepresented first-generation, low-income (UFGLI) students over the last decade, there are still a disproportionately small percentage of UFGLI students in postgraduate education, such as doctoral, professional, and masters-level programs. These educational disparities significantly affect opportunity for societal advancement and power. Findings from previous literature reveal that UFGLI college students often lack access to resources that provide assistance in the pursuit of postgraduate studies and that UFGLI students encounter additional barriers during the postgraduate application process compared to their more privileged peers. This study includes an in-depth discussion on the barriers that students encounter throughout the application process and introduces a new construct to the literature that may impact students’ entrance into postgraduate programs: postgraduate school application self-efficacy. While previous scholars have explored the admissions processes for a variety of disciplines and have developed a measure for graduate education self-efficacy, no measure has been developed to assess postgraduate school application self-efficacy (PSASE). Therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop a valid and reliable measure of students’ postgraduate school application self-efficacy. In order to accomplish this, parallel analyses and exploratory factor analyses were conducted to determine the underlying structure of the PSASE scale, Cronbach’s alpha was computed to examine the scale’s internal consistency, and correlational analyses were conducted to demonstrate convergent and divergent validity. Results revealed a conceptually interpretable, five-factor solution that accounted for 75.43% of the total variance. The 25-item measure contained items with high factor loadings, low cross-loading, and strong construct coverage. The subscales all demonstrated strong internal consistency and cohesiveness. Correlational analyses with two similar, but distinct, constructs (graduate education academic self-efficacy and self-esteem) provided evidence of convergent and discriminant validity for the PSASE subscales and total scale. Implications and future directions were also explored.

College students who are from low income families, have disabilities, or are the first in their family to attend college are more likely to struggle socially and academically in a college setting. Promoting college graduation within these disadvantaged populations is critical for increased life wellness. Previous researchers studied to see if when students wrote about their personal beliefs if it would lead to higher levels of academic confidence and better academic performance (as measured by grades). This study expanded upon those previous studies to look specifically at whether a values-affirming writing intervention provided to at risk students in a federally funded college opportunity program would affect academic confidence, semester math grades, and overall semester academic performance (as measured by GPA). While there was no impact on semester math grades or overall semester academic performance, the values-affirming writing intervention did benefit students’ academic confidence. This study suggests more research on writing about personal beliefs within a federally funded college opportunity program may be beneficial in identifying methods of improving retention rates and college degree attainment for certain populations of at-risk students. A values-affirming intervention for at-risk students may be one protective factor universities can implement to help these students succeed.

Studien syftar till att identifiera eventuella samband mellan hur universitetsstudenter som för närvarande studerar på Mälardalens Universitet uppfattar sin uppväxt och sin studiesituation. Med sådan kunskap kan stödet på universiteten utvecklas och eventuellt dolda resurser synliggöras. Studien baseras på ett urval om 2000 studenter från ett mellanrankat universitet i Sverige. Två forskningsfrågor besvaras. i) Vilka faktorer under universitetsstudenternas uppväxt samvarierar med faktorer rörande deras uppfattade studiesituation på ett signifikant sätt? ii) Föreligger det en signifikant skillnad mellan hur studentgrupperna skattar sin uppväxt och hur de uppfattar sin aktuella studiesituation? Resultatet visar hur faktorer såsom motivation, vänskap och en tidig dialog med vuxna i omgivningen bidrar till studenters personliga utveckling på universitetet. Inga skillnader vad gäller första respektive fortsatta generationens studenters personliga utveckling på universitetet urskiljs. Däremot fastställs skillnader i deras uppväxt. I studien identifieras hur en känsla av trygghet under studenternas uppväxt genererar en självsäkerhet i universitetssammanhang samt urskiljs att äldre studenter respektive studenter som varit utsatta för mobbning under uppväxten är mer öppna inför och intresserade av andra människors åsikter.

ABSTRACT EXPLORING COLLEGE READINESS: SELF-PERCEPTIONS OF EARLY COLLEGE STUDENTS by Kim R. Ramsey-White Research shows that too many students are graduating from high school ill-prepared to be successful in the postsecondary environment. This study examined the high school experiences of dual-enrollment students who participated in an Early College High School, and how the students perceived their high school experiences in preparing them for college. Additionally the study sought to understand the role that social capital played in the students’ preparation for college. In-depth interviews with 13 African American students, some of whom were first-generation college attendees, were used to illuminate the student voice in an effort to learn how early college practices and strategies were beneficial and/or detrimental to their preparation for college. Data from the study were analyzed using a college readiness framework developed by David Conley (2007) which focuses on four dimensions of college readiness: (1) Key cognitive strategies, (2) academic content, (3) academic skills and behavior, and (4) contextual skills and awareness. Findings from the study indicate that the students’ Early College High School experiences increased their confidence as college students (key cognitive strategies), taught them the benefits of time management and working in study groups (academic skills and behavior), and provided meaningful relationships and social networks that allowed them to navigate the college application and financial aid processes (contextual skills and awareness). The students also expressed concern that there was very limited alignment between the high school academic courses and expectations and those in the postsecondary institutions they attended. The results of the study contribute to the scholarship on the Early College model.