Through ethnographic interviewing and participant observation, this study examines the motivation of sixteen women of different ethnic backgrounds to attend college and to major in a helping profession. The women, aged nineteen to forty-two, come from low-income rural areas of the southeastern United States. The study is set in a two-year unit of a state university system. / The existing literature appears to establish the motivational factors for white, urban, middle-class males. Researchers know less, however, about the factors influencing working-class people, females, or members of minorities. The dominant view associates academic achievement with the Protestant work ethic and success orientation as measured by grades and test scores. Findings incorporate motivations for enrollment, factors affecting persistence, post-enrollment changes in motivation, and the modifications in achievement anticipated after graduation. / The investigation focused on the importance of the participants' concept of education and the resulting effects on motivation for achievement, on the role of children both as motivators and as impediments to scholastic success, on the impact of menial or manual labor, and on the respondents' attitudes toward men, welfare, and dependency. Findings include the following: (1) in contrast to males in other studies, women in this study rank motivating factors in a different order of importance, (2) different considerations shape their primary motivators, and (3) enrollment motivators for women can become barriers to success in higher education. / Among these participants, social forces leading to the desire to matriculate and to the ability to persevere in higher education differ from those found in traditional participants. Whereas "mainstream" studies noted that mate selection was among women's motivators for attending college, this study found that the desire to escape abusive men was a major motivator for returning women. Some motivators also became pressures that impeded success when the women became students (e.g., need for child care, lack of money). In their drive for upward mobility, these women often were caught between family responsibilities and school or between community and classroom. The study integrates critical theory with constructs from developmental psychology and sociology to explain behaviors in this group. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-05, Section: A, page: 1706. / Major Professor: Rodney F. Allen. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_76404 |
| Contributors | Hammons-Bryner, Sue., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 373 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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