Students of Color are often forced to navigate between two cultures, the one with which they most identify and the majority culture. This is sometimes referred to as “biculturation” and “code switching.”
Published in Chapter:
College-Going and College-Staying Capital: Supporting Underrepresented Minority Students at Predominantly White Institutions
Christy Kuehn (University of Pittsburgh, USA)
Copyright: © 2020
|Pages: 31
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-2783-2.ch004
Abstract
When underrepresented minority (URM) students from high-poverty, high-minority K-12 schools enter college, they often encounter academic, financial, and cultural obstacles in addition to experiencing discriminatory events. This chapter, focusing on the narratives of five URM students, explores the relationships, experiences, and strategies that enabled college-going capital, in addition to the relationships, experiences, strategies, and policies that created college-staying capital for these students at predominantly white institutions (PWI). Utilizing research and the students' experiential knowledge, recommendations are made that supportive teachers, dual enrollment courses, and scholarship programs enable URM students to overcome obstacles upon entering college. Once in college, overcoming cultural differences and discriminatory occurrences was most aided by strong student communities (in the form of Black Student Unions, multicultural clubs, and supportive friendships) and confidence in their racial identity.