Postsecondary Education

College Culture

Bourke, Vanderveken, Ecker, Shearer, & Atkinson (2019) point out that post-secondary settings involve social and cultural processes, rather than just involving institutional policies and procedures, that students from low-income communities may find challenging to engage with (Pollock, 2012).

Cueponi Educational holds workshops and forums through which students can reflect on how their identity can meld and contribute to the academic landscape they will enter while at college. Our goal is for students to understand college culture, so they may be prepared for social and cultural obstacles. We do this with the goal to encourage them to realize their experiences are valid and that they can thrive in a university setting.

Better Together

Mitchall and Jaeger (2018) note many parents may not be prepared to be of guidance to their low-income, first generation children as a result of their limitations in postsecondary experiences, however, many of these same parents do desire for their children to go to college (Choy, 2001; Farmer-Hinton, 2008; Savitz-Romer, 2012). According to Mitchall and Jaeger, for those students whose parents were prepared to assist them during their postsecondary planning stage, they viewed their parents as being partners which allowed the students to become motivated to persevere after realizing that their parents surpassed adversity (2018).

As first-generation college students, Nayelly and Sergio of Cueponi Educational know the struggle first-hand, as they saw their parents struggle to help navigate the college entrance process. Our bilingual forums, workshops, and summer programs prioritize the type of parent who needs to be reminded that their resilience in life is a transferable skill they can implement when it comes to empowering and supporting their child through the college process.

Sources:

Bourke, A., Vanderveken, J., Ecker, E., Shearer, N., & Atkinson, J. (2019). Bringing college classrooms to the community: Promoting post-secondary access for low-income adults through neighbourhood-based college courses. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 49(1), 159–175.

Mitchall, A. M., & Jaeger, A. J. (2018). Parental influences on low-income, first-generation students’ motivation on the path to college. Journal of Higher Education, 89(4), 582–609.