Abstract
This research explores the relationship between cultural capital, agency, and the successful navigation of college. Drawing from my analysis of 59 semi-structured interviews with graduates of a highly selective four-year private college, I compare the undergraduate experiences of first-generation and continuing-generation graduates. Existing research mostly frames first-generation students as those who generally lack the tools, skills, and resources for undergraduate success. To the contrary, my dissertation convincingly shows that first-generation students employ a trove of personal, family, and cultural resources to successfully navigate college. Focusing on the relationship between cultural capital and the effective navigation of college, my findings show that dominant cultural capital provides situational advantages, while its absence is only contextually disadvantageous. Another key finding is that, among the first-generation graduates in this study, non-dominant cultural capital proved to be a valuable asset for navigating college. In addition, I show that agency can play a significant role in achieving upward mobility and that cultural capital can be strategically deployed to achieve a desired future state. Furthermore, my analysis demonstrates that there is considerable intra-class heterogeneity among middle- and working-class families, suggesting that social class categories are fluid, porous, and fail to reflect the economic fluctuations of lived experience. At its core, my dissertation aims to advance a paradigmatic shift away from deficit-based research focused on what students lack and towards a model that reflects the educationally relevant personal, family, and cultural assets possessed by first-generation, lower income, and other marginalized students.