The American education agenda suggests a clear commitment to the development of programs and practices to increase equitable participation in higher education. During a time when equity-based policy initiatives are under attack in the United States, governmental TRIO Programs remain one proven pathway for ensuring college preparedness and access…

Community college students may be at-risk academically, socioeconomically, or because they are first-generation attendees. Recognizing the need for a strong support system, a study was conducted to determine whether students could be taught to incorporate information processing strategies into their personal inventory of strategies. It was…

Describes how a program at Dorchester High School in Boston, Massachusetts--the College Opportunity and Career Help (Coach) program--aims to find the best way to get more low-income students to apply for higher education. (EV)

This study compared the academic preparation, aspirations, and first-year college performance of first-generation college freshmen with other college freshmen at Indiana State University. It found that first-generation students were more likely to drop out during the first semester and had lower first-semester grades than students with one or more…

Findings in "The Condition of Education," published by the National Center for Education Statistics, are corroborated by the work of EQUITY 2000, a research-based program of the College Board and other precollege mathematics and science programs that have been targeting first-generation college students and underrepresented minorities.…

Using a qualitative interview design, this study examined factors contributing to the academic achievement of gifted first-generation college females. Findings indicated an emerging professional identity as the primary influence on achievement. The participants' high ability served as a passport to accessing coursework, extracurricular…

This study addressed the influence of social capital factors on the first-year persistence of beginning first- and second-generation four-year college students. First-generation students were those students whose parents had never attended college. Second-generation students had at least one parent who attended college. A case was made for…

Natasha is a nursing student with a 4.0 grade point average, a first-generation East Indian American, and the first woman in her family to go to college. Lugging a twenty-five-pound book bag of texts that cause her slight frame to slump forward under the weight, she carries a far heavier burden of familial expectation and pride. She has expressed…

The Dream Project, which started in 2004, pairs students at the University of Washington with first-generation and low-income students in six Seattle high schools. The program teaches undergraduates at the university about higher-education policy at the same time that they help disadvantaged high-school students apply to college. The college…

There has been renewed emphasis on the vocational in recent policy documents concerning provision for the 14-19 age group. More open acknowledgement of the vocational/academic divide within English education has appeared alongside the creation of increased vocational opportunities for young people. Research undertaken for the Transforming Learning…

For first-generation poor and working-class college students, surviving the social challenges of higher learning can be at least as demanding as achieving a high grade point average. To increase the odds that first-generation students with low-socioeconomic status backgrounds will persist and prosper in college, it is vital that their chosen…

This publication compares first-generation students (i.e., those whose parents have no more than a high school education) with their peers whose parent or parents attended college. It focuses on mathematics course taking--the effectiveness of taking algebra in 8th grade and advanced math courses in high school for subsequent college…

In May 2002, Governor Rick Perry announced plans for several higher education initiatives, including the recruitment, preparation, enrollment, and retention of first generation college students. First generation college students are students who would be the first in their families to complete higher education through two- and four-year…

In the course of examining the holistic and embodied expressions of self-conceptualization among six women academics from working- and poverty-class backgrounds, artful "happenings" became a generative tool for inquiry and analysis and provided interpretive directions. The author's approach to arts-based inquiry and the value of such an approach…

Drawing on a multiyear research project, describes the intellectual, psychological, familial, and cultural dramas that are played out in the lives of first-generation college students. Examines the effects of these dramas on students and what colleges can do to help students play them out. (RJM)