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Browsing by Subject "Low-income"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Crossing A Broad Divide: Enacting Educational Mobility Justice in Study Abroad
    (2021-05) Acevedo, Rosa
    The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the study abroad experiences of minoritized first-generation, low-income students who are largely absent in literature, and whose lives are shaped by historical, institutional, systematic, and societal dynamics that require unpacking. In this study I acknowledge that historically, minoritized communities have different histories of mobility and immobility. By contextualizing study abroad as an act of mobility, this research project situates study abroad from a Critical Race Theory and Mobility Justice framework to highlight the differentiated histories of mobility that helped shape study abroad participation. Differential mobilities for minoritized first-generation, low-income students revealed the varied experiences and participant histories that illustrate the discursive and systemic bases of (im)mobility that generate unjust power relations. Through participant counternarratives, I find that students’ differentiated mobilities affect and influence their mobility imaginaries, possibilities of travel, and their narrations of identity abroad. I conceptualize an educational mobility justice framework to examine how marginalized study abroad participants experience differential mobilities prior to study abroad, how these mobility inequalities impact their ability to even imagine themselves as participants, and how immobility, discursive and structural, obstructs and shapes study abroad participation.
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    "Death is due to lack of knowledge": community practices of a successful multi-partnered health disparities intervention for low-income African Americans in South Carolina
    (2013-05) Littleton, Dawn
    The purpose of this study was to describe the methods--including practices, policies, and roles--used by public and academic library staff in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Racial and Ethnic Approach to Community Health (REACH) intervention that proved successful in reducing or eliminating several diabetes-related health disparities in a vulnerable population. An intrinsic case study methodology was used to identify effective services, resources, and practices for library staff. A semi-structured telephone interview was completed by 11 community partners from a successful multi-partnered, community-based, diabetes-related health disparities intervention that included librarians as community partners. Questions included (a) What were some traditional or innovative library roles, services, or resources used in this successful intervention? (b) How was helicopter research avoided? (c) How was trust with the vulnerable community members established and maintained? (d) How were community members with low literacy included? Data were audio-recorded and transcribed. Eight major themes consistent with transformative adult learning theories were identified from the coded transcripts, including (a) autonomy, (b) community-based and community-led, (c) incentives, (d) a new role for professionals, (e) participants realizing success, (f) church participation, (g) transformation, and (h) perspective of the librarians. The insights and guidelines suggested by this research may be helpful when deciding how or when to participate in community-based health disparities interventions for vulnerable populations.
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    Do students who take the StrengthsQuest assessment connect their strengths to statements indicating self-efficacy?
    (2013-08) Christley, Lara
    Some students, in spite of the challenges they face, do succeed in college. This may be due to many factors, including a high level of self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is important because it has been related to persistence and achievement in education (Chemers, 2001). One way we might increase a student's self-efficacy is to provide a language that describes their strengths. This master's research project sought to examine the relationship between a student's strengths and statements indicating self-efficacy. My sample population was underrepresented first-year and sophomore TRIO students in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities. Through semi-structured interviews, students shared experiences in their personal, academic and career spheres as seem through the lens of their top 5 Strengths. Evidence of self-efficacy was found in the students' responses.
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    Hustling narratives: Navigational capacities of first-generation, low-income African students
    (2019-06) Adjei, Millicent
    The last two decades has seen growing interest in getting more academically promising First-Generation, Low-Income Students (FGLISs) into postsecondary education through various interventions to improve their social and economic mobility (Avery, 2013; Brennan & Shah, 2003; Engberg & Allen, 2011; Hoxby & Turner, 2013; Morley, Leach & Lugg, 2008; Perna, Rowan-Kenyon, Bell, Thomas, & Li, 2008). This interest stems from multiple types of research indicating that individuals with postsecondary degrees have better life chances. Postsecondary degree holders also have a higher income earning potential, exhibit higher levels of civic engagement, are healthier, contribute more to the economic development of their country, and have more significant potential for socio-economic mobility than persons without such degrees (Avery, Howell, & Page, 2014; Baum, Ma, & Payea, 2013; Carnevale, Rose, Cheah, 2011; Hout, 2011; Jacobson & Mokher, 2009; Kuh, Cruce, Shoup, Kinzie & Gonyea, 2008; Thayer, 2000). The fourth Sustainable Goal on providing inclusive quality education, for instance, emphasizes on amongst other targets providing “equal access to affordable vocational training, to eliminate gender and wealth disparities, and achieve universal access to a quality higher education.” Thus, making postsecondary education, especially for the world’s disadvantaged an integral component of the world’s sustainable development goals (UNDP, 2019). Consequently, postsecondary enrollment across the world is increasing steadily globally. For instance, in sub-Saharan Africa, enrollment in secondary and tertiary education grew by more than 60% between 2000 and 2008 (UNESCO 2011). We seem to be making good strides globally for some of the world’s vulnerable populations to gain access to good quality higher education. However, research on the subjective experiences of these populations and the intersectionality of their identities and its impact on how they navigate through their postsecondary training to succeed is limited especially for students living in developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa. (Morley, Leach & Lugg, 2008). This lack of research on how vulnerable youths are experiencing postsecondary education cannot be ignored because they form the highest population group globally. The 2015 United Nations’ World Population Prospects report, for example, predicts that the population of Africa will double by the year 2050 with the highest population being the youth (UN. 2015). Côté (2014) has argued for instance for more research on global youth from the global South to avoid the continues application of theories and analytical frameworks from similar youths in the global North being used to understand their experiences in the absence of contextually empirical research done in the global south. Nonetheless, in spite of this dearth in research on the educational experiences particularly of vulnerable youths in the global South, there seems to be some evidence that some FGLISs are using a cultural nuanced and positive assert-based navigational capacity “hustling” as an academic resilience and persistence strategy. This strategy is learned from their experiences of being disadvantaged to navigate the higher education context to succeed once they gain access to counter the often deficit narratives used to explain their college attainment. The capacity to “hustle” (inspired by the work of Arjun Appadurai and Theime, 2017), in the higher educational setting, is not extensively researched and therefore does not have a strong literature base. I employ a narrative inquiry study to understand young people’s capacity to “hustle” which seems to be characterized by the application of multiple survival and persistence strategies including: contingency planning, collective agency, accumulation and use of various forms of capital, self-efficacy and self-authorship when conditions for success or survival is uncertain and challenging. This empirical study analyses narratives from 17 students in an African University and demonstrates how performing hustling is critical to youths’ capacity to navigate their educational futures to become undergraduates to afford them the benefits of postsecondary education. I draw on youth-centered methodology – narrative inquiry using life-story, which is familiar to the African system of knowledge sharing through storytelling familiar to the youth. Narrative inquiry gives youth a voice to share their most valuable experiences with hustling to show the complexity of youths’ experiences in negotiating their education alongside the uncertainties and challenges in their lives as they actively pursued their aspirations of a better life. This success strategy is worth investigating because, even though the cost of college attendance is covered for the participants in this study with the hope of removing the conditions causing them to struggle through college, they still maintain they “hustled” their way through university and further attribute their undergraduate success to their ability to hustle. This study answered the question: How do first-generation low-income students conceptualize, perform, and used their capacity to hustle to attain success in an African University? The results of this study points to five key findings that; i)FGLISs use hustling as a pathway to meeting multiple aspirations which can be personal, family oriented or communal, ii) Hustling is a form of collective agency used by FGLISs to attain success; iii) Hustling is an accumulation of multiple types of capital acquired and utilized by FGLISs throughout their educational and broader life trajectory; iv) Hustling enables FGLISs to develop a stronger sense of self-efficacy which they fall on when things gets tough as they work towards their educational, aspirational and v) Hustling is a form of catalyst which facilitates self-authorship of FGLISs. These critical elements of hustling explain its propensity to have contributed to the success of the participants in this study.
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    Perspectives about Family Meals from Parents in Low-income and Minority Households
    (2015-08) Hanson, Carrie
    Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies have shown that family meals are associated with childhood healthful eating behaviors, family cohesion, and positive development outcomes for children. However, few studies have examined the family meals in low-income and minority families and no studies have qualitatively examined whether there is a difference in the protective influence of family meals between households with overweight/obese children and households with nonoverweight children. The current study aimed to identify family meal-level characteristics of low-income and minority households and to examine whether those meal-level characteristics differ in households with or without an overweight/obese child. The current qualitative study included 118 parents who participated in Family Meals, LIVE!, a mixed-methods, cross sectional study designed to identify key family home environment factors related to eating behaviors that increase or minimize the risk for childhood obesity. Parents (92% female) were racially/ethnically and from low-income homes. Data were analyzed using inductive content analysis. Results from the current study suggest that parents from African American, White, and mixed race/other homes as well as parent with and without overweight/obese children have many similar (e.g., why parents have family meals, the use of technology during meals) and some different (e.g. what adults like about family meals, mealtime rules, how culture influences meals) perspectives regarding family meals. Findings from this study highlight the need to further explore the subtle differences within and between families of different ethnic groups and families with and without overweight/obese children to discover what nuanced home environmental factors influence childhood health outcomes.