Blue Collar Scholars: Engagement and Integration among Working-Class First-Year Students

Abstract

Presented at the 31st Annual Conference on the First Year Experience, this poster presentation addresses differences in sense of belonging, academic engagement, and mental health between working-class and middle/upper-class first-year undergraduate students. Utilizing the Student Experience in the Research University survey, administered to 240,000+ undergraduate students enrolled at 10 large, public universities in 2010, this study suggests that working-class students have lower sense of belonging and higher rates of depression and stress as compared to their middle/upper-class peers.