Social Capital and Academic Motivation Among First-Generation Community College Students

Social capital, the value of a relationship that provides support and assistance in a given social situation (Stanton-Salazar, 2001), is a useful theory for understanding the experiences of low-income adolescents who are the first in their families to attend college. According to social capital theory, networks of relationships can help students manage an unfamiliar environment by providing them with relevant information, guidance, and emotional support. Existing research on social capital in postsecondary institutions has focused on low-income, ethnic minority adolescents, finding that low socioeconomic status (low-SES) and first-generation ethnic minority students struggle in accessing beneficial social capital on campus (Prospero & Vohra-Gupta, 2007; Saunders & Serna, 2004). However, the academic and social adjustment of first-generation, low-income White students is an understudied phenomenon. Therefore, this study examined how White, working-class, first-generation community college students, enrolled at a community college in northern Nevada, managed to integrate themselves, both socially and academically, into college. A grounded theory approach was used to analyze the interview data (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). Overall, first-generation, working-class, White community college students face many obstacles to earning postsecondary degrees, and social capital in the form of relationships with institutional agents on campus may be able to help them further their academic goals.