Exploring the Role of Community Cultural Wealth in Graduate School Access and Persistence for Mexican American PhDs

This article focuses on the extent to which devalued forms of capital along with limited access to valued cultural capital facilitated the access and persistence of 33 Mexican American PhDs who earned their doctorates in a variety of disciplines at 15 universities across the United States. Using the framework of community cultural wealth, this study uncovered and contextualized the ways that Mexican American PhDs activated navigational capital, resistant capital, social capital, aspirational capital, and legitimated forms of cultural capital in order to access graduate school. In order to persevere in their doctoral studies, however, participants were often reminded that cultural capital was necessary for gaining access to socialization processes and support mechanisms that would lead to funding opportunities and faculty careers. This study illustrates the extent to which participants' forms of capital (including cultural capital) were valued within hegemonic and oppressive institutions. The process starts as an undergraduate when you're... looking at the dynamics of who interacts with whom and what you hear about professors. If you want to... do graduate studies, be aware of the environment that you're going to be in. [When] there's no record of them ever producing a minority student, that is already telling you a lot. (Aztlan, Chicano, working class, life sciences)