Broadening conceptions of a “college-going culture”: The role of high school climate factors in college enrollment and persistence

Abstract

As workforce participation increasingly requires a college degree, ensuring that more students from traditionally underrepresented populations have the opportunity to enter and complete college is an equity imperative. To that end, high school reforms have promoted “college-going cultures” in low-performing high schools through interventions such as rigorous course offerings and college counseling. College access research has focused on issues specific to academics and college-going processes. Yet this research has tended to ignore broader school climate factors such as school safety and extracurricular programming, which may play a critical role in postsecondary opportunity, especially for historically underserved students. The current study applies hierarchical generalized linear modeling to the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 to 2006 to examine the role of college-going culture and high school climate characteristics on college enrollment and persistence. We find that while some components of college-going culture are associated with the likelihood of college enrollment and persistence, that relationship is moderated by school climate factors. We conclude that efforts to implement a college-going culture may struggle if extracurricular opportunities, school safety, and overall school climate issues are ignored.

Accountability and (In)Congruence in a No-Excuses School College-Going Culture

“…However, facilitating college enrollment is only one way that schools shape students’ life chances. Research demonstrates that students’ relationships with school staff, access to extracurricular activities, perceptions of school safety, and satisfaction with their schools also mediate their outcomes (D. S. Knight & Duncheon, 2020; Minor & Benner, 2018).…”

Experiences and perceptions of academics about student engagement in higher education

“…However, the effect of growth in enrolment should not be large class that can negatively affect the quality of instruction, but rather, there should be adequate academics to deliver modules in the various disciplinary areas (Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), 2013). While a small class-size is important for effective teaching and learning, Knight and Duncheon (2020) assert that reduction in class size does not lead to students' achievement gains especially when academics do not alter their teaching practice to reflect the knowledge needs of students. This therefore brings to the fore the importance of professional community where academics share ideas on best pedagogical practices that aim at enhancing student success.…”

“…At the individual level, personal effort by academics to provide affective support to students, provide adequate and prompt feedback to students and develop pedagogical skills enhances students’ learning and success. Prior research has shown that socio-cultural and relational features especially at the micro level of education manifest through students’ experience of good teaching and learning (Bryson and Hand, 2007; Knight and Duncheon, 2020) which occur in the classroom.…”

Construction of organizational culture for ideal performance of Islamic-based junior high schools in Indonesia

“…Conversely, a misunderstanding of the values in organization culture causes ambiguity among school administrators, which results in hindering the process of education sustainability (Maryati et al, 2020). Precedent studies have reported that application of organization cultures requires policy supports; hence for this reason, schools that do not have cultural characters become less competitive (Barratt-Pugh & Krestelica, 2018;Knight & Duncheon, 2020).…”