“It was Hard to Prepare without Knowing What I was Preparing for”: Latine Youth Experiences of a First-Generation College-Going Group

Abstract

This article describes the experience of participants and facilitators engaging in a psychoeducational group counseling intervention designed to enhance college readiness among Latine first-generation college-going students—those for whom neither parent completed college (National Center for Education Statistics, 2017). The group was designed to increase students’ understanding of how their various identities impacted their college preparatory experience and willingness to seek help. Findings suggest that participants recognized the importance of their identities and the way they influenced their help-seeking behaviors. Participants identified similarities among their experiences related to college going while also valuing learning from each other’s differences. Last, participants felt a sense of uncertainty and angst about going to college. We also share facilitator experiences.

“Why am I here?”: A phenomenological exploration of first‐generation college student experiences in STEM majors within a predominantly white institution

“…She has engaged in research interrogating the norms of STEM education and the impact on students, for example, in community colleges (Marco-Bujosa et al, 2021) and in teacher education (Marco-Bujosa, 2021;Marco-Bujosa et al, 2020). The third researcher possessed varied expertise related to FGCS, with multiple publications affiliated with FGCS and educational interventions (e.g., Havlik et al, 2020;Havlik et al, 2023;Malott et al, 2022;Pulliam et al, 2019). While we have a commitment to attaining justice and transforming FGCS' opportunities to engage in STEM, we must acknowledge how our multiple dominant identities (e.g., whiteness and, for two researchers, continuing generation status) could potentially inhibit our collective ability to fully understand the lived experiences of participants in the study.…”