ABSTRACT

Institutional practices and conditions at community colleges can improve rates of transfer, as can access to transfer student capital. However, we know little about how institutions attempt to build students’ transfer capital, or about students’ experiences within community colleges as they accumulate transfer capital. In this paper, we examine how students’ institutional experiences, particularly their engagement with student supports at community colleges and transfer destinations, influence their understanding of, and ability to navigate, the transfer process. We view the accumulation of transfer student capital as an interactionist model between the students and their institution, where students’ transfer knowledge and success is conditioned by an interaction between their background and institutional conditions. We draw on longitudinal qualitative interview data with transfer-intending community college students over the course of 3 years to understand how students access, receive, and accumulate transfer capital as they work toward their educational goals. By leveraging student experiences, our study can inform community colleges and transfer destinations about practices and policies interpreted as most effective from the perspective of students. Our work also connects to broader conversations about how institutions reproduce, ameliorate, or exacerbate inequalities based on student background.

 抽象的

社区学院的制度实践和条件可以提高转学率，也可以提高转学生资本。然而，我们对各机构如何试图建立学生的转移资本，或学生在社区大学积累转移资本时的经历知之甚少。在本文中，我们研究了学生的机构经历，特别是他们在社区大学和转学目的地获得学生支持的参与，如何影响他们对转学过程的理解和驾驭能力。我们将转学生资本的积累视为学生与其所在机构之间的互动模型，其中学生的转学知识和成功取决于其背景与机构条件之间的互动。我们利用三年来对打算转学的社区学院学生的纵向定性访谈数据，了解学生在实现教育目标的过程中如何获取、接受和积累转学资本。通过利用学生的经验，我们的研究可以向社区大学和转学目的地通报从学生的角度来看最有效的做法和政策。我们的工作还与更广泛的对话有关，即机构如何根据学生背景再现、改善或加剧不平等。