The educational achievement routes of first generation students in a rural town

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT : This thesis explores the unique educational achievement routes of selected ruralorigin first generation students (FGSs) in South Africa. The study aimed tounderstand the family-, social-, community-, and school experiences and paths ofthree rural-origin FGSs who were able, successfully, to enter university study.This study applied a combined theoretical framework of Bourdieu‟s notion of culturalcapital, Yosso‟s (2005) Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) framework and theFigured Worlds theory (Holland et al., 1998), to address the main research questionof this study, which is: How do first generation students from a rural town constructtheir educational achievement routes during their high school years to gain access touniversity?The methodological research design employed for this study was qualitative, basedon an interpretive phenomenological research approach. This approach ischaracterised by its central focus on the lived experiences of the researchparticipants. For this reason it was chosen as the most suitable approach tounderstand the nuanced educational achievement routes that the individuals in thisstudy had to establish as aspirant FGSs, growing up in a rural and impoverishedsmall town environment. The data collection method used was the in-depth semistructured interview.The most important finding of this study was that unlike the other young people fromtheir rural home environs, the FGSs in this study demonstrated resilience to therestrictive environmental influences around them. Their educational paths weregrounded in their ability to use their capitals and community cultural wealth torecognise and utilise the opportunities for educational achievement both outside (intheir family-, social-, and community environments) and inside the school. Thesestudents used their agency to mobilise the resources in these environments to shapetheir educational subjectivities in a way that led to them becoming academicachievers, which enabled their entry into the Figured World of educationalachievement operating within their high school.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University