A College Culture Encourages Students to Continue Their Education

January 18th, 2010 By: Diane Trim in Articles, Common Core State Standards, School Climate, School Turnaround, Teachers' Corner

JoAnna, one of my favorite students, came from a family where attending college wasn’t an expectation. In fact, her dad told her that going to college would be a waste of her time and money.

In my classes and on my student newspaper staff, JoAnna was a standout. I remember encouraging her, looking over her college application essays, and writing letters of recommendation.

I’m very proud to say that she graduated in December with a B.A. in international studies. (Oh, I hope she finds a job.)

Researchers Nicole Holland, Ph.D., and Raquel L. Farmer-Hinton, Ph.D., looked into the question of whether school size encourages a college culture. They found that smaller schools, or smaller learning communities within larger schools, were more successful in creating a college culture than big schools.

In the budget battles, their findings that smaller learning communities prepare students for higher education should give student advocates powerful arguments to keep schools small.

For we teachers, the biggest take-away from Holland and Farmer-Hilton’s research is how we can encourage this college culture in our own classrooms.

They say the college culture has three components: social support, social capital, and an ethic of knowledge and care.

Social Support

Social support is that relationship that students and teachers create. Teachers care about their students and communicate with them as people, not as authority figures. Studies show that students who experience this kind of social support are more engaged in academic achievement.

Social support is very important to creating a college culture because, like JoAnna, many students don’t have role models at home who are encouraging education beyond high school. As teachers, we have to be that social support, those role models. The researchers believe that social support is easiest to achieve in a small school or small learning community.

Social Capital

Social capital is the set of expectations that a social network has. In terms of college culture in a school, it’s the expectation that students will attend college when they graduate from high school. It’s the number of opportunities students have to learn about colleges and talk about their college plans. It’s the school norms that encourage successful college behavior like class attendance, complete assignments, and class participation. The whole school environment is set up to encourage and prepare students for higher education.

In schools where the student population hasn’t historically attended college, but where there is a great deal of social capital, the number of students who enroll in postsecondary education increased.

An Ethic of Knowledge and Care

It’s good to care about your students. Attend a school basketball game, ask about their burger-flipping jobs, and listen to a minute or two of their music. Caring about your students as individuals is important to creating the environment of social support and social capital. Studies also show that students who believe that the adults in their schools care about them work harder in classes, are more respectful in all relationships, graduate from high school, and continue on to higher education.

Caring isn’t just learning about your students as people, although that’s a good start. Sometimes caring is prodding a student to challenge himself in Honors Biology. Sometimes caring is setting a student up with a math tutor. Caring might be listening to an at-risk student’s plans for the future and nudging her to pursue some kind of postsecondary education.

The Findings

The researchers found that students in small schools or small learning communities within large schools experienced more of the college culture than students in large schools. The researchers wrote that creating social support and social capital is easier in a small school where students and teachers can get to know one another more easily.

They also wrote that the college culture needs to be a school-wide effort. Pockets of college culture within the school are a step in the right direction, but teachers who create these college culture enclaves miss some kids who need the information about postsecondary education. In a school where the college culture is inconsistent, student have to seek out information about colleges and must either self-select as a college-bound student or have someone identify them as such.

College information, college counselors, college fairs, and a small learning community aren’t enough to create the college culture that will encourage students to continue their education. The researchers wrote, “Social support and personalized student attention seem to be the most useful conduits through which college planning information is explained and disseminated.”

Reference:

Holland, N. and Farmer-Hinton, R. (2009) Leave No Schools Behind: The Importance of a College Culture in Urban Public Schools. The High School Journal, Feb/Mar 2009, 24-43.

Tags: achievement, careers, college, higher education, Learning Community