Here we argue that UCLA’s first two decades show it to be a unique historical case: it was a state normal school that quickly became a research university, not just a teaching college, a branch campus quickly achieving parity with its parent institution, the first elite research university comprised of a large majority of women students, the first major public research university founded in the twentieth century, the first public/private partnership, even if silent, to plan a public university alongside a private commercial village or college town, and one of the first colleges to be used as a prime filming site for Hollywood film studios using it to portray a typical American college. Unlike most, if not all, histories of specific universities, much of the study is devoted to the broader historical education context in which UCLA is embedded, and therefore, the popular new public high schools in Los Angeles, UCLA’s predecessors and later competitors in the private sector such as Caltech, USC, Pomona, Occidental, and new junior (later, community) colleges are discussed and examined here. This study is not limited to the standard academic schedule and is not restricted to UCLA’s campus, but also concerns the 1918 flu pandemic, rise of summer session programs, and shows the silent real estate development partnership between public and private sector actors when UCLA moved to its new campus in Westwood.

UCLA moved its campus in the 1920s from a few miles north of USC on Vermont Avenue all the way to then pastoral Westwood. Its historical identity was fixed then, as a flagship public university set in the city, but not really of the city. (USC, conversely, embraced its role as the city's university during this period, even though a private institution). Neighboring Westwood Village was the first privately planned college town, nestled among the tony neighborhoods of Bel Air to the north and Holmby Hills to the east. Located in such an exclusive area, UCLA was from the start a difficult environment for students of color and students coming from low-income backgrounds, but still offered great opportunities to many Southern Californians who had until then lacked a local public sector choice for college, and later, for graduate school. UCLA’s early institutional saga was cast in power and prestige, with the ambitions of its faculty and students matching those of its rapidly growing host city.

Due to the highly stratified nature of American higher education, student outcomes vary widely by institutional type. Therefore, the college decision-making process merits close examination to understand how students select an institution that will shape their collegiate experiences and post-college opportunities. However, South Asian American experiences are largely absent from this literature, either omitted entirely or obscured by over-aggregation. Within this broader gap, there is also a need to focus on South Asian American women, who are found to be unequally burdened (compared to men) by their immigrant community’s cultural expectations. To address these needs, this dissertation examined how South Asian American women’s gender and cultural identities manifest and then influence their decision to attend either a community college, public state university, or elite private university.

Using Lawrence-Lightfoot’s method of portraiture, this study focused on the experiences of 11 women across the three institutional types, with data created from a series of three interviews with the participant and a participant-led interview with the family member she identified as having played a pivotal role in her decision-making process. Largely guided by a combination of Bhattacharya’s Par/Desi Framework and Perna’s Conceptual Model of Student College Choice, this study’s findings underscored the powerful influence of cultural and gender identities. The similarities among the women’s decision-making processes included feeling a sense of uncertainty in the initial decision-making process, bearing the weight of South Asian stereotypes, recognizing the role of performativity in their decision, and relying on family involvement. The differences included a contrast between prioritizing pragmatism versus prestige in the search process and the variations in traditional gender role expectations. Additionally, the themes that emerged across the differences in their decision-making process mirrored the differences in their ongoing perceptions and experiences of their institution.

Overall, this study’s findings illuminate the nuances of South Asian American women’s college decision-making processes and point to key implications for research, theory, and practice. Most importantly, the study contributes to the field’s understanding of how South Asian Americans in particular and immigrant communities more broadly engage with the American higher education landscape.

The college-going journey in rural areas is shaped by a large deficit of information on rurality and higher education. From a neo-institutional and Bourdieuian lens, this study explored the field of rural higher education by (a) centering the actors and organizations in the field, (b) highlighting the internal and external forces that shape and define the field, and (c) examining the ways the field addresses regional educational inequities. Through a qualitative single-case study of a college-going pipeline in the Pacific Northwest, this study found through fields and spatial analysis that the field of higher education in this region was composed of committed stakeholders working against external forces, including federal and state policies, funding, and staffing. Further, this study demonstrated that opportunities within rural areas are complex, with costs that can detract from the proposed benefits.

This study contributes to both literature and theory. First, by applying an organizational lens, the study investigated the stakeholders who constitute the dynamic field of rural college-going. Second, this study uplifted the voices of rural educators, adding to rural scholarship by including narratives beyond those of rural students. Findings from this study demonstrate that for college-going outcomes to improve in rural areas, rural-focused equity initiatives and policies must be institutionalized at micro, meso, and macro levels. Implications from this study provide researchers, policymakers, and practitioners with constructive ideas that could strengthen the alignment of rural educational stakeholders, institutional practices, and initiatives.

The purpose of this dissertation is to understand how 13 Latino male students acquire and make sense of gang and college knowledge in one alternative/continuation schools in Rock County School District. Less than 45 percent of Latino males graduate from public schools in that state of the study (Schott Foundation for Public Education, 2015). Using Bourdieu’s (1980, 1990) cultural capital and habitus and Coleman’s (1988, 1990) social capital theories serves as a combined lens to consider how Latino males are taught how to perform in an appropriate or expected fashion in their communities, accrue benefits in their various social networks, and understand how these individuals’ social histories and experiences influences aspirations and expectations for their future. Findings suggest that 10 of the 13 students are more aware of gang membership requirements than college admission criteria. Ten of the 13 students want to attend a technical or vocational college and four-year universities. Most students believe their only college financing options are working full-time and/or student loans. Only two students mentioned a teacher, counselors, or school administrator trying to actively help them prepare or share college information. The results of the study can help high school college counselors, college outreach professionals, and social services practitioners to develop better prevention strategies to alter or create earlier interventions that promote college-going cultures.

Women’s colleges carry an important legacy of access and equity in higher education, even as they faced challenges of dropping enrollments, financial hardships, and the creeping threat of conversion to coeducation at different points in their historical arc. The research on women’s colleges has touted the benefits of attending these institutions on students’ satisfaction with academic experiences, visibility of women role models and leaders, and encouragement to pursue advanced degrees in fields in which women are underrepresented. Most studies are silent on the intersectionality of race and gender in student experiences and outcomes.

Using Delgado Bernal’s (1998) Chicana feminist epistemological perspective as a way to focus Stanton-Salazar’s (2010; 2011) theory of social capital for the study of institutional agents and their role in the empowerment of low-status students, this study examined the factors and contexts that influenced the experiences of Latinx women at a women’s college, paying special attention to the role of staff and faculty in the transmission of social capital. Employing a narrative qualitative method, the main sources of data were biographical background surveys, one-on-one interviews with 15 Latinx women and five staff and faculty members, and documents analyzed for content related to campus diversity initiatives.

The findings of this study revealed that institutional investment in academic and mentorship support for Latinx and first-generation students; the role of family; supportive relationships with Latinx peers; and a culturally relevant curriculum, all positively influenced Latinx women’s experiences. On the other hand, Latinx women’s feelings of alienation at a predominantly white institution, and the campus involvement and student leadership paradox, were factors that challenged students. Other important findings revealed the characteristics of empowering relationships between institutional agents and Latinx women that facilitated the transmission of social capital. These included: the benefits that emerged from long-term relationships; the breaking down of institutional hierarchies to minimize the distance between faculty, staff, and students; and the ways in which interpersonal trust was predicated on a shared identity and political consciousness.

The implications of the study suggest opportunities for women’s colleges’ administrators, faculty, and staff to address the challenges of embodying the values of a truly intersectional feminist institution invested in the success of Latinx students, and underrepresented students more broadly.

The current study applied Hatzenbuehler et al.'s (2012) conceptual framework of stigmatization to understand community opposition to school climate interventions for sexual minority youth. This study addressed a gap in the literature on factors in the educational ecology which impact the implementation of LGBT-inclusive programs and curriculum. An analysis of the extensive public records surrounding a student suicide and subsequent federal civil rights investigation in a California district revealed heteronormative forces of silencing, erasure, and marginalization in the school and community environment.

As the primary socializing institutions in rural areas, schools contribute to the acceptance and well-being of sexual minority youth. The theoretical concepts of ecological systems and minority stress emphasize the importance of contextualizing risk factors associated with heteronormative school climate. Elements of school ecology which produce stigmatization evolve over time and may not be perceived by educators as barriers in the lives of local youth.

The federal government's intervention template to address a hostile climate for sexual minority and gender-nonconforming youth incorporated research-based prescriptions, but failed to overcome significant barriers during implementation. An analysis of parent involvement, specifically the tactics of opponents and stakeholder advisory committees, indicated that district outreach occurred in the broader context of social stigmatization.

This qualitative case study analyzed the multiple challenges a rural K-12 district faced during the implementation of an LGBT-affirmative school climate intervention. Opposition to these programs increased when stakeholders conflated sexual orientation with sexual practice or perceived a violation of personal religious beliefs. The erasure of LGBT content from an anti-bullying curriculum and the emphasis on generic anti-bullying, or Golden Rule-based, lessons further marginalized sexual minority identity from classroom discourse. The findings suggest how the replication of heterosexually-biased social structures and the reassertion of community norms perpetuate the stigma associated with sexual orientation.

This study explores the family unit as a crucial aspect of Latina/o college-going – an aspect far more important than previously asserted through research – as well as the emotions, expectations, negotiations made as the realm of possibility changes. Through the narratives told of each family, we see the negotiation of various events, and weaved through all are the complex emotions and perceptions caused by the context and process themselves. This study adds to the growing number of studies focusing on Latina/o college-going that use familial capital and other forms of knowing by discussing this process as one in which the family expectations and perceptions are incorporated. Given the need for a re-conceptualization of Latina/o college- going and the methodological gap in research design, this phenomenological study contributes to the field by asking direct questions regarding the experience of the family unit through the college-going process. As scholars, thinkers, and individuals charged with the responsibility to develop a full understanding of phenomenon, we owe it to our communities to thoroughly investigate the CGP and create pathways through which to increase college-going.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand how Chinese and Indian international students in the United States utilize forms of capital and migrant networks to navigate their U.S. institution of higher education to achieve their educational goals. This study sought to answer its research questions by using a combination of in-person interviews with international students studying at a postsecondary institution in the U.S. as well as document analysis of websites of groups and organizations that offer support and guidance to international students. Findings from this study identified unique forms of mobility capital that were developed by international students prior to their arrival to the U.S., particularly through education activities designed to prepare future international students to study in a foreign country. Additionally, this study identified that international students drew upon support from a large transnational network that spans the globe during their postsecondary studies, but had limited interaction with migrant communities in the U.S. outside of those who are family or family friends.

This dissertation project focuses on the virtuosities of class in the navigation of the college affordability decision-making process for high and low-income families. Virtuosities, according to Bourdieu, represent the composite talents and skills of class practice. And it is through these “virtuosities” that we come to express our class identities. In this comparative study of fourteen high-income families and sixteen low-income families, two discrete class-based patterns of college affordability practice are identified: the high-income practice of parental managerialism and the low-income practice of parental proximal support. These two forms of family labor organization form a classed practice representing the structuring frameworks from which high and low-income families determine what is possible in their navigation of the college affordability pathway. Importantly, these practices work in complement and contradiction to current affordability policy and practice. It is these complementary and contradictory effects that ultimately lend to the structuring of advantage for high-income families and disadvantage for low-income families.

The purpose of this study was to retroactively explore how Latinx undocumented students currently enrolled at a single University of California (UC) campus navigated policies concerning accessibility and affordability as they worked toward their goal of pursuing bachelor’s degrees. Using a critical race theory (CRT) and Latino/a critical race theory (LatCrit) lens, this study examined how policies such as California Assembly Bill (AB) 540; the California Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (Dream) Act; and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) shaped participants’ college goals. Moreover, this study explored participants’ challenges accessing information that was relevant to their status needs and the forms of support these participants used to navigate this larger policy landscape. Guided by a critical policy analysis approach that interrogated and scrutinized racial politics driving policy, 19 Latinx undocumented student participants engaged in two semistructured interviews and completed an educational journey map, an introspective tool used to uncover details about significant people, places, and events shaping their journeys to the 4-year institution. The study also used document analyses to investigate the resources and forms of support available to the participants. These document analyses encompassed resources available at the individual university site, those within the larger UC education system, and those forms of support situated within participants’ local contexts. The study’s findings revealed how California AB 540, California Dream Act, and DACA were important in enabling participants to better afford their 4-year institution. Despite these positive effects, the findings uncovered challenges and tensions in accessing accurate information concerning these policies. Along these lines, the findings addressed how these policies are situated within the larger web of college affordability, thereby demonstrating how and where existing policy has failed to consider the full scope of undocumented students’ needs. Implications from this study provide practitioners and researchers with ideas that can support the academic trajectories of Latinx undocumented students in a manner consistent with the current policy landscape and emerging policy changes. Given the study’s policy-oriented focus, the findings also yielded recommendations for policymakers so the system-level challenges articulated in the findings can be better addressed.