UCLA

This study sheds light on the assets First Generation Students of Color bring with them to a Research I University and highlights the role a small learning community plays in helping them identify and activate their assets. Through a qualitative case study consisting of five synchronous online focus groups and document analysis, I delve into the undergraduate experiences of 20 Women of Color. Asset-based theories, particularly Community Cultural Wealth and Funds of Knowledge guide this study’s design and analysis. Findings reveal the institutionally produced imposter syndrome and ethical costs of pursuing higher education students experienced. Yet in the face of these challenges students actively strategized, considering reverse transferring to a community college or a state school closer to home. Students attributed the small learning community with allowing them to find a support system and a safe space where they belonged. Through the small learning community students refuted institutionally-produced imposter syndrome, cultivated the power of their voices, and experienced identity affirmation and development. Students’ aspirational, familial, social and navigational capital allowed them to persist at SGSU despite various challenges. These findings demonstrate small learning communities are an effective strategy through which students can experience validation from institutional agents and learn to validate themselves by recognizing the assets they carry. Through small learning communities, higher education institutions’ roles can shift from passively enrolling students to actively ensuring their success by initiating support and taking measures to guarantee students use campus resources and services. Beyond implementing small learning communities and enrolling diverse students, colleges and universities must serve these students well by ensuring more faculty of color are recruited, hired and supported in academia, training faculty and staff to recognize students’ assets, validating students through the physical campus environment, implementing asset-based curriculums and producing equitable graduation, graduate school enrollment and job placement outcomes for FGSOC.