UC Santa Cruz

Black, Indigenous, People of Color first-generation (BIPOC FG) graduate students bring unacknowledged strengths into graduate school. These strengths can come from their lived experiences and the skills, goals, or values from their families and communities, also known as funds of knowledge. This dissertation drew on an extant data set to investigate how BIPOC FG graduate students acquire, convert, and apply their funds of knowledge within the context of a public Hispanic-Serving Institution. Thirteen BIPOC FG students (7 Latinx, 4 Multiethnic-racial, and 2 Asian American) participated in a semi-structured interview about their transition into graduate school, and current lived experiences in their graduate program. The narratives were analyzed, and their themes were used to create profiles that captured variations in the processes and strategies by which BIPOC FG graduate students acquire and convert their funds of knowledge. Findings revealed four different profiles that highlight the unique ways participants navigated graduate school. This study adds to the scarce literature on how graduate students convert their funds of knowledge to navigate their graduate programs.