Against an expanded sector of higher education, inadequate empirical effort has been made to examine the experiences of middle-class students who fail to get straight into university rectify their situation. Such experiences, as well as their psychic/emotional aspects, are of increasing relevance to understanding the operation of class against a…

Patterns in analysis of research data on alternative education practices as well as on student and teacher experience in mainstream settings seem to support Pierre Bourdieu and Jean Claude Passeron's theory of symbolic violence. Data from teachers and students suggest that students from low socio-economic backgrounds often disengage from education…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to research how social reproduction perpetuates and replicates the status quo in the community college classroom, especially as perceived by first-generation students. The study investigated two questions: How is social reproduction enacted in the community college classroom? How do first-generation…

We tested the ability of Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) model to predict intention to graduate among Canadian and Israeli students with and without a learning disability/attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (LD/ADHD). Results based on 1486 postsecondary students show that the model's predictors (i.e., attitude, subjective norms,…

Latina community college students experience a number of challenges during their transition to college. Findings from a larger study indicated that Latina community college students experienced racism and stereotyping on campus responding with silence. Silence occurred in two ways: (1) Latinas were forced to be silent, and/or (2) Latinas chose to…

Female adult learners, the fastest growing subpopulation in community colleges, face challenges navigating domestic, professional, and academic roles and take time off from school to reconcile issues with multiple role navigation; thus, their education is disjointed and staggered, creating barriers to persistence. This interpretive design…

The purpose of this study was to use feminist critical policy analysis to understand the lived experiences of mothering while attending community college and to suggest institutional transformations that might better support mothering students. The findings are based on the re-analysis of interview data from 13 mothering students. We found that…

Objective: Health researchers have claimed that perceptions toward a person with a tattoo are more negative than are perceptions toward nontattooed persons. However, support for this has been obtained almost completely by nonexperimental research. Participants: In 2 experiments with 158 community college student participants, the authors found…

Community colleges educate students from both oppressed and marginalized groups, yet there is almost no literature on community colleges and issues of social justice. Student participation in service learning has been tentatively linked to development of a social justice lens. In this study, I analyze community college students' post-course civic…

"It's all up to the individual!" Most sociology instructors have encountered this response from students who have internalized the dominant ideological perspective of "personal responsibility" and therefore resist their efforts to encourage a rigorous examination of structural forces. A number of articles in recent issues of "Teaching Sociology"…