To inform higher education and student affairs (HESA) professionals who work with college students outside of the classroom, we asked the research question: How do undocumented Latinx college students use aspirational capital to navigate higher education? Aspirational capital is the ability to maintain hopes and dreams for the future in the face…

This article uses Yosso's (2005) framework of cultural capital and Matos's (2011, 2015, 2019) findings on cultural capital to examine how these frameworks can be used to recruit and retain Latinx college students. The article discusses the engagement of Latinx parents in higher education and offers suggestions on how higher education professionals…

Objective: The purpose of this study is to highlight the type of community cultural wealth developed and used by Latina/o community college transfer students who encountered limited pre-transfer assistance and unreceptive cultures at their transfer institutions. Method: This study took place at Southwest State University (SSU), a Predominantly…

Addressing Latinx student underrepresentation in STEM requires an assets-based reimagining of STEM experiences and pathways that facilitate student success. Drawing on data from two qualitative studies of Latinx students pursuing STEM majors, findings reveal that Latinx students draw on at least six distinct forms of cultural assets to facilitate…

This paper examines the critical transition from undergraduate to graduate biomedical education and focuses on Hispanic/Latinx students who participated in a biomedical undergraduate research program at a Hispanic-Serving Institution located on the US-Mexico border. We use the community cultural wealth (CCW) framework to analyze 13 qualitative…

The purpose of my phenomenological qualitative study was to understand the impact of family involvement and engagement on the persistence of first-generation Latinx students at a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) designated university. Grounded in Yosso's (2005) community cultural wealth (CCW) model, I explored the ways CCW assets learned from…

This research applies the community cultural wealth model to explore how Black and Latinx students experience financial barriers in college from an appreciative lens. The purpose of this study was to increase understanding of how Black and Latinx students use aspirational, familial, social, navigational, resistant, and linguistic capital to…

This study examined the role of a state need-based financial aid policy in Latina/o high school students' meaning making of postsecondary access. Utilizing narrative research, the analytical focus on the meaning making uncovered patterns of individual agency in the journeys of eight Latina/o high school students who were recent enrollees in the…

The landmark theoretical model of Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) was developed almost twenty years ago as a critique of American meritocracy and the deficit views of Students of Color (Yosso, 2005). Most research on CCW since that point has been qualitative in nature, specifically in-depth interviews to understand how Students of Color exact…

This article builds upon Yosso's Community Cultural Wealth framework to propose a Latinidad model of Maternal Cultural Wealth (MCW). Drawing from the experiences of Latinos whose persistence motivations are rooted in their desire to honor mothers for their love, resilience, protection, and sacrifice, MCW proposes filial piety and custodial,…

This qualitative study analyzes interviews with 17 first-generation Latina/o/x students. This study bridges funds of knowledge and social reproduction theory to examine the bi-directional exchange of familial funds of knowledge and capital relevant to higher education in Latina/o/x families. Students' familial funds of knowledge assisted them as…

This critical qualitative study examines the ways first-generation Students of Color (Latina/o/x, African American, Native American, and biracial) at two predominantly White institutions in the Midwest activate their college knowledge, or cultural capital, to assist youth from their communities in viewing higher education as a viable option. In…

Postsecondary institutions do not typically recognize or utilize students' cultural wealth, yet cultural practices can significantly affect college persistence. In this longitudinal study, seven Mexican American low-income college students attending a large public research institution participated in in-depth interviews to examine the types of…

This study seeks explores how Latina student mothers mediate their educational success by understanding how students balance their educational responsibilities with motherhood. This qualitative study utilizes funds of knowledge (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & González, 1992) as a theoretical framework to identify and document the wealth of knowledge,…

At a large, diverse, hispanic-serving, master's-granting university, the Alma Project was created to support the rich connections of life experiences of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students that come from racially diverse backgrounds through reflective journaling. Utilizing frameworks in ethnic studies and social…