A CLASS ON SOCIAL CLASS: Lessons From a First-Year Seminar
Abstract
For students from marginalized social class backgrounds, first-year seminars can nurture dialogue during the transition to college as they navigate unfamiliar environments, build connections with peers, and experience changing home relationships. First-year seminars serve as a powerful intervention for student success, designated alongside selective other experiences as high-impact practices. This chapter provides the example of one such course focused on exploring social class in higher education that took place at New England University in 2017 and 2018 to provide a model of one potential course. Students mapped out how the five interrelated domains appeared in their lives and related to their overall understanding of social class. The effectiveness of the seminar was demonstrated through a mixed-methods case study of the course conducted during its second iteration that examined student meaning-making related to social class identity. These seminars can bridge the gap between academic and student services to help students integrate their holistic experience.
Publication Title
Social Class Supports: Programs and Practices to Serve and Sustain Poor and Working-Class Students Through Higher Education
Recommended Citation
Bettencourt, G. (2023). A CLASS ON SOCIAL CLASS: Lessons From a First-Year Seminar. Social Class Supports: Programs and Practices to Serve and Sustain Poor and Working-Class Students Through Higher Education, 158-168. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003446996-16
