written by Florin D. Lung, Geoff Potvin, Gerhard Sonnert, and Philip M. Sadler

Students enter college with social, cultural, and economic resources (well described by Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and capital) that significantly impact their goals, actions, and successes. Two important determinants of the amount and type of resources available to students are their immigrant generation and college generation status. Drawing on a national sample of 6860 freshmen enrolled in college English, we compare and contrast the effects of immigrant generation with those of college generation status on physical science and engineering career intentions to explore some of the challenges faced by the first in the family to become an American and/or go to college.

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Published January 24, 2013
Last Modified June 27, 2013