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Abstract
This study seeks to investigate the importance of life course capital on the educational aspirations of 40 social work undergraduates who were predominantly visible ethnic minority, immigrant descendants or non-traditional students in the mainstream US. Applying the resource perspective in this context, minority students’ academic successes hinge on their ability to acquire valuable resources needed for academic success over their life course (e.g. economic capital such as parental financial investment, scholarship and financial aids; cultural capital such as educational aspirations and values; and social capital such as parents’ involvement and social networks). Overall, minority social work students in this study face a multifaceted array of challenges associated with family financial strain, poor quality of early education, work obligations and economic constraints. Despite the fact that the participants exhibited a remarkable range of educational resilience, the diversities in their journeys to social work were influenced by a number of life course resources and varied systematically by personal experience as well as age cohort.
Acknowledgement
This research is supported by the University Research Institute (URI) Awards offered by the University of Texas at El Paso. I am indebted to the participants who were willing to share their life stories with me.
Notes
1. In many US colleges or universities, a Grade Point Average is typically derived from dividing the sum of the total grade points by the total number of credit earned.