🔗 linkedin.com/in/christianpaguiar

Research Focus: First-Generation & Low-Income Students • Community College Success

“An Exploration of Sense of Belonging and Efficacy Among First-Generation & Low-Income (FLI) Students in General Education Courses”

What research challenge did your dissertation address?

My research examines how first-generation and low-income students navigate barriers to success during their first year of college at an urban, minority-serving institution, with a particular focus on how they build a sense of belonging, self-efficacy, and writing skills.

What inspired you to pursue this research?

I’ve worked in community colleges for many years, and I’ve learned there’s relatively scarce knowledge about what that first year on campus actually looks like for working-class, first-generation students. I wanted to help close that gap.

What did your research find, and what is its impact?

In part because the institution I studied is intentionally focused on serving first-generation, working-class, and racially diverse students, I found there is already a genuinely strong sense of belonging on campus. Barriers certainly exist, but students build rich networks within and beyond the institution to navigate them, and there’s a real willingness among students to share resources with each other. At a more granular level, we’ve built writing groups into first-year writing courses to formalize some of the collaboration students were already building on their own, and those groups have been quite successful, showing that colleges can draw on the mutual aid and collaboration working-class students already practice to help promote their own success.

“Colleges can draw on the mutual aid and collaboration working-class students already practice to help promote their own success.”

Christian Aguiar

Full dissertation: https://northeastern.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01NEU_INST/k1b5ni/cdi_proquest_journals_3278778532