"Dipping Your Toes": How Dual Credit May Help Students of Color Transition to College

Hugo Garcia Gonzalez, from Texas Tech University, discusses the academic achievement gap that many scholars have noted between Latinos and Whites and other students of color. Low academic achievement propels Latinos, especially Latino males, to enroll in open-admission community colleges, resulting in their overrepresentation in two-year institutions.  Furthermore, the scant body of literature on dual enrollment programs states that these programs promote postsecondary participation. By providing a clearer picture of the structured inequalities in the educational pipeline and how dual enrollment can circumvent these artificial educational systems within a Latino student context, policy makers and educators can enhance college participation and completion rates.
            Using a qualitative research design, Professor Garcia Gonzalez interviewed 26 Latino males enrolled at two community colleges. He used Anticipatory Socialization, role rehearsal, and Stanton-Salazar’s concepts of social capital and funds of knowledge to guide the study. Most students in the study described that dual enrollment motivated them to enroll and eased their transition to college after high school. The majority of students indicated that dual enrollment served to increase their desire to enroll in college after high school.  He concludes by suggesting that high schools and colleges can help students from working backgrounds transition to college by enculturating students of the types of norms, attitudes, and behaviors needed to be successful in college.  Dual enrollment had a warming-up effect in that students become motivated to continue to their education post-high school.  Furthermore, providing students with the various forms of funds of knowledge to successfully navigate the hierarchical structure of postsecondary institutions can promote matriculation to college and ease the transition from high school to college.

Contact

Rosa Pinter, rpinter@cbs.ucsb.edu or 805-893-3914