Experiences with cultural capital in education : exploring the educational life stories of first-generation postsecondary students

This study used a life history research design to explore first-generation university students' educational life stories and experiences with cultural capital. The project sought to examine how 3 first-generation university students experience cultural capital that is privileged in Ontario's education system and how the interactions between capital acquired through experiences within the home and school and capital privileged by the education system affect these students' educational experiences and perceptions. Using Pierre Bourdieu's (1984; 1986) theory of cultural capital as a framework, 3 firstgeneration, first-year university students participated in two 1- to 2-hour interviews. A focus on each participant's experiences with culture, capital, and education revealed themes corresponding to navigating, utilizing, and confronting familial, institutional, economic, and embodied forms of cultural capital. The study highlights the importance of recognizing how cultural capital influences the education system and how firstgeneration students can recreate normative pathways and achieve academic success despite challenges posed by the cultural capital privileged within the education system. Given cultural capital's effect on academic success, understanding first-generation students' educational life stories sheds light on the complex challenges facing students who confront and deal with privileged culture in the education system.

A Home at School: Building Stronger Indigenous People through Cultural Resurgence in an Urban Ontario Public School Context.

In this thesis, I work through the educational narratives of young Aboriginal women and men as I explore the relationship between cultural programming and student engagement. My analysis is structured through a collaborative Indigenous research project. My overarching task is to explore how a cultural support program, the Native Youth Advancement with Education Hamilton (NYA WEH) Program, offered at Sir John A. Macdonald Secondary School, located in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, attempts to re-imagine Aboriginal education in ways that directly challenge the residential school legacy. In particular, I work to illuminate how particular forms of Aboriginal education are connected to the graduation rates of Aboriginal youth. I argue that the ways in which the NYA WEH Program navigates Native Studies curriculum, relationships, and notions of culture and tradition are significant to the engagement of Aboriginal youth. This research develops theoretical connections between the contemporary experience of Aboriginal social inequality and educational initiatives which attempt to reverse that legacy. By placing the NYA WEH Program narratives side-by-side with literature supporting Aboriginal education for Self-determination, I work to learn how to best support and encourage Aboriginal student engagement in secondary schools across Ontario.