Building Students' 'Cultural Capital'

By Doug Lederman. Students who are the first in their families to attend college face a set of disadvantages in terms of college enrollment, persistence and graduation -- a vexing problem, to be sure, since virtually nothing can be done retroactively to change their demographic realities. But are there attributes that commonly flow from being a first-generation college student that colleges can address? 
That possibility formed the basis of a session Monday at the Council of Independent Colleges' annual chief academic officers' institute here, where academic and student affairs administrators from dozens of mostly small private colleges discussed the concept of "cultural capital" and the extent to which their institutions can (and should) seek to build it in students. Read more...