You’re On Your Own Kid, You Always Have Been: An Institutional Ethnography for Supporting First-In-Family Women Attending Ontario Universities
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Authors
Reale, Brynn
Date
2024-09-25
Type
thesis
Language
eng
Keyword
education , higher education , first in family students , first generation students , feminist pedagogy , social justice education
Alternative Title
Abstract
James & Taylor (2023, p.14) find that first-generation university students are defined by their relation to an educational system designed to serve an “outdated model of the typical student.” Students who are first in their family to go to university are particularly placed at- risk as a diverse cohort, often intersected by multiple equity categories, such as low socioeconomic status (SES), Indigeneity, disability, and/or racialization, who experience compounding disadvantages in educational settings (Groves & O’Shea, 2019; O’Shea et al., 2018) that are heightened without adequate/relevant guidance or support from immediate family members. The purpose of this research was to illuminate systematic structural barriers that materialized in institutional texts and continue to perpetuate inequitable ruling relations representative of an “old boys’ network” (Henry et al., 2017, p.290): white, western, male, middle class, heterosexual, able bodies. I investigated how hegemonic centres of universities perpetuate deficit discourses that situate marginalized women who are first-in-family students in this disadvantaged position, why such students are responsible for accommodating to meet academic and institutional standards, and how they know. Using Dorothy Smith’s institutional ethnography as my method of inquiry, with attention to critical feminist pedagogies, I analyzed Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada as a textually mediated institutional site, and revealed the existing ruling relations that subject first-in-family students to obstacles to their education and overall quality of student life. First-in-family students must “bend” to accommodate these obstacles and the disjunctures they create. Informant narrative accounts informed the direction of this institutional ethnography. This institutional ethnography revealed how local ruling relations are textually mediated, that they burden marginalized first-in-family university students, and that universities exploit first-in-family students in their failure to provide structures that position them in the institution to equitably derive the benefits of higher education.
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ProQuest PhD and Master's Theses International Dissemination Agreement
Intellectual Property Guidelines at Queen's University
Copying and Preserving Your Thesis
This publication is made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws without written authority from the copyright owner.
Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International