Abstract
Majority of first year students experience the transition from school to university as challenging. First generation students are the most susceptible in this transition. Awareness of students’ family circumstances can help academics to gain a deeper understanding of who their students are and how best to support these students. This understanding will encourage the academics to take reasonable steps to reflect on their practices. Awareness and understanding students’ family circumstances can assist in identifying students’ risk factors and facilitate smooth transition into the university. This in turn make the students feel welcome at the university and acquire a sense of belonging. This paper draws on Bourdieu’s (1984, 1990) cultural capital in order to understand students’ family circumstances. A questionnaire comprising of fourteen questions was administered to 800 first year students at a University of Technology. This was followed by focus group discussions to dig deeper on the responses given in the questionnaire. The findings of this study revealed that students’ family circumstances do play a role in first year students’ into university.
Presenters
Nosisana Patricia MkontoHead of Departemnt, Centre for Higher Education Development, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Western Cape, South Africa
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
"Family Circumstances", " First Year Students", " Transition"
