The Promotion of College-Going in Open Access High Schools in an Urban School District in the Northeast
Open AccessPrior research highlights that high schools in which a "college-going culture" is intentionally fostered yield higher rates of postsecondary participation among underrepresented populations than do high schools where such a culture is absent. Central to the production and maintenance of a high school's college-going culture is the collective work of principals, teachers, and counselors who provide information and other forms of support aimed at students' continuation of their education into the postsecondary level. Through on-site interviews, this study explored what open access high school counselors, teachers, and principals in an urban school district in the Northeast do to promote college-going among their students. The networks that present the nine principles of a college-going culture, which provide the expectations, norms, and information and resources inherent in Social Capital Theory, were identified and in many cases were found to overlap. The college-going culture framework developed by McClafferty, McDonough, and Nunez (2002) in addition to Social Capital Theory, guided this study. While the concept of a college-going culture has proven to be a valuable tool for thinking about the promotion of college participation among underrepresented students, this study explicates: rhetorical commitments to a college-going culture do not guarantee its manifestation. Findings revealed that not all school-based agents believe or communicate to students that "college," as it is widely defined and used in popular discourse surrounding college-going, is the next best step after high school. Additionally, findings from this study highlight that school-based agents can have some conflicts with such rhetorical commitments as they seek to serve students in ways that they believe are in students' best interests, and postsecondary education is not always part of these conversations.
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