Abstract
This scenario focuses on the experience of Barbara – a white woman who is a first-generation (FGCS) and low socio-economic status (SES) graduate student. When a conversation about low SES takes place in her graduate program, Barbara challenges her peers to consider the assumptions they are making about SES, race, and how their privilege may be informing those assumptions. Simultaneously, Barbara struggles with her own identities that do not align with the assumptions her cohort members have made about her. The goal of this scenario is to encourage reflection around the assumptions we make in graduate programs, in student affairs, and in our interactions on and beyond campus.
When a conversation about low SES takes place in her graduate program, Barbara challenges students to consider whether or not they are using low SES as a synonym for not white. Students in her cohort have misread her as coming from a middle/upper-class background and both critique and praise her for her perspective given her economic privilege. The goal of this scenario is to encourage reflection about who we make assumptions about people and that there are problems that can accompany those assumptions.
Keywords: First-Generation College Student, Socioeconomic Status (SES), Race, Gender
Primary Characters
Barbara – (she, her, hers) First-generation college student (FGCS), white woman; low socioeconomic status (SES), graduate student in student affairs program
Corey – (he, him, his) man, white, upper-middle SES; continuing generation college student
Anna – (she, her, hers) Woman of Color in Barbara’s graduate cohort
Claire – (she, her, hers) white woman in Barbara’s graduate cohort
Case
Barbara is a first-generation college student (FGCS) graduate student in a counseling/student affairs preparation program. She has not had access to many FGCS resources through her academic career as she did not realize that being FGCS was “a thing” until she started her graduate program. As an undergraduate student, Barbara was very involved. She was a resident assistant (RA) (primarily to help pay room and board) and also a member of a sorority (which she was able to join because of scholarships through the organization). Barbara also worked in outdoor recreation on campus so that she could go on outdoor recreation trips as a staff member for reduced cost.
Upon starting her graduate program in student affairs, Barbara has done a number of reflective activities around identity. She has taken risks in some of her writing and shared her experiences with faculty – some of whom also identify as first-gen – who have been tremendously supportive. She has been able to learn from mentors and others outside of the faculty about some of the strategies FGC students use to overcome challenges navigating higher education and understanding the hidden curriculum. Barbara has also learned that many people choose not to disclose their FGC student status for a variety of personal reasons. This has put Barbara at ease as she has taken time to navigate this identity and the new ways it is emerging for her.
Where Barbara has faced challenges, however, has been in the classroom. While she has been somewhat open about her experiences as an undergraduate – and specifically has talked about the transformational experiences she had as an RA, in her sorority, and on the various outdoor recreational trips she helped lead – she has not publicly discussed her FGC student identity and low SES background. While a few close friends know about Barbara’s identities, most students and a few faculty do not.
Additionally, Barbara often gets ignored or talked over. The few times she has been bold enough to try and share information about her less visible identities regarding SES and first-gen status, faculty members have not called on her. She often sees her faculty calling on men in class rather than women, even though there are only five men in her cohort of 25 students.
In one class, students raise issues around economic privilege. Barbara notices that some of her peers are using “low SES” to mean “not white.” She asks, “Are we saying that white students can’t be low SES and that all Students of Color are low SES?” The conversation in class intensifies, becoming very heated. Some white students get defensive saying things like, “You know what I meant,” or “Why are you assuming that’s what I was saying?” Additionally, some of the Students of Color agree with Barbara, adding “We hear this all the time. Guess what? Not every Student of Color is poor and not every white student is rich.” The exchange continues to escalate and several of the white students become even more defensive.
A white classmate – Corey – asks, “Are you calling me racist because I said that low SES students have access to scholarships?”
“Not at all,” Barbara responds. “I really am just trying to understand how we are using language. I was only trying to clarify so I knew what points people are trying to make.”
Corey replies, “Just because I’m white, male, upper-middle-class, and my parents and grandparents are college graduates, I don’t think that makes me racist. You obviously aren’t low SES given how you dress and the fact that you were in a sorority and now you’re in grad school and you went on all those whitewater rafting trips as an undergrad, so if you’re saying I’m racist, are you saying you are, too?”
Before Barbara can respond and clarify either her intention in asking the question or her identities, another student speaks up and the conversation continues to intensify. Some students continue to argue and others shut down completely. Barbara is frustrated and hurt, but not sure what to say or do, so she says nothing more. In addition, the faculty member neither navigates nor facilitates the conflict well and students leave the room angry without guidance on how to reflect on what they had discussed.
That evening students continued the dialogue via a shared social media space accessible only to members of Barbara’s cohort. Without being in the same space and without the ability to read body language, the dialogue escalated into argument very quickly. Barbara did not engage, but watched the exchanges unfold.
One of Barbara’s peers, Anna, reached out to Barbara via text to thank her trying to clarify things in class. She texted, “I can’t tell you enough how much it means that you said what you did. I feel like sometimes white people – especially white people with a lot of privilege like you have – don’t speak up and leave all the work to people like me. Thanks for what you said. Sorry not everyone is ready to hear and engage in the conversation in productive ways.”
At almost exactly the same time Barbara received a text from another student, Clarice – a white woman in the cohort. She said, “I would love your help. I am not sure how you have all the insight you do. Clearly you have most every privilege except gender privilege, but you seem to ‘get it.’ I want to learn more. How have you overcome your privilege and learned this?”
Barbara isn’t sure how to navigate the dialogue, her identity, or her interactions with her cohort in or out of the classroom.
Discussion Questions:
- How should Barbara respond to Anna? To Clarice?
- What might Barbara do to prepare for the next class meeting with her cohort?
- Was Barbara right not to engage in the social media conversation? Why or why not?
- How might the faculty member have played a different role in this exchange?
Biographies
Michelle Boettcher (she, her, hers) is a first-generation college student and an Associate Professor at Clemson University in the Higher Education / Student Affairs program. She teaches law and ethics and contemporary college student courses. Her research interests include community and senses of belonging in higher education.
Stacy Dillard is an advisor in the College of Education at Clemson University. She previously worked at Mississippi State University serving as the Admissions Coordinator for the Bagley College of Engineering and the Coordinator for Student Success for the Center for Student Success.