Stylus Publishing (VA) At the Intersection: Understanding and Supporting First-Generation Students

The experiences of first-generation college students are not monolithic. The nexus of identities matter, and this book is intended to challenge the reader to explore what it means to be a first-generation college student in higher education. Designed for use in classrooms and for use by the higher education practitioner on a college campus today, At the Intersections will be of value to the reader throughout their professional career.The book is divided into four parts with chapters of research and theory interspersed with thought pieces to provide personal stories to integrate the research and theory into lived experience. Each thought piece ends with questions to inspire readers to engage with the topic.Part One: Who is a First-generation College Student?provides the reader an entrée into the topic, with up-to-date data on both four-year and two-year colleges. Part One ends with a thought piece that asks the reader to pull together some of the big ideas before moving on to look more closely at students' identities.Part Two: The Intersection of Identity shares the research, experience and thoughts of authors in relation to the individual and overlapping identities of LGBT, low-income, white, African-American, Latinx, Native American, undocumented, female, and male students who are all also first-generation college students. Part Three: Programs and Practices is an introduction to practices, policies and programs across the country. This section offers promise and direction for future work as institutions try to find a successful array of approaches to make the campus an inclusive place for the diverse population of first-generation college students. Review A large body of literature has demonstrated that first-generation college students face more challenges than their peers in accessing, persisting in earning, and completing degrees. Importantly, these challenges vary on the basis of social class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, and citizenship status. However, the literature too often treats first-generation college students as a monolith whose needs can be met in a one-size-fits-all approach. Enter At the Intersection: Understanding and Supporting First-Generation Students, edited by Robert Longwell-Grice and Hope Longwell-Grice. This volume includes many nuanced and timely contributions that use an intersectional lens to explore the diversity of experience and needs among first-generation college students.The editors carefully designed the volume with the needs of instructors in mind. The three sections, which focus on defining the first-generation college student, exploring intersections of this identity, and describing program supports targeted to this population, each begin with a review of the literature followed by chapters focused on relevant research and theory. Each section also contains a couple of thought pieces called "Critical Conversations," which encourage the readers to delve more deeply into the ideas discussed in the sections and which include discussion questions helpful for organizing students' thoughts and reactions. Overall, the book provides an excellent introduction to the literature on first-generation college students. The organization of the volume makes for a welcome addition to college courses.--Teachers College RecordFINALLY...A BOOK THAT "GETS IT!" At the Intersection is an aptly titled new work from the team of Robert and Hope Longwell-Grice that offers tremendous insight on the complicated journey taken by First-Generation students to and through college. What is different about this book is that, as the collective authors note, the First-Generation students of today hail from a diverse array of demographic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds that are not some sort of inconvenient challenges to be transcended -- as some prior 'experts' seem to have suggested--but, rather, strengths andcharacteristics to be understood and appreciated as these