The influence of lived experiences on the decision to attend college: Reflections of three first generation community college students

Through this qualitative study I attempt to take the reader into the lives of three adult female first-generation community college students in order to gain an understanding of how these students chose to attend a community college and the barriers they overcame to achieve a measure of success.;Data collected through interviews with study participants are presented through personal narratives. The narratives are used to tell the stories of the participants focusing on significant personal and educational experiences. Through their stories I sought to understand how their personal and educational experiences led them to the decision to enroll in a community college several years after leaving the secondary education.;I used Pierre Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital as the framework for analyzing the data. Bourdieu's theory describes a series of linguistic and cultural competencies. These competencies are learned through family and peer group interaction and are the result of exposure to the activities associated with higher socioeconomic status such as museums, concerts, and other cultural activities.;Narrative analysis was used to determine how cultural competencies affected the ability of the participants' families to prepare them for college. I also sought to understand the role of cultural capital in coping with life experiences and in their ultimate decision to enroll in a community college.