| This dissertation examines how working class and poverty class graduate students at the post-masters phase of their program negotiate the process of being a graduate student. The absence of class discourse is detailed, showing that issues of class in an educational setting are largely ignored, rendering issues of class largely illegitimate. Public education's position as an institution with middle class culture and curriculum biases contributes to separation of students from varied backgrounds and contextualizes the underepresentation of students from lower socio-economic backgrounds in higher education.;A review of current literature shows a dearth of studies that examine working class and poverty class graduate students' experiences in the process of attaining their Ph.D. In order to advance a critical analysis and break the silence around class, I interviewed nineteen students from working class and poverty class backgrounds at the post-masters phase of their graduate studies at one public university in the U.S. Early educational experiences of this group are reviewed to provide a background perspective on their current educational experience. Using a modified grounded theory approach, their responses are situated in Bourdieu's framework of social reproduction in education. Theoretical concepts of field, habitus, and capitals are employed in analyzing and interpreting these students' narratives.;Economic constraints of tuition costs, student debt, and time are examined and historically situated, detailing resource disparity between working class and middle class students. Time is shown to be a classed concept in graduate education. Structural time constraints, combined with hidden cultural knowledge and disparities of cultural capital invoke a shadow bureaucracy that operates to the hindrance of working and poverty class graduate students. Interactions between students, faculty, middle class peers, and formal organizations produce marked differences in social capital. Social marginalization and exclusion are exemplified in these students' quest for mentors and social acceptance. Finally, the role of symbolic capital is discussed, highlighting the struggle for working and poverty class legitimacy within the academy. By exposing hidden class barriers, this study advances a deeper understanding of students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and how graduate education delegitimates class concerns. |
