Student success depends on a sense of belonging.. These relationships give students access to the “white habitus” (Inoue, 2022) to help them better navigate the language and culture of the institution and avoid common pitfalls including plagiarism (Denny & Kelley, 2012, Bista, 2017). These relationships would also undoubtedly increase a students’ sense of belonging, which has also been found to increase student success.
Positive and supportive relationships between students and faculty may also increase the cultural awareness and sensitivity of the institution. Because student success is influenced by the way the institution views them, these positive relationships can benefit not only the student collaborating with faculty, but all students sharing those demographics may benefit from an increasing acceptance of them as a group.
Organization / Relevance
This next paragraph might be more of a tangent. I want to make a connection between what Wilson and others are saying about the need for supportive social networks between disadvantaged students and faculty to the mistaken assumption on the part of academic institutions that all linguistic minority students need is “better English.” That is to say, they need equity, space and identity within the academic community.
Most institutions operate under the assumption that language skills are what prevent many linguistic minority students from being successful. Second language acquisition research shows that language fluency is inseparable from community identity and social relationships. As such, interventions that focus on developing language alone do not solve most of the problems that linguistic minorities face. Even when developing language, activities that focus on communication and identity are more successful than isolated drills and worksheets. This is also somewhat analogous to Reid’s distinction between “eye learners” as opposed to “ear learners”.
There is plenty of research suggesting that low levels of academic performance are linked to poverty or low socioeconomic status. Correlations with socioeconomic status often mask the true cause of social problems. In this case, it may have more to do with the people they have access to for academic support than the lack of financial resources directly. Especially in the case of linguistic minority students, colleges and universities often use a policy of segregation and assimilation when it comes to language and cultural diversity; what Matsuda calls a “policy of linguistic containment.”
To remedy this, integration and social support for disadvantaged students must be a priority for the institutions that serve them. It is the institutions that must take the lead on this because cultural barriers to education are not addressed in federal policies that try to help students succeed (Ruecker & Ortmeier-Hooper, 2017). This should be done carefully and with consideration to the emotional labor demands placed upon faculty, as supportive roles are disproportionately placed on female instructors, instructors of color, and adjunct instructors (Baertlein, et al., 2017).
Exploring this issue in relation to the concept of social capital and perhaps extending it to academic social capital in combination with Leki’s “socioacademic relationships” may be an interesting research direction.
Further reading
- Language Socialization into Academic Discourse Communities
- Leki, I. (2007). Undergraduates in a second language: Challenges and complexities of academic literacy development. New York: Erlbaum.
- Snow, Porsche, Tabors, & Harris, 2007