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Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7038-0243
AccessType
Open Access Dissertation
Document Type
dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Program
Education
Year Degree Awarded
2019
Month Degree Awarded
May
First Advisor
Kysa Nygreen
Second Advisor
Ryan Wells
Third Advisor
Thomas Juravich
Subject Categories
Educational Sociology | Higher Education | Inequality and Stratification | Rural Sociology
Abstract
In a country that once was 95% rural in the late 1700s, only 19.3% of the population of the United States now live in rural areas (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). The shift in population from rural to urban areas is not simply demographic; it imbues a shift in who and what matters. Only 13.6% of adults over 25 in Appalachian Kentucky have earned bachelor's degrees, 18.9% below the national average (Appalachian Regional Commission, 2016). This phenomenological study seeks to understand how rural, first generation, low income college students from Appalachian Kentucky experience a sense of belonging in their first year of college and how their understanding of their place identity impacts their belonging to both their institutions and their home communities. Through interviews and photographs, the students reveal how they developed a college going identity, the ways they belong and the tensions they felt with belonging at their colleges and universities, and how they experienced a place identity as Appalachian.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7275/nhvd-bb24
Recommended Citation
Abbott, Brenda, "Dropping the Invisibility Cloak: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Sense of Belonging and Place Identity Among Rural, First Generation, Low Income College Students from Appalachian Kentucky" (2019). Doctoral Dissertations. 1622.
https://doi.org/10.7275/nhvd-bb24
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/1622
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Included in
Educational Sociology Commons, Higher Education Commons, Inequality and Stratification Commons, Rural Sociology Commons