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From Foster Care to College: Perceptions of Young Adults on Their Academic Success
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Rios, Steve J. |
| Copyright Year | 2013 |
| Abstract | Perceptions of college students, all former foster youth, regarding influences that impacted their academic attainment are described. Themes involve external interactions and internal influences, including a newly identified set of internal characteristics, “success strengths,” that promote college attainment. The Foster Youth Academic Achievement Model is introduced. During an era when even underprivileged young adults in the United States are obtaining higher levels of education, young people who grow up in foster care – 24-hour-a-day care away from abusive homes of origin – lag behind their peers in high school graduation and General Equivalency Diploma (GED) graduation rates (Merdinger, Hines, Osterling, & Wyatt, 2005). Each year, more than 20,000 18-year-olds leave foster care to take their place in society; many are ill-equipped and ill-prepared for their adult lives (Christian, 2003). Recent studies regarding the educational deficits among foster children have documented the problem well, but have offered little insight into how successful young adults who grew up in foster care were able to reach their post-secondary goals. (Finkelstein, Wamsley, & Miranda, 2002; Hochman, Hochman, & Miller, 2004). Professional development and adult education initiatives, based on the perceptions of young adults who grew up in foster care and have obtained college, should play a central role in improving college attainment rates among these young adult learners. Purpose of the Study The phenomenological study reported in this paper explained and described the perceptions of 24 undergraduate college students in South Florida who grew up in foster care regarding how external factors (i.e., home environment, schools, communities, and social service organizations) and internal characteristics (e.g., beliefs, emotions, and motivation) influence their educational achievement (Rios, 2008). Educational achievement was defined as graduation from high school and enrollment in either two or four-year institutions of higher education. Research Design This study was conducted in three South Florida counties with demographics similar to many other metropolitan, diverse, U.S. counties with high populations of youth in foster care. A criterion-based purposive sampling procedure identified participants who (a) had experienced at least one year in foster care in South Florida before reaching the age of 18, (b) were attending a college or university, (c) were adults, and (d) received support from the state to continue their education beyond high school. Of the 123 young adults attending a college or university and enrolled in Florida’s tuition program, 25 (20%) were interviewed. Of those 25, one interview was not included because of the low quality of the recordings. Therefore, interviewees included 24 former foster youth (ranging from 18 to 23 years of age, with a mean of 20): 7 men, 17 women. The 24 participants included 18 Blacks (including Haitians, Jamaicans, Bahamians, African Americans, and Dominicans) and 6 Whites. Some participants had been in foster care all of their lives. Some had entered foster care in early elementary school, and others had entered foster care in their teens. The majority (N= 11) had attended only one high school; 5 had attended 2 high schools; and 10 had attended 3 |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1157&context=sferc |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1157&context=sferc&httpsredir=1&referer= |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
