Sometimes Too Hungry to Concentrate: Nontraditional and Traditional First-Generation Students’ Educational Food Practices
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Date
2020-03-02
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Abstract
In the long-valued narrative of meritocracy in the United States, ‘Pulling oneself up by the bootstraps’ is a myth which has been enacted to undermine the structural, even intentional, reality of the inequity between people. In order to situate the structural reality of inequity I focus this research on San Antonio, Texas. I first provide a case study of San Antonio in which I am able to evaluate how genocidal tactics through dispossession has created a classed and racialized inequity of resources. In order to explicate how this inequity is continued I focus this research on higher education. Literature on low rates of educational success of marginalized students tend to focus on how to greater prioritize the role of ‘student’. Most literature identifies individualistic methods to increase educational success of marginalized students. To counter this, I apply an intersectional approach to Bourdieu’s theory of practice to investigate how differential hazards and barriers negatively influence food experiences in higher education. I do this by collecting survey data on two different marginalized groups’ (nontraditional and first-generation students) food practices at the higher education institution, Texas A&M University San Antonio.
I use logistic regression to analyze how work effects campus meal skipping while controlling for appropriate variables by student label. I then use logistic regression to identify propensity to use alternative food networks controlling for appropriate variables by student label. From this analysis I illuminate how efforts to obtain food in a field of institutional foodscape, varies by differential barriers and burdens within higher education putting strain on educational access and success. These barriers and burdens are dictated by the individual’s personal and socio-historical interactions with said institution. This navigation is further affected by the interaction of capital; not only to the development of the individual’s habitus but also ability to interact and take full advantage of access and hurdles of said foodscape barriers and burdens.
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Foodscape, Intersectionality