AbstractsEducation Research & Administration

This interpretivist qualitative case study research examines a pre-college readiness program at a regional campus of a state university. The overarching goal is to enrich understanding about the experiences of students, teachers, and administrators involved in this program. Of particular importance are the support services and barriers to student success. The findings from this year-long study, gleaned from fieldwork, in-depth interviews, and document analysis, centered on three issues. First, participants anticipated pathways to and through college differed greatly from the pathways they encountered. Second, students’ competing school-home demands complicated their quest to earn a college degree. Third, unanticipated pathways, completing demands, and unfamiliar college structures, policies, and classroom practices—which were heavy on obstacles and light on support—contributed to students’ feelings of estrangement and distrust.The analyses, rooted in critical theory and cultural capital theory, also examines the pre-college readiness teachers’ unexpected pathways to teaching in this developmental education program as well as their competing demands that contributed to their estrangement and distrust of Midwest Region College (MRC), the site of this study. The analysis also reveals the influence of State of Ohio educational governing boards’ influence on this micro pre-college readiness program, in particular administrator of the program. Although MRC intends the pre-college program to support the education of high-risk students, findings indicates that students enrolled in this program remain a marginalized and invisible campus subculture. Multiple tensions and pressures contributed to diminished successes and perceptions of dissatisfaction for students, teachers, and administrators. This dissertation concludes with recommendations that require significant investment on the part of the three primary stakeholder groups: teachers, administrators, and most importantly students.