ORCID
Phillip D. Grant - https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0176-7719
Dena Kniess - https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9870-3884
Abstract
Rural undergraduate students at flagship universities in the United States are typically outnumbered by their urban and suburban peers. Students from rural demographic backgrounds bring different forms of social and cultural capital to higher education with them. This phenomenological study at a flagship university in the Deep South region of the United States examines their experiences through the lens of Constructed Environment Perspectives to assess how rural students evaluate their sense of fit at an institution of higher education. Rural students in this study noted that they began their first year of postsecondary education with a smaller social network than their nonrural peers. When necessary, rural students adapted their social and cultural capital to experience a better sense of fit by connecting with nonrural students in communal settings or by changing symbols of their cultural and social capital. Participants in this study found the residence halls to be a space that was particularly helpful in their adjustment to university life.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Grant, P. D.,
&
Kniess, D.
(2023).
“I Just Kind of Felt like Country Come to Town:” College Student Experiences for Rural Students at one Flagship University.
The Rural Educator, 44(3), 1-16.
https://doi.org/10.55533/2643-9662.1357
