Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602.
Department of Anthropology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071.
CBE Life Sci Educ. 2018 Dec;17(4):ar62. doi: 10.1187/cbe.17-11-0229.
We argue that cultural capital plays an underexamined role in students' recognition as budding scientists by faculty. By triangulating interview data from undergraduates and faculty mentors in a multi-institutional biology research network, we identified a set of intersecting domains of capital that help render students recognizable to faculty. We argue that faculty recognition often reflects a (mis)alignment between the cultural capital that students possess and display and what faculty expect to see. To understand why mis- or underrecognition occurs, and how this influenced students' opportunities to further develop cultural capital, we explored our data set for patterns of explanation. Several key themes cut across students' experiences and influenced their recognition by faculty: Faculty more easily recognized students interested in research science trajectories and those involved in institutional programs to support science, technology, engineering, and mathematics success. Students with competing family responsibilities struggled to maintain faculty recognition. Finally, faculty who broadened their scopes of recognition were able to affirm the science identities of students with fewer incoming cultural resources in science and support their development of capital. Students can and do develop scientific cultural capital through practice, but this requires access to research and mentorship that explicitly teaches students the implicit "rules of the game."
我们认为，文化资本在教师识别学生作为未来科学家方面发挥了未被充分研究的作用。通过对多机构生物学研究网络中的本科生和教师导师的访谈数据进行三角分析，我们确定了一系列相互交织的资本领域，这些领域有助于使学生被教师识别。我们认为，教师的认可往往反映了学生拥有和表现出的文化资本与教师期望看到的之间的（错位）不匹配。为了理解为什么会出现错误或未被认可的情况，以及这种情况如何影响学生进一步发展文化资本的机会，我们在数据集中探索了解释模式。几个关键主题贯穿了学生的经历，并影响了他们被教师的认可：教师更容易识别对研究科学轨迹感兴趣的学生，以及那些参与支持科学、技术、工程和数学成功的机构项目的学生。有竞争家庭责任的学生努力维持教师的认可。最后，扩大认可范围的教师能够肯定那些在科学方面文化资源较少的学生的科学身份，并支持他们发展资本。学生可以并且确实通过实践发展科学文化资本，但这需要获得明确教导学生隐性“游戏规则”的研究和指导。
