UC Santa Cruz

Home-school cultural value mismatch (HSCVM) describes a tension first-generation (FG) college students experience in having to choose between academic and familial priorities, with consequences to academics and wellbeing (Vasquez-Salgado et al., 2015, 2018). This mismatch is experienced uniquely by FG students based on intersections of social class, race-ethnicity, and gender, with FG Mexican women being particularly affected (Vasquez-Salgado et al., 2018, 2021). HSCVM has been traced to cultural differences in home and university spaces. Yet, the larger cultural scripts undergirding HSCVM that dictate how to think, feel and behave —otherwise known as master narratives (Syed & McLean, 2021) — and students’ responses to such scripts, including their resistance strategies, have yet to be examined. This dissertation utilizes a narrative analysis to identify master narratives underlying HSCVM and resistance responses to these narratives. Guided by theories on Borderlands (i.e., the psychological experience of being between two opposing cultures; Anzaldúa, 1987/2012) and everyday resistance (i.e., subtle acts with potential to undermine power; Vinthagen & Johansson, 2013), I analyzed in-depth interviews with five mostly low-income FG Mexican college-bound women across two time points (after their senior year of high school and after their first year of college). All women attended Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), those with a public mission to “serve” the holistic needs and cultural experiences of Latine FG students (Garcia et al., 2019). Such settings have yet to be explored in HSCVM literature. Results revealed two primary master narratives that stemmed from notions of the American Dream, reflecting cultural ideas of working hard and meritocracy that were experienced by women in classed, racialized, and gendered ways in both home and school contexts. These two narratives included that a “good college student” is independent, competitive, and exceptional and a “good Latina daughter” is responsive to family needs, follows parental directives, and works to fulfill parental aspirations for the future. Further, each woman demonstrated overlapping and distinct resistance strategies when responding to their unique experiences with HSCVM. These responses included working hard to meet multiple priorities, taking experiences one day at a time, resisting negative self-talk through acts of self-acceptance, practicing boundary-setting and boundary-bending, and working with loved ones to reduce HSCVM tensions. In examining the everyday acts of resistance to the HSCVM, these findings document the multiple ways FG Mexican women engage agency to grasp for and co-create alternate perspectives of what it means to “good” and “successful” in the borderlands of home and school. Understanding their resistance provide insights and pathways for institutions, like HSIs, to validate students’ belonging by challenging rigid narratives of success and working toward mutuality between home and school values.