New research from ISER’s Trang Tran and Dayna DeFeo examined how relationships influence rural Alaska students’ transitions from home communities to postsecondary institutions. Their analysis identified characteristics of the transition processes that seem particular to rural students—in navigating urban places and cultural norms, seeking institutional supports, advocating for self, and forming new social relationships. In all of these experiences, rural identities and community-oriented values emerged as a guiding force for students’ goal-setting, decision-making, interactions, and adjustment.
We know from ISER research by Marie Lowe and Gunnar Knapp (2007) that many rural students who attend postsecondary institutions return home before completing degrees. Tran and DeFeo offer some considerations for policy and practice to help improve rural Alaska students’ transition to postsecondary institutions.
- Structure elementary and secondary career exploration programs to highlight local opportunities, underscoring the vibrancy of rural communities and allow those with desire and aspiration to live in their home communities with viable and visible pathways to do so.
- Engage rural students’ home and community networks to support college transitions, in addition to providing new student services.
Read more about this study in “Rural Students’ Postsecondary Transitions: A Human Ecological Perspective,” published in the July-August 2021 issue of Journal of College Student Development.
About Trang Tran
Trang Tran is a Research Professional at ISER and Ph.D. student in the School of Education at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Through sociocultural and ecological lenses, Trang is interested in studying how learners engage and develop identities in formal and informal learning environments. An important goal of her research is to inform learning designs to center the complex and multifaceted experiences of nondominant learners and honor their roles in theorizing new horizons of equitable and just learning.
About Dayna DeFeo
Dr. Dayna DeFeo is Director of the Center for Alaska Education Policy Research (CAEPR) and a Research Assistant Professor at the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER). She holds a PhD in Curriculum & Instruction from New Mexico State University. Dr. DeFeo’s primary research interests include college and postsecondary transitions, particularly in the career and technical fields and for underrepresented populations; teacher turnover, supply, and demand; and representation and hegemony in the curriculum and institutional systems.