Campus of Opportunity: A Qualitative Analysis of Homeless Students in Community College
Campus of Opportunity: A Qualitative Analysis of Homeless Students in Community College
Although the Homeless Hub works tirelessly to bring current and up to date content to our site, access to many journal articles is constrained by the subscription restrictions imposed by publishing companies. While the Homeless Hub cannot afford to buy access to the innumerable proprietary journals we link to, we do strive, at least, to bring the knowledge of this content to our users.
Furthermore, the Homeless Hub is committed to the principles of open access and we provide free access to all original Homeless Hub content, thus offering our users the ability to re-use and re-distribute scholarly works as long as there is proper attribution to the author. We feel strongly that this serves the broader community by greatly improving the dissemination, visibility, and impact of research findings.
We will endeavour to improve upon our open access principles in order to continue to provide our users with access to the best and most current research available.
Objective
Community colleges are gateways of access to higher education for many underrepresented students. One group that has received little attention in the community college research literature is homeless youth. The objective of this research is to address the following research questions: (a) What might be learned from the narratives of homeless youth and their experiences in postsecondary education? and (b) How might community colleges promote interpersonal and institutional resilience for homeless students?
Method
Utilizing qualitative research techniques, this article reviews the experiences’ of homeless youth attending community college and explores the ways in which community colleges might serve as sites for fostering resilience and stability in the lives of homeless students.
Results
The results of this empirical work suggest that although homeless students do benefit from enrolling in community college, some of the benefits are not salient to them and they are unable to take full advantage of institutional resources.
Contributions
The findings from this study contribute to the literature on low-income students’ experiences in community college and add the voices and experiences of homeless youth.