Exploring the College-Going Scripts of Students Enrolled in a Rural Early College High School

While much has been written about the characteristics of first-generation college students, little has been written about the transformation they undergo on their way to a university education. In my arts-informed qualitative case study, I explored how school-based narratives and family-based narratives about college-going interacted in an Early College High School. I sought to understand how students with hybrid subjectivities perceive themselves within a social institution which has designated them as first-generation college students and how students negotiate multiple discourses to see themselves as college-going. The notion of schema, or life scripts, was a central metaphor. The school and family narratives are scripts that reflect both the lives the students have lived and the lives that others envision for them. I offer the data from this case study as a script, illustrating the discourses I observed and suggesting ways in which students may become authors of their own life narratives.