Cálculos de suministro de energía 7.1 Generalidades7.1 Generalidades

A critical epistemology served as the foundation for this study, allowing me to approach the research in a way that valued the resources and knowledge that students brought from their rural communities into higher education and examine structures, both physical and social, that caused barriers to their success. Out of this critical paradigm emerged a number of theories that were helpful in examining the experiences of rural students. The conceptual framework that served as a scaffold for this study pulled from Tara Yosso’s (2005) community cultural wealth model and Gloria Anzaldúa’s (1987) Borderlands. From Yosso’s (2005) model I sought to understand how concepts of aspirational, familial, social, and navigational capital also applied to rural students and were leveraged by rural students in their attempt to negotiate these tensions and succeed in higher education. Furthermore, as I sought to understand how students negotiated the tensions of their two communities called upon Anzaldúa’s notions of tolerating

ambiguity, managing ambivalence, and creating a new consciousness. While other scholars have called upon these theories in their research, they have primarily been used to look at communities of color. I used them in tandem and sought to understand how they might be applied to a new population by using them to study rural students.

METHODOLOGY

This phenomenological study explored the lived experiences of rural students who are enrolled full-time at The University of Texas at Austin (UT). The study focused specifically on the experience of transitioning physically, socially, emotionally, and intellectually between the students’ rural communities and their college campuses. Using

a phenomenological approach coupled with a critical paradigm allowed me to privilege the knowledge generated by rural students as they experienced the phenomena of negotiating the internal and external conflicts that they encountered as they progressed through higher education and continued to engage with their rural community.

Phenomenology focuses on uncovering the “internal meaning structures” of people’s lived experiences (van Manen, 1990, p.10). While the core principles of phenomenology can be found in the work of early philosophers such as Descartes, Husserl is often seen as the starting point for phenomenology (Groenewald, 2004;

Eagleton, 1983). As Europe emerged from World War I, Husserl began to argue that it is impossible for us to be certain of the individual existence of things; we can only be certain of how our consciousness perceives the thing (Eagleton, 1983). He further claims, “all realities must be treated as pure ‘phenomena,’ in terms of their appearance in our mind, and this is the only absolute data from which we can begin” (Eagleton, 1983, p.48). Phenomenology seeks to go “back to the things themselves,” to determine the universal essence of a phenomenon, that which is “essential and unchanging about it” (p.48). Moreover, Husserl believed there is a symbiotic relationship between ‘being” and ‘meaning.’ Both are necessarily entangled with one another and one cannot exist without the other.

Phenomenology centers the human experience as the way by which the world and the essence of things and phenomena within the world are knowable. Approaching this study using phenomenology allows me to validate the experiences of rural students, which are often marginalized, as sources of knowledge. Furthermore, it enables me to

examine not just what the internal and external conflicts that rural students experience are but also how the students perceive those experiences, negotiate them, and make meaning out of the process.

This methodological approach also allows scholars to examine the phenomenon within the social context that it occurs. Van Manen (1990) explains that through

phenomenology we “come to a fuller grasp of what it means to be in the world as a man, a woman, a child, taking into account the sociocultural and historical traditions that have given meaning to our ways of being in the world” (p.12). Because I was not interested in the experience of college students in general negotiating internal and external conflicts as they navigate college, but specifically the experiences of those students coming from rural communities into higher education, this acknowledgement of impact the

sociocultural context and historical traditions on their process of meaning making was important. Utilizing a phenomenological approach allowed me to examine the lived experience of rural students both within the social context of their hometowns and their university campuses.

SITE

Participants for this study were recruited from UT. With the vast majority of Texas being considered rural, it is not surprising that it has the largest population of rural students enrolled in K-12 education in the country (Texas A&M, 2014)5_{. Therefore,} leading nonprofit agencies such as Educate Texas (Texas A&M, 2014) and the Greater

5 _{See Figures 3.1 & 3.2 for maps highlighting the rural areas of Texas and the demographic makeup of each}

Texas Foundation (2015) are beginning to look to rural students as a way to increase higher enrollment and graduation numbers in postsecondary education in Texas, making it an excellent space to explore this phenomenon. Texas also has an increasingly diverse rural population, which highlights demographic shifts in rural communities across the country, particularly the rising Latinx population (Lichter, 2012). This is particularly important considering a lack of attention paid to racial diversity in much of the extant literature. All but four of the studies referenced in the previous literature review either did not discuss the race of the participants at all or had a participant pool that was greater than 90% White.

In addition, while little research exists on students in higher education from rural communities, much of the work that has been done focuses on those from Appalachia. Of the 16 empirical studies referenced in the previous literature review, which most closely relate to this study, 10 were conducted in Appalachian states, 2 utilized national data sets, 1 included 21 different states, 2 studies were conducted across the Midwest and in the Deep South, which could include Appalachian students, and the final study was conducted in Northern California. This focus on Appalachian students is not surprising considering the existence of specific academic programs for Appalachian studies and the location of many rural sociology programs and centers for rural education.

Figure 3.1: Texas rural versus urban census blocks.

Note: Joanna Sanchez at The University of Texas at Austin created this map. SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau. Decennial Census 2010.

Figure 3.2: Demographic break down of rural students by region

Note: This map, as well as the data that has been added to it, were all pulled from the Post Secondary Completion in Rural Texas: A Statewide Overview.

SOURCE: Texas A&M University Bush School of Government and Public Service (2014)

There is an Appalachian Studies Association (2016), which reports that Appalachian State University actually offers a Master of Arts degree in Appalachian Studies and lists five other graduate schools, which offer graduate certificates, minors, or concentrations in Appalachian Studies. Furthermore, the list contains undergraduate majors at two universities and undergraduate minors at eleven colleges and universities.

The Rural Sociological Society (2012) reports six schools that offer graduate degrees in rural sociology or offer rural sociology as a graduate concentration in the United States, with one, Pennsylvania State University falling within the Appalachian region. Four of the remaining five programs fall in states along the Mississippi River including

Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, and Louisiana. As a result, it is not surprising that much of the research that has been completed on rural education, when not pulled from national data sets, has focused on Appalachia. Focusing on students in Texas expands the scope of work that has previously been done.

Furthermore, much of the research that has been conducted on rural students in higher education has also focused on students in community colleges. This is important work to be sure; however, this study sought to expand upon current literature by

examining the experiences of those students enrolled at a four-year institution.

Furthermore, it also examined the experience of students transitioning to an urban area.

SAMPLING

This study used a combination of criterion and maximum variation sampling to identify which participants were the best fit for the study. Initially two sets of criteria were used for to select the participants, one for the students and the second for the

communities that they came from, to determine which students were most appropriate for the study (Hays & Singh, 2012). Criteria for the students included: 1) enrolled full-time at UT, 2) moved away from the hometown to attend the university,6 _{3) must have}

6 _{The distance of the student’s rural community from UT was not considered, as long as the student has}

attended a university for more than one year consecutively, and 4) spent at least their high school years in a rural community.

Furthermore, because there are so many different ways to define rural, additional criteria were used to determine which communities should be included in the study (Cromartie & Bucholtz, 2008). In an effort to create boundaries for the study without defining rural communities solely on population density or from a strictly urban-centric system, the following criteria were used: 1) the student identified the community as rural and 2) it fell within the definition of rural or town within the NCES (n.d.) coding system. The study also acknowledged the agency of the rural students to begin defining what rurality is on their own terms.

Once it was been determined that students met these criteria for participation through the initial survey, maximum variation sampling was used to select eleven students to participate in the full study. Maximum variation sampling aided in “illustrat[ing] the central aspects of the research topic” (Hays & Singh, 2012, p.426). Because this study sought to look broadly at the experiences of rural students, and due to the existing, and increasing, diversity of students from rural communities, it was vital that the participants in the study were representative of this diversity. This approach allowed me to look at the students’ races, genders, and other identities the student reported as important to them, as well as demographics of the communities the students were coming from. Using this strategy ensured that the diversity of rural students was well represented within the study and helped highlight what was central about the rural experience for

these students. Maximum variation also combats critiques faced by early scholars who often developed theories based solely on the experiences of White male students.