College and the Upwardly-Mobile Professional: Assessing Models of Professional Development, Cultural Skills and the Job Preparation of Latine Working-Class College Students

Alma Nidia Garza

Studies underscore that shared cultural skills between applicants and employers influence college graduates' likelihood of employment. Though university selectivity influences the type of resources available to students, how opportunities for professional development shape students' cultural skills across differentially selective universities is not clearly understood. In this study, I employ a quasi-experimental qualitative research design to examine how professional development opportunities across differentially selective universities equip Latine students of working-class backgrounds with class-based cultural skills—knowledge, behaviors and perceptions that predominate in distinct social classes. I interview 60 Mexican-origin college students who all grew up in the same burgeoning Mexican American, working-class community. I also observe a subset of students in their day-to-day campus lives. Half of the study sample attended a moderately selective university, and the remaining half attended a broad-access university. Findings position us to implement university initiatives that can best prepare students for the job market by broadening access to professional development opportunities while addressing their underlying social class and racial biases.

About Alma Nidia Garza

Alma Nidia Garza is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA). She examines issues at the intersection of social class, race/ethnicity, and culture to understand how school and family junctures shape students' opportunities to develop academic and cultural skills. In her current book project, Alma centers the collegiate lives of high-achieving Mexican-origin students who attended two public, four-year universities. The book provides a comprehensive examination of how differentially selective universities provide opportunities for first-generation college students to engage with middle and working-class cultures throughout their collegiate journeys. In a second line of research involving collaborative study, Alma examines how parenting strategies contribute to inequalities in elementary school settings. This work broadly assesses how school and parenting resources influence children's academic performance, including their socio-emotional well-being. A former fellow of the Ford Foundation, Alma's research has received grant funding support from the National Science Foundation and the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States (UC Mexus). Her research has been published in Social Problems, Social Currents, Sociological Perspectives, among other outlets. Prior to joining UTA, Alma served as a postdoctoral researcher at Purdue University. She earned a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, Irvine and a B.A. as well as a B.B.A from the University of Texas at Austin.