Identifying Community Cultural Capital Wealth Utilized by Physics Graduate Students in Bridge Programs

Cultural capital has often been used in education research to explain why some students are successful in educational settings while other students are not, a deficit-based approach to education research. This theoretical framing acknowledges and centers knowledge, skills, behaviors, and credentials that people learn from their family and that provide access and opportunity in education in a way that perpetuates inequity. Community cultural wealth is an asset-based framework that acknowledges and centers the kinds of capital that students from minoritized ethnic/racial groups utilize in education settings. As part of our study, we sought to identify the forms of capital that physics graduate students participating in bridge programs bring to their educational experiences. As a product of this study, we created a resource guide designed to empower students by helping them identify and appreciate their own cultural assets, offering a fresh perspective on their unique skills and experiences. In this presentation, we will elucidate the six forms of capital included in the community cultural wealth framework, drawing from excerpts from the interviews conducted in our study. We will also present the resource guide that we developed.