Desarrollo: A Community-based Organization, Hispanic Youth, and Postsecondary Transitions

Abstract

ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: DESARROLLO: A COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATION, HISPANIC YOUTH, AND POSTSECONDARY TRANSITIONS Staci Lynn Pippin-Kottkamp, Doctor of Philosophy, 2025

Dissertation directed by: Sophia Rodriguez, Associate Professor, Educational Leadership & Policy Studies Historically, the children of immigrants have utilized schools to obtain the knowledge and skills needed for economic mobility into the middle class. Scholarship suggests that, in recent decades, children of immigrants have followed nonlinear paths of assimilation, with some groups experiencing downward assimilation into lower socioeconomic classes. Evidence indicates that immigrant youth experience barriers to academic achievement and economic opportunities in K-12 schools. These barriers limit their access to capital for transition to higher education. In this context, capital is defined as the resources, knowledge, discourse, information, or forms of interpersonal support that youth utilize to meet their postsecondary goals, including college. Our modern economic structure generally requires a postsecondary education for individuals to avoid menial labor and enter professional, higher-wage employment. Thus, barriers to higher education contribute to a lack of economic mobility for immigrant youth. Outside of K-12 schools, some immigrant youth develop relationships with adults in community-based organizations. There is evidence that CBOs can support immigrant youth in academic achievement and accessing higher education. There is also evidence that immigrant youth find ways to access capital to access higher education despite barriers. An area of understudied research is the extent to which community-based organizations impact immigrant youth’s ability to transition to college by providing college related capital. Also understudied is how immigrant youth access and enact both traditional and non-traditional forms of college related capital and how they use this capital in tandem with capital from a CBO program to reach their postsecondary goals.

My dissertation addresses these gaps in the literature by using a qualitative conceptual framework and a qualitative instrumental case study design to examine how a community-based organization, Desarrollo, develops and provides capital related to postsecondary goals to Hispanic immigrant youth. Desarrollo is ideal for study as an instrumental case in that understanding how the organization provides capital related to postsecondary goals, contributes to understanding the larger research question of how community-based organizations contribute to economic mobility for children of immigrants. Furthermore, Desarrollo only serves children of immigrants, so it allows insight into how this population accesses capital for economic mobility through the CBO and enacts this capital in tandem with other capital they possess to meet their postsecondary goals. I find that Desarrollo promotes college attendance as the surest path for economic mobility. I find that Desarrollo adults perceive the needs of youth as primarily related to college access and act as institutional agents, shaping the CBO program to provide college related capital to a Hispanic youth. I find that youth possess significant traditional and non-traditional capital outside of the Desarrollo program that shapes decisions and beliefs related to postsecondary goals and their perceptions of the overall impact of the CBO. I find that youth’s perceptions of the overall impact of the CBO are related to forms of capital the CBO provides that youth cannot access through other social connections. Ultimately, the findings suggest that the CBO supports economic mobility through access to college related capital for youth who already possess significant capital outside of the CBO and that youth strategically identify these forms of capital, using this capital collectively with outside capital, to meet their postsecondary goals.