Jon Hunsberger | Bucknell University (original) (raw)
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Papers by Jon Hunsberger
This autoethnography explores the author's first two years transitioning and acclimating to a sel... more This autoethnography explores the author's first two years transitioning and acclimating to a selective college as a first-generation student from a working-class background who attended rural public schools. Grounding itself in post-structural theory, this thesis first explores how the author experienced upward social mobility in contrast with structuralist theories that suggest he would reproduce his social-class origins. Second this thesis concludes that the relative degree of legitimization the author's agency received is itself informed by structural inequality and a world that advantages certain cultural embodiments, dispositions, actions, and ways of being over others. Agency is seldom explicitly acknowledged in literature about first-generation and working-class students' experiences making it to, getting through, and moving on from college. Thus, the author's choice of theoretical framework and methodology is intentional: an agency-, practice-, and structure-oriented framework paired with autoethnography as a methodology enables a close-up look at how one student, the author, participated in social mobility via the enculturated and structured institution of higher education. In presenting an individual story, this thesis seeks to provide a framework for understanding how individuals with differently intersecting positionalities navigate a world grounded in structures of domination and founded in inequalities of power.
This autoethnography explores the author's first two years transitioning and acclimating to a sel... more This autoethnography explores the author's first two years transitioning and acclimating to a selective college as a first-generation student from a working-class background who attended rural public schools. Grounding itself in post-structural theory, this thesis first explores how the author experienced upward social mobility in contrast with structuralist theories that suggest he would reproduce his social-class origins. Second this thesis concludes that the relative degree of legitimization the author's agency received is itself informed by structural inequality and a world that advantages certain cultural embodiments, dispositions, actions, and ways of being over others. Agency is seldom explicitly acknowledged in literature about first-generation and working-class students' experiences making it to, getting through, and moving on from college. Thus, the author's choice of theoretical framework and methodology is intentional: an agency-, practice-, and structure-oriented framework paired with autoethnography as a methodology enables a close-up look at how one student, the author, participated in social mobility via the enculturated and structured institution of higher education. In presenting an individual story, this thesis seeks to provide a framework for understanding how individuals with differently intersecting positionalities navigate a world grounded in structures of domination and founded in inequalities of power.