Chapter 9: Social Networking Technology and The Social Justice Implications of Equitable Outcomes For First-Generation College Students

For decades, researchers have studied the experiences of first-generation college students (FGCS) in hopes of better understanding their trajectory and deciphering best practices to mitigate the unequal outcomes students experience in higher education. Yet, access to technology and social technology use as a tool are nearly absent from the extant literature related to FGCS post-secondary outcomes. Researchers such as Martinez-Aleman, Rowan-Kenyon, and Savitz-Romer (2012), Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe (2007), and Wohn, Ellison, Khan, Fewins-Bliss, and Gray (2013) have highlighted the additive role of online social network technologies on college campuses and upon persistence of first-generation college students. In addition, digital divide authors point out there is differentiated use of technology by socio-economic status, particularly when it comes to what they term “capital enhancing” activities or activities that will enable access to valuable information sources (DiMaggio, Hargittai, Celeste, & Shafer, 2004; Hargittai, 2010). As such, the intersection of technology use and FGCS persistence is critical to our examination of how to support FGCS throughout the post-secondary pipeline and improve social justice and equity on college campuses. For the purposes of this discussion, we operationalize FGCS as students whose parents’ highest level of education is a high school diploma or less (Chen, 2005; Nunez & Cuccaro-Alamin, 1998). First-generation college students are the first in their families to navigate post-secondary institutions in the US and consequently, must decode institutional practices and expectations largely on their own.