Social class is an embedded feature of social life; rather than being isolated and self-contained, social class positions are highly interdependent on one another. For first generation college students at Bucknell, most of whom are from working class backgrounds, university life is an exercise in enormous social class diversity, often for the first time. How does the experience of becoming a member of Bucknell influence these students’ social class identity? The present study probed this question deeply with three first generation college students, with particular emphasis on how working in service learning situations that mirrored their home environments shaped their understanding of themselves as working class people and their identification as students at Bucknell.
