Success in School: A Research Agenda on Student Attrition and Retention in the SEEK Program

Abstract

Success in higher education for minorities and disadvantaged students may be more closely linked with their sociopsychological adjustments to an institution than was previously thought. At the same time, the culture of institutions of higher learning may facilitate the assimilation of minority students through an apparatus of services that assists them academically and socially. This article examines the institutional interaction processes in the Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge Program (SEEK) among students, staff, and faculty at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York (CUNY), and explores how assimilation into the institutional subculture may be enhanced. The research paradigm raises questions about how the school setting affects success or failure and how institutions offer their students resources that enable them to overcome the legacies of poverty and attitudes inimical to the culture of learning.