Nontraditional Women Persisting in Community College to Meet Their Educational Goals

Abstract

Very little research has been done about the role of relationships of women in poverty seeking higher education goals. A grounded theory, qualitiative approach, was used to organize and interpret the data of study, a naturalistic inquiry of women’s lives firsthand. As a group of 30 women began to be interviewed, saturation was reached when a common set of propositions emerged with one overall identifying theme: the power of relationships. This study found that women identified reliable and positive relationships that helped them persist. They also identified the one relationship that became a barrier to persistence in achieving their college goals: their mothers.