The Role of Relational Reciprocity: How Students’ Families Support and Influence Them during the Transition to Higher Education

Abstract

This work is embedded in a larger qualitative study and uses grounded theory techniques to explore the reciprocal nature of familial relationships for racially and ethnically minoritized students and, in turn, how these relationships impact students’ higher education experience. After analyzing semi-structured interview data using grounded theory approaches like open coding and constant comparison, themes of genuine and resistant reciprocity emerged. The findings showed that genuine familial reciprocity led to positive influences, while resistant reciprocity detracted students from their higher education journeys. Genuine reciprocity covered mutual exchanges that included emotional, temporal, and financial support. Resistant reciprocity centered on familial exchanges that left students feeling obligated to support their family financially and/or temporally. Many students used resistant reciprocity as motivation to persist despite their personal or familial circumstances. These findings contribute to a framework of relational reciprocity for college students and their families. Relational reciprocity illuminates the nature of and types of exchanges that contribute to students’ persistence during higher education, whether propelled by or in spite of them.

1. Introduction

For decades, researchers drew on deficit perspectives to suggest a lack of cultural capital present within families of color [1,2,3] and also suggested that students sever ties with family in order to be successful in higher education [4,5]. As researchers have begun to identify the positive ways in which families support students in accessing and persisting in higher education [6,7], it has often presented this support as one way where the parents support their children who are students [8,9,10]. Some of this research describes the support as almost transactional, as specific acts of support rather than a supportive ethos. An expansive view, one that incorporates the full family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, cousins, etc.) has grown [11], yet we still know little about the ways that students might also support and give back to their families while attending a university. In this study, we seek to explore the interdependent and reciprocal nature of student–family relationships.

2. Literature

2.1. Role of Family for College Students

Some prior scholarship rooted in deficit perspectives has claimed that families of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) students place less value on higher education, attributing it to “less cultural capital” [1,2]. However, these ideas have been debunked and corrected in recent years [3,11,12]. As a result, using such deficit lenses when approaching the experiences of students of color led to overlooking the active involvement of their families [6,7,13,14]. The failure to recognize families of color and their active role in their children’s educational experiences often resulted in the perception of their non-involvement, which can exacerbate negative stereotypes [14,15]. This acknowledgment of stereotyping in recent research contributes to a reframed understanding of familial involvement in higher education [14,15,16].

Families often engage and support their students by instilling early collegiate aspirations [6,7,11,14,17]. This holds true for first-generation students whose families have not earned college degrees [3,11,18].. While much research focuses on the role of parents in encouraging higher education enrollment and aspirations [14,19], a growing body of literature highlights critical roles played by other family members, including siblings, grandparents, and cousins among others [11,14,20].

Beyond promoting aspirations, the family has also been found to impart social capital relevant to accessing and persisting in higher education [11,18,20,21]. In an ethnographic study, Acevedo-Gil [21] found that siblings and extended family members can serve as primary sources of college-going information. One way that families share college-going information is by bringing family members to campus to learn first-hand [11,14]. Much of the existing scholarship exploring familial involvement focuses on involvement during K-12 schooling or in university preparation in the United States [13,22]; few studies have explored the ways families continue to engage while students are enrolled in university [11,20].

In elevating the role of family during university, Luedke [11] explored how Latine families promote funds of knowledge that support students in accessing higher education. The study found that families not only promoted college-going but that students returned to their families to impart college-going cultural capital, potentially converting it to funds of knowledge generationally over time. Though a growing area of research, there remains a need to further explore the ways that families of color continue to reciprocate through encouragement, support, and engagement with students while enrolled at university. Since students of color in the United States face higher levels of discrimination and increased work and family obligations [23], this work addresses the need to understand how and in what ways familial reciprocation contributes to their academic and personal progress.

2.2. The Role of Chosen Family

Scholarship on “non-parent family and community” or NPFC includes extended family, peers, and fictive kin (fictive kin is often defined as strong and significant supportive connections that extend beyond biological family bonds [20,24,25] and their influence on students’ access and support through higher education has grown. Some students do not have “traditional” family structures or choose to distance themselves because interacting with biological family members can pose obstacles, like negatively influencing their personal and academic progress, among other reasons [26,27]. This reality prompts students to form strong ties with others outside of the biological family for emotional encouragement [20,28,29]. Those who carry the label of family for students often emphasize the value of education because it could lead to greater opportunity and economic advancement [30,31]. Many provide guidance similar to familial support in the university process, like submitting applications, while others often share wisdom to motivate students toward changing their future and that of their families [11,27]. The significance of both biological and chosen families in supporting students can impact their persistence and motivation [11,20,27]. While some students benefit from a strong support system that includes family and chosen relationships, others may encounter challenges in balancing familial responsibilities and educational commitments.

2.3. Sustaining Interconnection in Independent Spaces

Minoritized students, like students of color and first-generation students coming from highly interdependent backgrounds and community-oriented norms, can experience cultural mismatch during university, where standards are heavily independent [4,26,32,33]. These dueling realities between home and higher education can result in academic and social challenges [33]. For example, in a critical ethnographic study, Winkle-Wagner [34] affirmed how students of color faced obstacles in balancing their commitment to family and community ties during university. This dilemma stemmed from students’ concerns that their families might not understand the university experience and could potentially distract them from academic success. Lines of research have aimed to reconcile these tensions by offering new perspectives that view families and family involvement as assets [11,20].

Some suggestions for ameliorating the strain between family and educational pursuit include independently emphasizing the familial role and elevating students’ unique relationships. To examine these family relationships, various theories and concepts, like funds of knowledge [11,12,13,22,35], cultural capital [11,36], social capital [37,38], community cultural wealth (e.g., familial capital) [3,14,39], among others, have been applied in studies for framing and analysis [20].

Conceptual and theoretical frameworks have also evolved to gain a better sense of how students, especially those from under-represented backgrounds, experience intimate family life and its potential role during university. These include bi-directional exchanges [11], where a flow of knowledge and capital are received and distributed between families and students. In addition, the Model of Parent and Family Characteristics, Engagement, and Support [40] recognizes the contributions of families and parents during students’ university experiences. The model also illuminates broader contexts impacting family engagement and student success, along with the importance of students’ self-efficacy in navigating university spaces.

These frameworks inform a renewed understanding of familial involvement for minoritized students. In this study, we seek to further contribute by using grounded theory techniques to learn more about the directions, approaches, and extent to which families and students support each other. While most theories on families’ roles in higher education are unidirectional—either family supporting students or vice versa—we contribute an evolving asset-based model that emphasizes the types, multi-generational, and multi-directional reciprocal exchanges between students and family, which can distract from or encourage students in their academic pursuits. By understanding the extent and type of support between students of color and their families, staff can gain insight into the often-hidden aspects of students’ lives that contribute to their university engagement and persistence.

3. Methods

This study draws from a larger critical qualitative case study [41]. The case study was longitudinal, spanning four years, and bounded by participation in Project Scholar, an academic bridge program. Consistent with our critical approach [42], we sought to interrogate negative and damaging deficit-based representations of the role of families of color. Moreover, we sought to challenge the unidirectional focus on familial support. Our critical approach was embedded in all areas of the study from the research questions, recruitment, reciprocal relationship with the program, and data collection and analysis. A critical case study was appropriate because there is limited research on the role of family, and the longitudinal approach of the study allowed us to explore how students maintained relationships with family over time during university. In line with our critical approach, we gave back to the program in ways that benefited them (at their request) to ensure the relationship and research were mutually beneficial. We also shared study results with program staff.

3.1. Research Site

Project Scholar begins with a summer bridge program, where students move to campus one week early, and then formally spans the first year of university for enrolled participants. During the summer transition program, students engage in community building, learn about the campus, and are exposed to speakers from campus who share campus resources and high-impact practices with students. During the fall and spring, students enroll in a course together. Throughout the year, students also attend the campus multicultural speaker series as part of their coursework. The program engages in intentional bi-directional socialization with an emphasis on students engaging and viewing their backgrounds and identities as assets during university, alongside engaging in undergraduate research. Project Scholar is a campus-specific program at a mid-sized, predominantly White public comprehensive university in the Midwest.

3.2. Recruitment and Data Collection

The first author led recruitment with the program by announcing the study during program meetings and during a recruitment event where several research team members presented undergraduate research opportunities for the program participants. Purposive sampling was used [43] to recruit participants from the social networks of Project Scholar affiliates and members who recommended others to participate.

Recruitment efforts led to the participation of 11 cohort members in the first year of the study who agreed to be interviewed once per year for four years. In total, we completed 27 interviews with cohort students. In order to increase the sample size and reach saturation in data analysis, 13 program alumni were interviewed (one time) who had completed the first year of the program and were still enrolled at the institution. Combined, there were 24 student participants, with 10 Biracial, 6 Black, 4 Latina/o, and 4 Hmong students. Moreover, four program staff were interviewed, including the program founder, director, coordinator, and a graduate assistant. All program staff members were Black.

In addition to the collection of interviews, research members engaged in active membership observations [44]. The first author observed multiple class sessions, was a guest presenter in two classes, and attended several program events (during the transition camp, social events, and poster presentations). Undergraduate research assistants and the first author drafted field notes after attending observations [44]. Interviews were typically conducted on or near campus at a location selected by participants. Prior to the start of the interviews, participants completed a demographic questionnaire.

Interviews lasted between one to two hours and asked about students’ university and career aspirations, along with who influenced their transition to university, how their family supports and feels about them being at university, how they support their families while at university, and how their background impacted their university experience. Through these questions and probes, students shared the multidimensional ways that their families influenced their navigation of university. In addition to interviews and active membership observations, the larger study also collected program documents. Given the focus on the role of family, we drew from student interviews (both cohort and alumni) for the focus of this paper.

3.3. Data Analysis

We extracted all data that were pre-coded under the sub-code “family” from the larger project for which this paper is embedded, which totaled 95 pages of transcripts. We began data analysis by individually engaging in in vivo coding to use and stay close to participants’ own words [43]. During three research team meetings, we reviewed the initial in vivo codes and conducted additional line-by-line coding for further analysis. Emergent codes were placed in a codebook that represented code definitions and subcodes that supported the key concepts evolving from our coding process [43]. This active and collaborative coding approach helped us to remain grounded in the data and begin developing conceptual categories by exploring and challenging our interpretations across data and participants [45].

In alignment with constructivist grounded theory techniques, we moved from focused coding, where we used conceptual codes to move through and build categories, to theoretical coding [46,47]. This process converted our initial and constantly compared coding into emergent theoretical groundings to guide and solidify analysis.

We found relational reciprocity to be a prominent conceptual code between family and students, which developed into an evolving theory. Theoretical codes included two primary themes, the first being genuine reciprocity, which included three key subthemes: emotional, temporal, and financial reciprocities. The second theme was resistant reciprocity and included the subthemes of complicated family ties, students’ financial contributions, and harnessing family challenges as motivation.

3.4. Trustworthiness

Given the initial case study approach, we engaged triangulation [43] by collecting multiple forms of data, including program documents, active membership observations, and interviews with students (active cohort members and alumni) and staff. We engaged in member checking, where we shared transcripts with participants and gave them an opportunity to provide feedback. We also utilized peer debriefing, where we reviewed our analysis with other colleagues [43].

3.5. Researchers’ Positionality

The first author is a mixed-race Latina scholar who designed the larger study and was involved in all aspects of recruitment, data collection, and analysis. Prior to recruitment events and interviews with participants, she shared her own identities as well as her own experiences during university. While neither parent graduated from high school, her mother later attended university while the author was in high school and served as a role model for college-going, changing the author’s path to higher education. Sharing her own story opened the floor for participants to also share about their university journeys. This author also engaged in reflexivity with co-authors regarding assumptions around the role of family and family engagement in students’ experiences. The second author, a Chicana, first-generation college student, benefited from strong familial support, including programs like Extended Opportunity Program and Services (EOP&S) and the McNair Scholars Program. As someone who benefited from strong familial ties and family-like academic programs, she aimed to be increasingly reflexive in how she analyzed data in this study, especially data that revealed negative family exchanges. These findings helped her re-evaluate her assumptions about what family means and who family is to minoritized students. The third author identifies as a Black woman whose research interests center on university access, readiness, persistence, retention, and educational attainment for under-represented students. As one with several under-represented identities, she reflected back on her own experiences with familial reciprocity during data analysis. In addition, she was involved in the larger study as a graduate student, conducting and transcribing interviews, as well as initial study coding.

4. Findings

We found reciprocity with family to be consistent across participants, although manifested differently over time. While genuine reciprocity was more widespread across students’ experiences, instances of resistant reciprocity also arose. Genuine reciprocity in familial exchanges brought meaning to students and supported their aspirations and persistence. Examples include allocating time, sharing financial resources, and offering emotional support.

Contrastingly, resistant reciprocity was often the result of negative familial situations and circumstances, as perceived by students. Often diverting students from their studies, resistant reciprocity still motivated students to keep persisting so as to create new and expanded opportunities for themselves. We share key types of resistant reciprocity like complicated relationships, negative financial obligations, and harnessing family challenges as motivation. While we present the sub-themes as sub-sections in the findings, we do want to acknowledge that there was overlap, and some excerpts shared could be considered under multiple categories (for example, both genuine and emotional reciprocity).

4.1. Genuine Reciprocity through Action and Conversation

Christine, a Mexican and White student, was a cohort student who was interviewed all four years. Christine lived at home throughout university, which allowed her to save a significant amount of money. She proudly shared that she would graduate debt-free. During the first year of the study, when prompted to talk about the ways she helped her parents, Christine shared the following:

[I] usually go to the store for my mom on the weekends or even during the weekday if she needs something. My dad owns his own landscaping business, so I help him lay stock down and different things like that… if my dad ever needs help with something I’m pretty much the first one he asks to help.… They don’t ask me to do things if they know I have homework to do which is nice. Or they always are like, “can I do anything for you? Do you need anything?” I’ll be like, “no I’m fine,” or if I do need something, then they can make it happen, so that’s pretty nice.

Christine describes reciprocity, where ebbs and flows of caring actions between her and her parents facilitate support for one another when time and capacity allow. In particular, Christine shared that coursework takes precedence over helping with household errands and tasks.

Ahani, a Black woman majoring in occupational therapy, shared the reciprocal reciprocity between her and her brother. Sometimes, Ahani would stay with her brother on the weekends or during school breaks. She described the ways that he supported her and how she gave back by helping around the house while she was there. “I don’t even live there but I come down on the weekend. I load the dishwasher. Or I’ll take out trash. Or I’ll clean up the living room or something… Sometimes I buy them groceries and everything”. Throughout the interview, Ahani described the reciprocal relationship between her and her brother; she described how her brother provided her with a place to stay on the weekends and on school breaks, provided food, and shared financial planning advice.

Similar to Ahani, Jake, a Hmong student, shared his experience with his siblings. Initially, when he started university, his younger siblings were in middle school, and he noted that he did not share much information about university, but as they aged into high school, this changed. He sought to use his involvement in his fraternity as a way to promote engagement: “I kinda wanted to use it as a way to guide them… to show them where they can go and that there’s things in the future you can work for”. Jake hoped to encourage college-going amongst his younger siblings and show them different ways they might define “success” during university through involvement.

Relatedly, Sophia, a Latina social work cohort student, also noted the importance of highlighting education to younger relatives: “I’m like… you should really start reading books and just getting involved… colleges or schools look at it, but it also helps you mentally”. Sophia found that offering advice was rewarding and critical. As a first-generation college student whose parents have less than a high school education, she is committed to getting her cousins excited about education.

While participants in our study continued to pour into and promote education within their families, they also shared how their families influenced their educational aspirations. For example, Diamond, a Black student studying social work and criminology, was asked about her career goals and whether she knew anyone in her desired career area. She shared that her aunt was a social worker and recounted one example of how she influenced her: “I actually am in social work right now, we have to do our service hours and our interviews and stuff, so I interviewed my aunt”. Diamond was able to learn more about her desired career field, intergenerationally, through her aunt’s eyes based on her educational and professional experiences.

Lynn, a biracial Latina and White student, elaborated on support through conversations with her uncle about persisting through university:

My uncle, he dropped out of middle school… he always tries telling me he had to struggle to get where he is, and it wasn’t easy, so he thinks that I should stay in school. Even if it gets hard… not drop out because it’s too hard not to have a college degree… he always tells me… to stay in school basically, cause it’s the best option.

To Lynn, this additional support and affirmation beyond her immediate family was helpful in staying motivated to keep pushing through in her university journey. Overall, genuine reciprocity was important and demonstrated through multi- and cross-generational support through motivating conversations and actions.

4.2. Emotional Reciprocity That Uplifts and Encourages Students

Christine reflected on the reciprocal emotional support and encouragement received from her family and partner during university, noting, “We always check up on each other. We’re always making sure that everything’s good… having that close connection of people who I know care about me and want to see me succeed”. Christine expressed being fortunate to receive consistent encouragement. Diamond, when asked about sources of emotional support, acknowledged her mother and cousin:

My relationship with my mom of course that’s important, I literally call her almost everyday. It depends on my mood, what’s going on, if I’m overwhelmed, I’m gonna call her… if I have… something to talk about, and I don’t have anybody to talk about it with I’ll call her… My cousin too, I grew up with her… just family. Those relationships are important outside of school.

These interpersonal and familial relationships kept many students grounded and motivated outside of their university obligations. When challenges arose, students relied on their familial sources to offer and receive emotional support.

Similarly, Lynn reflected on how her family supports her in situations she personally felt were setbacks, like what she perceived to be a poor performance in class. She stated, “I got a 76 on one of my tests… the class average was like a 72, so they were like, well you did better than most of your class, so you should not be beating yourself up over it”. For Lynn, it meant a lot that her family kept her uplifted as she dealt with transitioning to university and, at times, having different grades than what she was accustomed to in high school.

Affirming the give and take between familial exchanges and education, Ahani, a Black woman and first-generation student, shared that after her father passed away during high school, her family received support from her older brother’s football coach, or who they referred to as “Coach,” by offering her family a place to live. Facing eviction and a strained relationship with her mom, she chose to live with Coach and his family:

his family kind of provides that family support… I don’t really have any real family structure type thing. They have a little girl and she’s the cutest little thing ever. She’s like my little sister… I don’t know what it’s called, like the need for love or care or something? I’m not saying I’m not loved by my siblings or anything but my dad’s gone and my mom is like, not really a mom. They kind of provide that for me, that structure of a family

Not only did Coach provide financial support, but he and his family gave Ahani emotional support through difficult times, giving the family-like care she needed throughout high school and university.

4.3. Temporal Reciprocity: Investing in Family Time and Mutual Support

Matthew, a first-generation biracial student majoring in special education, recounted the pivotal role his mother played in dedicating her time to research universities with him in high school. Her unwavering support paved the way for his current pursuit of higher education: “She guided me to seeing what colleges were out there… how much financial aid I’m going to get, so between her and I, we pretty much made it possible for me to be here”. Despite not attending university herself, Matthew’s mom dedicated time to supporting her son’s goals, which ultimately helped him succeed academically.

On the other side of reciprocation, Kite, a biracial Southeast Asian and White student pursuing accounting, shared that after his father passed, he needed to step in to support the family in managing their finances and to temporally support his mom. He felt pressure to “step up his game” to try and help the family. Despite new challenges, his dedication to family remained the driving force of his continued help:

… with him passing away, it’s like mom… kind of pushing it on you and then she’s kind of like “there’s a lot of stuff to do,” so we’re always with the taxes and stuff… and kind of just be there for her… ain’t nobody home really for her…

As suggested by Kite, his compassion for his mom during their shared grief led him to take on more responsibilities despite being a full-time student with limited capacity. This dedicated time preserved to help his family manage their financial obligations reflects his reciprocated care.

Christine shared support systems that helped her persist. She noted how important it is to “think beyond what’s right in front of you”. She seemingly used that mindset to get through challenges and share time with family:

I’m very close with my family… that’s just the Mexican culture… I see my cousin [and her boyfriend]. She’s doing AVID with me, she’s an AVID tutor, so I kind of got her into that… I see them every Tuesday and Thursday, and it’s awesome.

Christine found ways to both prepare for her career goal of becoming a teacher and spend time promoting education with family. She went on to share about the importance of mentoring younger family members. She introduced her niece:

I try to take her at least once or twice a month [to] do something fun and she asks me about college. One day I showed her around the college campus and kind of got those seeds planted in her like, this is something you could do one day. Talking about her school and her grades and things like that…

Christine takes pride in being a family member who mentors younger family members and supports them in numerous ways. In other parts of her interviews, she also talked about tutoring her younger brother in math. Whether imparting knowledge to younger family members or receiving guidance from their chosen familial circles, time was highly regarded as a motivator by both students and families.

4.4. Financial Reciprocity: If We Can, We Will

Mercutio, a Latino first-generation college student, took a break from university due to academic difficulties. Feeling ashamed, he initially hid this break from his family. After a couple of years, he confided in his mom and sister, who offered to pay his tuition so he could work less and focus on his academics to finish university. Their generosity allowed him to concentrate:

She, [my sister] is the biggest reason why I’m back in school as well. She and my mom are the ones who are paying for it now… cause the loans that I’m getting doesn’t always cover the full amount of the tuition.

Mercutio was driven by his mom and sister’s financial sacrifice, serving as a persisting mechanism for him, saying, “that’s what motivates me even more to… get a degree and get a job”.

Again, on the other side of reciprocation, Lilly, a Latina and White theater student, described providing temporal and financial support to her family:

I send half of my paycheck home to my mom so she can do whatever she needs to do because she’s a single mom with my brother at home. She needs some help so that she can help me and help my brother and she’s the support system in my family anyway. I try and do as much as possible, especially when I’m home. I go clean up and stuff instead of just leaving everything everywhere like I used to do in high school because I hate cleaning; but I’ll help out now and walk my dog, do whatever I need to do.

Since Lilly was particularly close with her family, she was proud to offer her family temporal and financial support. In turn, her family regularly provided emotional support through words of affirmation and encouragement.

In another case of financial support, Ahani shared how her older brother encouraged her to get a credit card to start building credit, “… he convinced me to get a credit card because you have to have a credit statement or number”. Before this conversation, she did not have access to learning about financial planning or credit building, so she expressed gratitude for learning from her older brother.

Experiencing financial hardships, Jake described the food insecurity he endured during university. He did not openly share this struggle with his parents because he did not want to burden them financially. He shared the following:

My mom tries not to baby me, but I know she really wants to. I tell her like—don’t… I need to be broke. I need to know how it feels to be broke… I know it’d be nice to have that extra financial support, but I think I need to know how it is to struggle. To know what I need to do to succeed. Cause I think if you don’t have the mindset of understanding one side from the other, like being poor and being rich. If you just focus on being rich—you’ll never understand how it is for people with less money.

Jake’s parents both attended university, and he described his family’s financial status as middle class. The influence of growing up in an immigrant household instilled distinct values in him, such as not burdening his family despite knowing he could go to his parents for support. In the context of financial reciprocity, certain students needed to assist their families in meeting financial obligations, and others received monetary support from their families; meanwhile, others like Jake opted to endure challenges to not place financial stress on their families. Each unique choice made by students and family supported their educational persistence in a form that was unique to them.

4.5. Resistant Reciprocity: Complicated Family Ties

Ahani had a complicated relationship with her mother, and her father passed away during high school. In one example related to studying abroad, she expressed disappointment:

It’s more like the lack of family support that impacts, because I’m gonna be graduating soon, and I went to study abroad and no one in my family cared except, “oh when you go here, get me this”. Bring back souvenirs pretty much. When I came back, my friends were there, and they had this big sign for me, and I was like “I wish my family would do that”.

Ahani was clearly hurt by this experience. Without either of her parents present in her life (due to her father’s passing and her strained relationship with her mother), she relied on siblings for familial support, but they were sometimes unable to provide her with the support she truly wished for.

Similarly, Skylar also had complex relationships with her family, particularly her mom. She relied on mentorship offered by the housing authority in Milwaukee for low-income students, finding both motivation and financial support. Her mentor “saw [her] potential” and encouraged her to continue on to higher education. For example, her mentor would invite her to go to the program’s facility so she could “stay after school or come read a book”. This often compensated for the familial support she felt she lacked throughout her educational pursuits:

… not only do I get mentorship, I get a job, so now you cover finances, that was a struggle. And so, it was right across the street, so my mom didn’t have an excuse of “oh I can’t get you there”. So, we would just walk across the street; they had computers, so I would write papers…

Skylar’s sense of frustration with her mother’s lack of involvement with her personal and academic life translated into motivation to seek out resources and use the support needed to make a change. This drive led her to envision a life different from her mother’s, one that was ultimately achieved through university attendance and graduation with the support of mentors.

Jake shared the balance between pressure and his internal desire to take on a leadership role in the Hmong community, following in his father and grandfather’s footsteps:

I think me and my dad had that unspoken connection… you’re growing up and you—starting to know what you need to do… but he wasn’t expecting me to do it, but he for sure was hoping that I would… I wasn’t doing it just for my dad… I had the feeling of responsibility that I needed to do these things… cause as I’d look at my community, I see that a lot of it is starting to slip away and my dad always told me— “don’t ever lose your culture” and I don’t wanna lose my culture, so I wanna be a part of it in some shape or form.

As the final interview ended, Jake described a growing involvement with the Hmong community but proceeded cautiously, also wanting to ensure that he could focus on his career as well.

4.6. Student Financial Contributions to Family despite Limited Means

Another obstacle that often negatively impacted students was financial pressure from family. Although several of the participants in this study described their families as having limited finances, a few were asked to support their families with significant financial contributions while enrolled at university. Ahani shared that after her father passed, she often received requests from her mother for money:

I had $2000 in my bank account when I came back and that is what I needed for last semester—then I ran into some difficulties—my mom needed money because she was going to get evicted from her home. My sister was there, so I had to give her money—so I was short in paying my college tuition.

Although facing financial challenges of her own, Ahani willingly helped her distant mother to ensure the well-being of her sister.

Joyce, a Black media arts and gaming cohort student, also elaborated on how she often had to provide financial support to her mother:

It’s my mom, where she is trying to get things picked up from a year ago where my cousin had a visit and she just wrecked our finances. So, now I’m kind of a support system for my mother as well… I’m kind of flat broke right now because she needs the money from my account that I get from my job to support and pay bills.

Joyce expressed the stress she held as she shared that she was not on good terms with most of her family, which coupled with her mother’s financial strain. Despite being full-time students with already limited financial capacity, both Joyce and Ahani, among other students, still felt obligated to provide assistance to their families for different reasons.

4.7. Harnessing Family Challenges as Motivation

Amari describes how her motivation to pursue higher education and persistence stemmed from her family background. After high school, her initial plan was to enter the workforce to help her parents support her five siblings. She noted, however, that neither of her parents attended university and motivated her to “get a better job” than they held:

… My mom did talk about coming– “oh, you should go to college, you know, for your education and get a better job” because she’s in the cleaning industry where she cleans commercial buildings and my dad works in a factory and they were like you don’t wanna do this.

Similarly, Anthony, a Latino biology major, described the following:

… none of my parents went to college… I see how much they have to work and how much they struggle to make money and keep money and like—not live. And they live paycheck to paycheck basically so I just wanna give myself a better opportunity to make some money.

Altogether, Amari and Anthony, among many other students in this study, all aspired to transcend their initial life circumstances by viewing their various family situations as motivation to persist on the path of higher education—regarding it as a gateway toward expanding their life opportunities.

5. Discussion

In this study, students informed an evolving framework of relational reciprocity that illuminated how they perceived and defined their families, as well as how they engaged with them to sustain motivation and persistence during university. Our findings revealed reciprocal relationships between students and families, characterized by what we call genuine reciprocity and resistant reciprocity. Genuine reciprocity involved interactions and exchanges within families that were voluntary and had positive effects for both. Subtypes of genuine reciprocity included emotional, temporal, and financial. Meanwhile, some students also drew motivation from resistant reciprocity. This type of reciprocity involved instances where students often felt obligated to support their families in overcoming financial or emotional challenges, among others. As a result, students often needed to prioritize familial obligations over their academics and personal well-being.

Genuine reciprocity in this study continues to disprove the misconception that college students, especially those from minoritized backgrounds, lack familial support or cultural capital [3,11,12].

Students found emotional support from family conversations that boosted encouragement and instilled aspirations [3,14], fostered persistence, and helped them stay grounded amid university commitments. Despite many students in our study being first-generation, some detailed how their parents and other people they considered family spent time helping them navigate university [20], even if they did not attend themselves [3,11,18] and placed a high value on education as a means to a better future [30,31]. In addition, material support like offering housing and tuition assistance also demonstrated the diverse ways families gave support.

Our findings align with extant research that suggests that family support is not unidirectional; rather, students also contribute and support their families beyond academics [11,36]. Students who experienced genuine reciprocity in our study curated time to visit home in order to help with cooking, cleaning, providing support to younger relatives, supporting family businesses, and other familial needs and responsibilities. Meanwhile, some students financially advised their families or sent money to help with bills and other expenses during times of need. Also important to highlight is the significance of multi-generational emotional reciprocation, which involves sharing knowledge, wisdom, and motivation, along with providing comfort during challenging times.

Similarly, students who encountered resistant reciprocity engaged in giving and receiving within their families, but with different manifestations and reasons. Some student participants faced complicated relationships with their families [26,27], which led to negative emotional connections. Our study contributes a thread of insights that elevates how students navigate multi-directional and multi-generational relationships that stem from their resistance to difficult family dynamics. They repurpose their resistance into self-care, caregiving, and determination to complete university. For example, some students expressed a lack of emotional and/or financial support from their biological parents and turned to mentors or took on caregiving responsibilities for their siblings to fill a parental role. Students redirected their resistant reciprocity from parents or relatives to financial reciprocity to care for others like siblings when basic needs were threatened. Despite these and other challenges experienced within families, students in our study harnessed these short-term obstacles as motivation for better long-term outcomes, which included graduating from university, for themselves and future generations.

6. Implications

Through grounded theory techniques, this work illuminated the inner workings of familial ties for students of color. Our goal is to inform universities about these often-overlooked personal dynamics to improve support strategies. Based on how familial reciprocity manifests for under-represented students, high impact practices can be designed that encourage students’ and families’ relational reciprocity. As temporal reciprocity was a prominent theme, institutions could implement programming that regularly invites families to campus in several capacities. Often, for students, temporal reciprocity meant leaving campus to see and help loved ones in various ways. Familial “bridge” programs could be created and include monthly activities for students and their families, such as affinity groups, information sessions, resources on transitioning to university and supporting a college student, etc. By helping to increase the presence of relatives on campus, students can continue to nurture familial relationships during university. Further, the likelihood of younger relatives having exposure to university would increase by directly being on campus. In addition, programming of this nature would also minimize cultural mismatch, as students would maintain an interdependent community while at university. Along with this, the presence and involvement of parents and families at an institution can help to advance key initiatives [48,49]. McInnis [49] asserts programming that includes familial collaboration, such as parent programs, can help to propel student affairs and institutional advancement by creating space for insight from families. California Polytechnic State University and Arizona State University are two institutions that have robust parent and family programs and outreach programming [50,51].

As aforementioned, some students engaged in resistant reciprocity with their families as a result of difficult situations, and institutions should also take measures to support these students as well. As resistant reciprocity was often the result of obligations, one way of honoring these students’ obligations could entail offering flexibility in the classroom, responding to their needs, and giving grace. As mentioned earlier, another component of resistant reciprocity rested on students providing financial assistance and support to the family, such as helping to pay bills, sending money home, and helping to get loved ones out of dire financial constraints. Staff and faculty should remain updated on any additional financial opportunities for students, such as emergency grants and loans, flexible campus work opportunities, complimentary meal swipes, and external sources off-campus. A report by Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education [52] found that 82% of public four-year institutions and 73% of private four-year institutions offered emergency aid programs. Having information, resources, and contacts readily available for students can help them maximize their options on campus as well as serve as a retention tool [52].

7. Conclusions

A number of the students interviewed continuously reiterated the importance of family support. This support was demonstrated through genuine emotional, temporal, and positive financial reciprocity. Specific acts the students and families equally shared were words of affirmation, college and career advice, quality time spent together, and financial assistance. However, some students detailed resistant familial reciprocity that often stemmed from conflict, disagreements, barriers, and setbacks. Some key examples included pressure from family, time spent away from school, negative obligatory financial assistance, and persistence due to challenging life circumstances.

The mutual reciprocity between students and their families during university was multifaceted. Whether stemming from support or obligation, students drew from their families and familial experiences to propel them through challenges during university in the pursuit of greater opportunities. This renewed motivation to persist as a result of familial exchanges emerged as relational reciprocity. In understanding the interdependent relational reciprocity between under-represented students and their families, institutions can imagine innovative ways to support both throughout educational pursuits through programming, resources, and support.