| Description |
The purposes of this research were (1) to identify ways in which current practices in higher education use existing power structures to marginalize some students and (2) to see if in so doing, inequities between groups of students were maintained. The approach I used was a sociocommunication study operating under a Critical Realist perspective. I employed three methods of data-gathering for this research: conducting online interviews with eleven co-researchers, extracting quantitative data from public higher education records, and including a narrative of my own emic perspective. I then charted trends in the data, sought correlations among the body of literature in the field, drew conclusions, shared findings, and made recommendations. In regard to the first question, I found that tailoring support to veterans might possibly marginalize some other students who are denied access to veteran-only support systems. However, it is unlikely to do so to any extent that could outweigh the well documented benefits of having a veterans' center-or the consequences for the institution of declining to create one. As for the second question, I found that there are no reasons compelling enough to deter the creation of a veterans' center. Even with due diligence in research, no examples of such presented themselves to so indicate. The findings and recommendations I offer, based on my conclusions, are that campus professionals should be familiar with the unique needs of students who are veterans and aware of the support services available to them, that institutions should strive for uniformity in how such services are delivered, and that more research needs to be conducted in order to determine how that might be approached. |
