First-generation students in Chile: a qualitative approach to university experience

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyse the university experience of a group of first- generation undergraduate students from three universities of Concepción, Chile. In a context of a strong massification of higher education, the experience of students whose parents completed secondary education at most has turned into a field of emerging interest. Depending on the objectives, the following research was approached from a constructivist paradigm and designed according to the biographical method, whose principal data collecting technique was the use of semi-structured interviews. The results of this exploratory study show that the building up of a university education project is greatly influenced by parents, who turn into an fundamental source of support. In the same way, students configure three relevant meanings to their university experience: upward social mobility, vocation and gratitude to parents. Finally, the results are discussed and new questions are proposed.