Date of Award

8-2024

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Education/Higher Education PhD

First Advisor

Tara L. Parker

Second Advisor

Lorna Rivera

Third Advisor

Nicholas A. Juravich, Joseph R. Parker

Abstract

This critical historical narrative sought to understand how secondary and postsecondary educators can best engage community partners in providing access to a college education—and the opportunities associated with it—for students who have been systemically excluded. Based on extensive archival research and 21 oral history interviews with Upward Bound students and staff in the MIT Science Day Camp and the MIT–Wellesley Upward Bound program from 1966 through the mid-1970s, as well as with those who added to the national perspective, this study examined the original anti-poverty, community action framework of the Upward Bound program. The sensitizing concepts of race and class offered a lens for examining MIT and Wellesley College as racialized organizations, underscoring the deeply rooted, systemic racism and deficit ideology against “the poor” that was in place at all levels of educational institutions—and still exists today. Findings indicated that the first Upward Bound programs did indeed reflect the community action principles that were part of the original federal proposal and that host institutions, such as MIT and Wellesley College, engaged deeply with the community surrounding the MIT campus. While the findings are based on how one urban Upward Bound program operated and built community, with the “maximum feasible participation” of the racially diverse and low-income students and families in the neighborhood adjacent to their campus, they are more broadly emblematic of how programs were run locally, revealing a counter-narrative to what was expected and required at the federal level. The findings are a testament to the parents, families, program staff, teachers, group leaders, tutor-counselors, and especially the students themselves, who worked to increase opportunities for access to a college education for local students, while creating the shared community and family that was, and still is, the MIT–Wellesley Upward Bound program. Lessons learned from the rich stories shared by the oral history narrators, enhanced by compelling archival details, led to several important recommendations for practice, policy, and future research.

Comments

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