Elizabeth Belasco

Academic, Cultural, and Social Capital: Their Combined Influence on the Matriculation of Latina/o Students in Higher Education Elizabeth Belasco

This study analyzes three forms of 'capital' and their influence on matriculation rates for Latina/o students. Specifically, pre-enrollment characteristics for a sample of college freshmen were classified as academic, cultural, or social capital. A Bayesian structural equation model was developed to analyze the interaction of these latent variables and measure their relative influence on graduation rates. A similar sample of White/Caucasian students were included in the study for purposes of comparison. The regression of social capital on cultural capital produced a statistically significant difference between the two groups of students and yielded a moderate effect size.