The Tie That Binds: Access and Exclusion as Motivation for First-Generation Faculty Serving as Institutional Agents

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-2026

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Source Publication

Educational Studies

Source ISSN

0013-1946

Original Item ID

DOI: 10.1080/00131946.2025.2596352

Abstract

Despite rhetoric about the influence of first-generation faculty (FGF)—who were the first in their families to graduate from college—on the success of students from marginalized backgrounds, little systematic empirical research has explored their intention to serve in this capacity. This qualitative narrative inquiry employs a culturally informed approach to institutional agent theory to investigate why and how 19 FGF from diverse backgrounds aim to play a supportive role for first-generation students and others historically marginalized in the academy. Seeking to bring FGF into the discourse about their purported role on college campuses and to humanize their efforts as institutional agents, I ask, What, if anything, motivates FGF to serve as institutional agents? How do these motivations shape FGF service as institutional agents? I find that FGF are inspired by three motivational components of what I call empathetic relationality—(1) empathetic response to students' lived experience, (2) the student support insights garnered from their own experiences, and (3) the demonstrated value of their experiential insights—which shapes the motivated action FGF take as institutional agents. Ultimately, FGF service as institutional agents is not merely activated by first-generation status in the abstract but instead by the specific lived experience of marginalization and facilitative support—in the context of being first-generation and navigating exclusion in the academy—that motivates and shapes how they serve. I argue that empathetic relationality that relies on enduring marginalization by first-generation status binds FGF to their student counterparts, which has timely implications for equity in higher education, where instrumental attention to FGF proliferates. Contrary to the transactional value placed on FGF, I conclude that development of equitable institutional structures and practices that meaningfully diminish or eradicate obstacles associated with first-generation status would enhance equity for students and FGF alike.

Comments

Educational Studies, Vol. 62, No. 1 (January-February 2026): 11-37. DOI.

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