Spreading the Wealth: The Influence of First-Generation College Students and Networked Counterstorytelling on Social Capital Theory and Practice

There is tremendous value in bringing fresh voices and perspectives to theory and practice, as it is through these novel lenses that research advances in rich and more equitable ways. However, the importance of first-generation college students being involved in this process has been vastly underestimated and undervalued by researchers and practitioners alike. Extrapolating from interdisciplinary research on counterstorytelling and networked counterpublics, the aim of this study was to explore how the proposed theoretical model of networked counterstorytelling—as presented through a grassroots digital storytelling campaign—could create space for first-generation student voice and leadership to help inform current theoretical understandings of social capital and community cultural wealth. Using a multimethodological approach—combining large-scale network analytics with qualitative netnographic analysis (Kozinets, 2015)—this study (1) produced novel methods for measuring and analyzing social capital within social media communities and (2) demonstrated how grassroots digital storytelling campaigns, facilitated by the affordances of social media platforms such as Instagram, can function as means for inviting the leadership, voice, and perspectives of first-generation college students into the design of higher education research and practice.