Participation Type
Paper
Session Title
Session 8.02 Education
Presentation #1 Title
Singing for Their Supper: An Analysis of Appalachian Residency-Based Scholarships
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
This paper examines the role of residency-based scholarship programs in promoting the idea of the "good Appalachian". Through analysis of the selection criteria and stated purpose of college scholarships available only to graduates of Appalachian high schools, I explore the ways in which these vehicles of opportunity frame students relative to their "need" and/or their "merit". I look at change over time based on institutional documentation of the development of individual scholarship programs as well as geographic coverage in Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia of what are often overlapping service areas. Analysis of the scholarship documentation indicates tropes of exploitation and exceptionalism that Appalachian scholarship recipients carry with them to college along with financial support. Within these tropes is the identification of good scholarship candidates as those dedicated to self-help and service. We hear echoes of the rhetoric of opportunity schools in the region as well as economic development language of innovation and entrepreneurism. The ways Appalachian scholarship recipients are defined may also affect the perception of quality in the Appalachian college going population on the part of receiving institutions as some Appalachian residency-based scholarship criteria are used as institutional markers of the Appalachian population on campus writ large.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Dr. Jane McEldowney Jensen holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology and Higher Education from Indiana University, Bloomington, and conducts research on post-secondary educational aspirations and impacts, including the comparative study of student transitions to post-secondary education in rural regions of Italy, Kazakhstan, and Appalachia.
Singing for Their Supper: An Analysis of Appalachian Residency-Based Scholarships
This paper examines the role of residency-based scholarship programs in promoting the idea of the "good Appalachian". Through analysis of the selection criteria and stated purpose of college scholarships available only to graduates of Appalachian high schools, I explore the ways in which these vehicles of opportunity frame students relative to their "need" and/or their "merit". I look at change over time based on institutional documentation of the development of individual scholarship programs as well as geographic coverage in Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia of what are often overlapping service areas. Analysis of the scholarship documentation indicates tropes of exploitation and exceptionalism that Appalachian scholarship recipients carry with them to college along with financial support. Within these tropes is the identification of good scholarship candidates as those dedicated to self-help and service. We hear echoes of the rhetoric of opportunity schools in the region as well as economic development language of innovation and entrepreneurism. The ways Appalachian scholarship recipients are defined may also affect the perception of quality in the Appalachian college going population on the part of receiving institutions as some Appalachian residency-based scholarship criteria are used as institutional markers of the Appalachian population on campus writ large.
