ABSTRACT
The significance of the first-gen term is that it locates students in a discourse of upward social mobility, intergenerational upward social mobility particularly. This chapter expands on concepts already used, adding to their nuance and complexity and pointing to key sources for further study. Sociology is a social science. Educators who support first-gen college students, and who are animated by the promise of democratic society, seek to maximize students’ chances of navigating the educational system, the known vagaries of the class system notwithstanding. It is historically accurate to stress the role that intergenerational upward social mobility has played in the development of the United States as a democratic society, that is, a society in which “all men are created equal”.
