The consideration of social class status has wide-reaching implications for building knowledge about how to facilitate and support educational success for students in counselor education doctoral programs. This session will focus on the findings from a qualitative research study that explored the doctoral education experiences of 10 students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. The content covered in this session will increase attendees’ awareness of how social class status may affect students’ understanding of themselves, academic engagement, doctoral persistence, and relationships with peers and faculty in counselor education doctoral programs. The presenter will identify a framework that contextualizes and explains social class and classist functioning and why it is imperative to recognize social class as an important component of students’ culture.
