Pivotal Moments : How Educators Can Put All Studnets on the Path to College

For many students, making their way to higher education requires more than hard work and determination. Low-income minority students who overcome obstacles to achieve academic success have usually encountered at least one college-educated adult in their schooling who took the initiative to reach out to them and provide concrete academic guidance.

In this book, sociologist Roberta Espinoza introduces the idea of “pivotal moments”—interventions that point the way toward college, particularly for students from working-class or ethnic minority backgrounds. These pivotal encounters and the relationships that spring from them can help students accumulate procedural knowledge about attending college (cultural capital) and interpersonal support (social capital).

Pivotal Moments introduces a diverse group of students whose experiences highlight how teachers, counselors, academic outreach professionals, and professors can help students circumvent the barriers they encounter in attaining school success. It shows how the timing, duration, and impact of pivotal moments can redirect students’ educational trajectories. The book also translates the theory of pivotal moments into concrete practices that educators at all levels can use to intervene more effectively in the lives of working-class minority students.

Roberta Espinoza is assistant professor of sociology at California State University, Fullerton. She received her BA from Pomona College and her PhD in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley. She has worked at various research institutes, including the University of California, Berkeley Center for Working Families; the University of California, Los Angeles Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing; and the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute. She has written articles on minority and working-class students’ access to college, women of color in doctoral education, and Latino undocumented students. Her research on Latina doctoral students was featured in the Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education Magazine. She speaks annually for academic outreach programs and teaches in college programs that aim to increase the number of underrepresented students in higher education. She also consults with schools and districts concerning the pathways to college for working-class minority students.