Cultural Capital and Academic Advising for International Students

International student enrollment at American higher education institutions has grown mostly unabated since tracking began in 1948, but has not been met with a corresponding investment in programming to assist students during their transition or their enrollment stateside. In the interest of providing better support to international students, this study attempted to understand which advising styles and strategies related with the greatest satisfaction in international undergraduate students. Informed by academic advising methodology and cultural capital theory, this mixed-methods study found a statistically significant correlation between developmental advising and cultural capital-informed strategies and between cultural capital and advising satisfaction. These analyses suggest that developmental advising informed by cultural capital may be a preferred method for advising diverse populations. Students reacted positively when their advisors were knowledgeable of the curriculum and attenuated their advising to the students’ individual needs, especially regarding extracurricular opportunities. The author recommends that advising departments base their protocol around developmental advising principles with cultural capital as a useful lens for addressing inequalities international students face in higher education, and that rigorous evaluation of these offerings is necessary. The study hopes to inform future research by providing a base from which to incorporate broader assessment theories of advising and to further develop analysis of cultural capital as it pertains to academic advising