Making Meaning Count: A Phenomenological Approach to Understanding Student Meaning-Making Processes and Academic Outcomes

Abstract

The income-gap between Canadian families has widened in recent years. Students from low-income households often start their educational careers behind their peers. This gap in educational attainment and advantage often follows them throughout the duration of their educational development (Davies and Guppy 2010). While these systemic inequalities continue to perpetuate social processes resulting in the limitations of student capabilities, this paper works towards establishing a phenomenological lens which may be used to mitigate the disparity in the academic performance of students from low-income households compared to those of their peers – in particular, the ways in which poverty impacts self-concept and, ensuingly, academic performance amongst students. To establish this framework, this paper explores the phenomenological concepts of the life-world and the theory of embodiment.