❖ Ethics
Understanding Family Roles and Ethics in
Working With First-Generation College
Students and Their Families
Nadine Hartig
Fran Steigerwald
Radford University
This article examines the family roles and ethics of first-generation
college students and their families through discussion of a case
vignette. London’s family roles applied to first-generation college
students are discussed. Narrative therapy practices and an ethical
model that examines the value process of counselors are explored
as possible solutions.
Keywords: family roles; first-generation college students; narra-
tive therapy; case study; ethics
BACKGROUND
First-generation college (FGC) students are defined as
students whose parents have not attended college (Billson &
Terry, 1982). FGC students are more likely to be an ethnic
minority, speak a language besides English at home, and
come from a lower socioeconomic background than their
continuing-generation college student counterparts (Bui,
2002). These students tend to have less parental support with
the logistics of college and career planning (Horn & Nuñez,
2000; Thayer, 2000). They may also experience cultural and
values conflict between the home and college communities
(Thayer, 2000). The American university system values
individuation, whereas many cultures value a cooperative
community that devalues separation (London, 1989). FGC
students find themselves caught between these two frag-
mented world views and consequently may feel isolated in
both communities.
Authors’ Note: Correspondence concerning this article should be
addressed to Nadine Hartig, Department of Counselor Education,
Radford University, Radford, VA 24142; e-mail: nhartig@radford
.edu.
THE FAMILY JOURNAL: COUNSELING AND THERAPY FOR COUPLES AND FAMILIES, Vol. 15 No. 2, April 2007 159-162
DOI: 10.1177/1066480706297955
© 2007 Sage Publications
From an emotional perspective, these students also differ
from students whose parents have some college experience.
FGC students are more likely to worry about failing out of
college and having adequate finances (Bui, 2002). Survivor
guilt is also a common experience for FGC students. This
guilt manifests itself when students feel hope in pursuing a
higher education while they watch their families struggle to
survive (London, 1989; Piorkowski, 1983).
Counseling families with FGC students poses potential eth-
ical conflicts for a family counselor, particularly between the
ethic of advocacy for client fulfillment and needs versus respect
for a family’s autonomy and cultural values. The authors found
that most research on FGC students is done within career and
school counseling or student affairs and higher education disci-
plines. Little is discussed within the family counseling field,
despite increasing numbers of FGC students each year (Choy,
2001; Horn & Nuñez, 2000). This article examines the various
ethical conflicts through discussion of a case vignette.
Specifically, issues of respecting a family’s autonomy versus
the ethic of advocating for a client’s vocational skills are
explored. The authors discuss a framework for understanding
family roles of FGC students to better serve this population.
Last, the counselor’s potential bias and need for competency
with the culture of FGC students are also examined.
CASE STUDY
The Fishers
David is 18 and an only child. He is a freshman at his
state’s largest university. His parents, Mark and Eleanor, live
3 hours away in a working-class suburb of a large city. Neither
of his parents attended college, and both have held jobs for
the same company for the past 25 years. The family has
159
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come to see a family counselor during David’s winter break
at the insistence of Eleanor. She is worried about their only
son, who seems “different, angry, and depressed” to her.
David denies being depressed to the counselor but admits to
feeling overwhelmed by the largeness of the school, worried
about finances, and ashamed around other students who
seem “at home” in the college setting. David also shares that
he feels excited and motivated by his classes. He has found
a faculty mentor who is helping him define his future goals
of being a writer and has already received academic praise
from his other instructors. David’s feelings of excitement
and hope are conflicted with feelings of guilt for leaving
home, doing better than his parents, and spending too much
of their money: “My father has had the same jacket for 20
years, and I spent $500 on books this semester.” He also
worries about his parents, who seem noticeably distressed
with each other. He agreed to attend counseling because he
hopes the counselor will be able to explain to his parents the
pressure he is experiencing.
Eleanor has always wanted David to be happy and suc-
cessful but worries that Mark pushed him too hard in high
school. David’s high school teachers were emphatic that he
had great promise to be a writer. Eleanor, however, wishes
that he would have attended the local community college,
like his cousins, and stayed at home. She misses him and
although she wants him “to do better than she and Mark
did,” she is worried he will lose part of his family culture
and identity. Eleanor has asked the family counselor to dis-
cuss other educational options with David.
Mark, on the other hand, has always dreamed big for his
son. He will sacrifice anything to see that David has the best
he can provide. College is expensive, but for right now, Mark
and Eleanor are footing the entire bill. He knows in his heart
that Eleanor wishes he would have encouraged David to
stay closer to home, but Mark wanted David to have what he
didn’t, “a father who believed in him.” Mark always dreamed
of attending the school David is currently attending. He is so
proud to be able to send his son there. There is marital tension
between Mark and Eleanor. Mark even admits that David was
the “glue” in the family. Mark agreed to see the family coun-
selor, not because he thinks anything is amiss with David but
because he is worried about his marriage.
DISCUSSION AND APPLICATION
Conflicting International Association of Marriage
and Family Counselors (IAMFC, 2005) Ethics
The Fishers are experiencing a massive transition on
several different levels: familial, financial, emotional, and
cultural. Each family member is experiencing different transi-
tional growing pains, some of which are compounded by a
restructuring of family roles. What is difficult to discern is
how to ethically find balance between “respecting the auton-
omy of the famil[y]” (IAMFC, 2005, p. A-3) and “advocat[ing]
for the development of clients’ cognitive, moral, social, emo-
tional, spiritual, physical, educational, relational, and voca-
tional skills” (IAMFC, 2005, p. A-6).
As postsecondary educated professionals, professional
counselors may personally value higher education as a means
to fulfill dreams, pursue career aspirations, and grow person-
ally and professionally. Counselors may feel concerned for
the likely repercussions FGC students would experience
if they dropped out of college. Less lifetime income and
decreased job satisfaction often result (Tinto, 1993). The
IAMFC (2005) Ethical Code is clear that “marriage and fam-
ily counselors recognize that each family is unique. Couple
and family counselors do not promote bias and stereotyping
regarding family roles and functions” (p. A-2). Although it
would be biased for family counselors to persuade a student
or family that higher education is the best choice, it would
also be natural to want to promote a client’s needs and poten-
tial but may also face disrupting the family culture.
London’s (1989) Framework for Understanding
Family Roles in FGC Families
London (1989) applied Helm Stierlin’s (1974) psychody-
namic concepts of separation and family roles to FGC stu-
dents and their families. Within the psychodynamic
tradition, family role assignment refers to the division of
emotional labor within a family: Each member is assigned
to certain tasks to keep the family system functioning.
London outlines Stierlin’s three main modes of separation:
binding, delegating, and expelling.
Binding. Binding occurs when parents want to keep their
children locked in their family system. Dependence is encour-
aged, as “enjoying autonomy becomes virtually impossible, for
any experimentation with independence raises the specter of
treason against the parents” (London, 1989, p. 149). This emo-
tionally charged description describes how a bounded child
may struggle with separation. The authors also acknowledge
this may be a biased view, as interdependence within a family
culture may be a method of survival. It may be viewed that
Eleanor is binding David; however, she may simply be protect-
ing her family in the best way she knows how, by keeping them
close to her. At the same time, David may experience a conflict
between wanting independence while still wanting nurturance.
Delegating. Delegating occurs when children are respon-
sible for representing, advocating for, and promoting the
needs of the family. In these families, parents delegate to
children their unmet dreams and aspirations, and the chil-
dren demonstrate loyalty to the family by leaving it and pur-
suing others’ dreams. Delegating can be viewed in a positive
light, as children’s, along with the parents’, dreams and aspi-
rations are nurtured and developed. It can also be seen as
harmful when parents dictate what and how dreams will be
implemented. In this case study, David is serving as a dele-
gate for his father. Although Mark is incredibly supportive
of David, he may be also inadvertently putting pressure on
 Hartig, Steigerwald / UNDERSTANDING FAMILY ROLES AND ETHICS 161
David to fulfill his own dreams of graduating from the state
flagship institution. This pressure adds to the burden David
already feels about fitting into a new environment.
Expelling. Expelling occurs when children are pushed
toward independence before they are ready for the transi-
tion. They experience feeling abandoned, excluded, and sep-
arated from others. Again, these are negative, and possibly
biased, connotations to this family role. On one hand, a child
may be forced to leave the family before he or she is ready;
however, some families may view this as a necessary break
to foster independence within the child. Although David is
least likely to feel expelled, this may be part of Eleanor’s
fear that her son may feel abandoned by her.
Balancing the Ethics of Autonomy With Advocacy
Balancing respect for the family’s autonomy and culture
with advocacy of client’s needs requires the counselor to
examine how his or her values interact with the family’s val-
ues and roles. Even the described family roles include multi-
cultural biases, as each role relates to values placed on those
behaviors. For example, binding may be seen as a destructive
role and yet may have real purpose within a family. Within the
case study, Eleanor may be seen as a mother unable to let go
of her son, Mark the father wanting to make all of his own
dreams come true, and David the son absorbing the pressure
and stress of the family system. On the other hand, the family
culture may necessitate a closeness and intergenerational con-
tinuity that Eleanor is trying to protect. Mark may also be
doing his best to be a change agent for his son and family.
David may be finding his way between two separate systems,
seeking his mother for nurturance and his father for encour-
agement of independence.
Ethical strategies are needed so the counselor may proceed
responsibly. Gladding, Remley, and Huber (2000) described
specific strategies to respect a family’s culture: initial accep-
tance of those differences, exploration of those differences,
and discussion of how these differences differ from the larger
culture. They described how to understand the value process,
by which a counselor maintains a systemic world view and
acknowledges the challenges to this world view.
Initial acceptance of differences requires the counselor to
accept the family’s systemic world view and the challenges
to this view. In the case study, the counselor would accept
each member’s perspective as well as his or her own, with-
out judgment. The Fishers would be invited to share how
their experience and values differ from other family mem-
bers and encouraged to accept these differences as well.
Second, the counselor would explore the differences
between their world views and the family’s perspectives. In
this case, the counselor needs to facilitate a discussion of
each member’s experience of this transition, while gently
exploring his or her own perspective and politely sharing this
perspective. The intent is not for the counselor to push his or
her values onto the family but rather to have an authentic dia-
logue with the family about differences or similarities in
world views. The counselor can model acceptance of dif-
ferences, as well as nondefensive and nonthreatening family
communication.
Last, the counselor would discuss how the family’s differ-
ences differ from the larger culture. The intent of this step is
for the counselor to serve as a culture broker, in which he or
she helps the family decide which traditional values they
would like to keep or discard. Here, the counselor needs to
explore with each member what roles are being enacted
within the family, what roles and patterns are useful, and what
roles are ineffective for system change. For example, Mark
may wish for his son to be closer to home but feels the psy-
chological burden of providing all of the opportunities he
wasn’t given as a young adult. Exploring this role and values
would facilitate family communication about what is most
effective for David as an FGC student and for Mark as a
middle-age adult with unmet needs.
Corey, Corey, and Callahan (2003) clearly articulated that
family counselors do not make decisions for a family but
rather “help them make an honest evaluation of how well their
present patterns are working for them, and to help encourage
them to make necessary changes” (p. 405). In keeping with
these ethical strategies, it would also be important for the fam-
ily counselor in this case to accept and understand how his or
her values, life experience, and own family roles affect this
counseling process.
Narrative Therapy
Narrative therapy allows for families to explore their stories
as part of the therapeutic process. The sharing of these stories
or narratives demonstrates a respect for the family and an
effort to join with the family. It also allows for the counselor to
obtain a full picture of what the family is experiencing (Payne,
2006). It is essential for the Fishers to tell their narratives,
allowing each member to have the time to describe their own
family roles within this family and their own family of origin.
Once they have been allowed to share their individual and col-
lective stories, it is essential for the counselor to explore the
roles, patterns, and differences within a multicultural lens and
create a culture of acceptance of differences. Through the use
of narrative therapy and by following Gladding et al.’s (2000)
ethical suggestions, the family can objectively and honestly
examine their family patterns. This counseling process then
respects the family autonomy by allowing them the opportu-
nity to decide for themselves what patterns are effective and
which ones are not.
Final Thoughts
FGC students are an increasing population subgroup
(Choy, 2001). As a result, family counselors need to under-
stand their specific needs and the impact on the family.
Developing this awareness and competence will allow these
students and families to feel supported and understood,
allowing them to find the answers that are right for each fam-
ily. Within an ethical and multicultural framework, counselor
bias may be explored along with facilitation of healthy and
open family communication. It is the ultimate aim to work
162 THE FAMILY JOURNAL: COUNSELING AND THERAPY FOR COUPLES AND FAMILIES / April 2007
toward a family understanding of the roles each person plays
within the family as well as the examination of each mem-
ber’s needs and patterns. This allows the family to decide
their course of action and understand how it affects each fam-
ily member as well as the family system.
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Nadine Hartig, PhD, is an assistant professor in counselor education
at Radford University, in Radford, Virginia. Her professional interests
include student affairs, community mental health, and supervision.
Fran Steigerwald, PhD, is an assistant professor in counselor edu-
cation at Radford University in Radford, Virginia. She is a licensed
clinical counselor and has worked in the areas of community men-
tal health and family practice.