Tightening bonds and professional access

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoff Payne
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Participation Rate ◽  
Student Diversity ◽  
Social And Cultural Capital ◽  
Occupational Outcome ◽  
Working Class Students ◽  
Personal Qualities

This chapter extends the sceptical discussion of meritocracy to higher education, and access to employment. The professions’ partially successful attempt to achieve a closed shop restricts entry by those from less advantaged homes, and the less academically skilled of their own children. Data on qualifications and ‘personal qualities’ required for recruitment show detailed connections between social and cultural capital, and occupational outcome, are complicated. Higher education is status stratified: not all degrees are equal. The Higher Education Initial Participation Rate (‘HEIPR’) exaggerates the number of graduates; other statistical sources do not include data on social class. Increasing student diversity does not automatically increase mobility: working class students continue to be disadvantaged once they enter university. Meritocratic and individualistic explanations of mobility are inadequate.

Hidden Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Class

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 162-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sébastien Goudeau ◽  
Jean-Claude Croizet
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Academic Culture ◽  
Sixth Graders ◽  
School Contexts ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Regular Classrooms ◽  
Working Class Students

Three studies conducted among fifth and sixth graders examined how school contexts disrupt the achievement of working-class students by staging unfair comparison with their advantaged middle-class peers. In regular classrooms, differences in performance among students are usually showcased in a way that does not acknowledge the advantage (i.e., higher cultural capital) experienced by middle-class students, whose upbringing affords them more familiarity with the academic culture than their working-class peers have. Results of Study 1 revealed that rendering differences in performance visible in the classroom by having students raise their hands was enough to undermine the achievement of working-class students. In Studies 2 and 3, we manipulated students’ familiarity with an arbitrary standard as a proxy for social class. Our results suggest that classroom settings that make differences in performance visible undermine the achievement of the students who are less familiar with academic culture. In Study 3, we showed that being aware of the advantage in familiarity with a task restores the performance of the students who have less familiarity with the task.

‘I don’t want to go to a crummy little university’: social class, higher education choice and the paradox of widening participation

2009 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tina Byrom
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Young People ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Summer School ◽  
Widening Participation ◽  
Education Choice ◽  
School Based ◽  
Institutional Habitus ◽  
Participation In Higher Education

Whilst there has been growing attention paid to the imbalance of Higher Education (HE) applications according to social class, insufficient attention has been paid to the successful minority of working-class young people who do secure places in some of the UK’s leading HE institutions. In particular, the influence and nature of pre-university interventions on such students’ choice of institution has been under-explored. Data from an ESRC-funded PhD study of 16 young people who participated in a Sutton Trust Summer School are used to illustrate how the effects of a school-based institutional habitus and directed intervention programmes can be instrumental in guiding student choices and decisions relating to participation in Higher Education.

scholarly journals Social-Class Disparities in Higher Education and Professional Workplaces: The Role of Cultural Mismatch

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole M. Stephens ◽  
Sarah S. M. Townsend ◽  
Andrea G. Dittmann
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Cultural Models ◽  
Cultural Barriers ◽  
Cultural Barrier ◽  
Cultural Mismatch ◽  
Cultural Ideal ◽  
Key Sites ◽  
And Performance

Differences in structural resources and individual skills contribute to social-class disparities in both U.S. gateway institutions of higher education and professional workplaces. People from working-class contexts also experience cultural barriers that maintain these disparities. In this article, we focus on one critical cultural barrier—the cultural mismatch between (a) the independent cultural norms prevalent in middle-class contexts and U.S. institutions and (b) the interdependent norms common in working-class contexts. In particular, we explain how cultural mismatch can fuel social-class disparities in higher education and professional workplaces. First, we explain how different social-class contexts tend to reflect and foster different cultural models of self. Second, we outline how higher education and professional workplaces often prioritize independence as the cultural ideal. Finally, we describe two key sites of cultural mismatch—norms for understanding the self and interacting with others—and explain their consequences for working-class people’s access to and performance in gateway institutions.

scholarly journals Time and money explain social class differences in students’ social integration at university.

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Rubin
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Social Integration ◽  
Social Exclusion ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Social Activities ◽  
Class Differences ◽  
Working Class Students ◽  
Exclusion Effect

Working-class students tend to be less socially integrated at university than middle-class students (Rubin, 2012a). The present research investigated two potential reasons for this working-class social exclusion effect. First, working-class students may have fewer finances available to participate in social activities. Second, working-class students tend to be older than middle-class students and, consequently, they are likely to have more work and/or childcare commitments. These additional commitments may prevent them from attending campus which, in turn, reduces their opportunity for social integration. These predictions were confirmed among undergraduate students at an Australian university (N = 433) and a USA university (N = 416). Strategies for increasing working-class students’ social integration at university are discussed.

The Theory behind the Findings

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy J. Binder ◽  
Kate Wood
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Cultural Sociology ◽  
Public University ◽  
Organization Studies ◽  
University System ◽  
Social And Cultural Capital ◽  
Elite University

This chapter examines in more abstract terms how universities, in combination with the broader political culture, cultivate distinctive styles of conservatism among students. It reviews research in the fields of higher education studies, cultural sociology, political theory, and organization studies to capture some of the more general processes observed at Eastern Elite University and Western Flagship University. In particular, it considers how social and cultural capital gives rise to the particular dominant conservative styles of civilized discourse at Eastern Elite, provocation in the Western Public university system, and the submerged styles seen at these different campuses. The chapter concludes by arguing that the model developed for studying student conservatism on both campuses is general enough to be useful to scholars studying other aspects of students' lives other than politics.

“I Need Help!” Social Class and Children’s Help-Seeking in Elementary School

2011 ◽  
Vol 76 (6) ◽  
pp. 862-882 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica McCrory Calarco
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Help Seeking ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Unequal Opportunities ◽  
Do So

What role do children play in education and stratification? Are they merely passive recipients of unequal opportunities that schools and parents create for them? Or do they actively shape their own opportunities? Through a longitudinal, ethnographic study of one socioeconomically diverse, public elementary school, I show that children’s social-class backgrounds affect when and how they seek help in the classroom. Compared to their working-class peers, middle-class children request more help from teachers and do so using different strategies. Rather than wait for assistance, they call out or approach teachers directly, even interrupting to make requests. In doing so, middle-class children receive more help from teachers, spend less time waiting, and are better able to complete assignments. By demonstrating these skills and strategies, middle-class children create their own advantages and contribute to inequalities in the classroom. These findings have implications for theories of cultural capital, stratification, and social reproduction.

scholarly journals Social Class, Identity and the ‘Good’ Student: Negotiating University Culture

2008 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 257-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Pearce ◽  
Barry Down ◽  
Elizabeth Moore
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Government Policy ◽  
Class Identity ◽  
Participation Rates ◽  
University Culture ◽  
University Experiences ◽  
Working Class Students ◽  
The University

Through the use of narrative portraits this paper discusses social class and identity, as working-class university students perceive them. With government policy encouraging wider participation rates from under-represented groups of people within the university sector, working-class students have found themselves to be the objects of much research. Working-class students are, for the most part, studied as though they are docile bodies, unable to participate in the construction of who they are, and working-class accounts of university experiences are quite often compared to the middle-class norms. This paper explores how working-class students see themselves within the university culture. Working-class students' voices and stories form the focus of this paper, in which the language of ‘disadvantage’ is dealt with and the ideologies of class identity explored.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document