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This article provides an overview of objective and subjective class differences in experiences of postsecondary education. Using the metaphor of a funnel, it argues that cumulative disadvantage results when first-generation and low-income college students are disproportionately filtered out at each stage of the postsecondary education process. Subjective class differences largely serve to reproduce existing inequalities, although the potential for transformation exists. This article considers inequalities during childhood and the transition to adulthood, stratification within institutions, and class differences in postsecondary educational enrollment, attendance, college life, work, financial aid, and attainment. Directions for future research and program and policy interventions are outlined.

In contrast to popular presumptions and prior research on women ofthe “postfeminist” generation, this study found anappreciation for recent historicalchanges in women’s opportunities, and an awareness of persisting inequalities and discrimination. The findings reveal support for feminist goals, coupled with ambiguity about the concept offeminism. Although some of the women could be categorized alonga continuum of feminist identification, half were “fence-sitters” or were unable to articulate a position. There were variations in perspectives amongthose with different life experiences, as well as by racial and class background.

Growing up in the shadow of the women's movement has created contradictory life course and identity possibilities for young women. Although prior research has examined the formal markers of adulthood, we know little about how young women themselves perceive these markers. Forty-two in-depth interviews revealed that the subjective meanings of young women's transition to adulthood are actually far more complex than previously assumed. While becoming a parent and becoming financially independent were seen by interviewees as reflecting an adult orientation, completing schooling was tied to class-differentiated views of growing up. In addition, beginning full-time work was subjectively linked to future career uncertainty, and getting married did not diminish young women's emphasis on self-development and independence from men. Taken together, these findings indicate that there is a disjuncture between women's objective and subjective transition to adulthood. This study suggests that our previous understandings of the transition to adulthood do not reflect the full complexity of how young women subjectively experience it or the extent to which class impacts these perceptions.

Expansion of higher education and long-term economic growth have fostered high aspirations among adolescents. Recently, however, deteriorating labor force opportunities, particularly since the “Great Recession,” and rising inequality have challenged the “American Dream.” To assess how parental and adolescent outlooks have evolved over time, we examine shifts in future orientations across three generations of Midwest American families. Our unique data archive from the Youth Development Study includes 266 Generation 1 and Generation 2 parent-child dyads and 422 Generation 3 children. We assess change over two decades in parental expectations for their children’s educational attainments (comparing G1 and G2) and in adolescents’ socioeconomic aspirations, life course optimism, and anticipated work-family conflict (comparing G2 and G3). An initial between-families analysis examines aggregate change across generations; a second fixed-effects analysis assesses attitudinal differences between parents and children in the same families and the extent to which generational shifts in family circumstances and adolescents’ educational performance account for change in adolescents’ future orientations. We find that “millennial” adolescents had more positive outlooks than “Gen X” parents did at the same age. Generational increase in adolescent socioeconomic aspirations held even when socioeconomic origin, parent-child relationship quality, adolescent school performance, and other predictors were controlled. We find evidence that growing adolescent optimism across generations is attributable to rising parental educational expectations, increasing adolescent grades in school, and higher-quality parent-child relationships. We conclude that the “American Dream” is still alive for many contemporary parents and their adolescent children.