Out with the Old, In with the New? Habitus and Social Mobility at Selective Colleges

Abstract

Sociologists have long recognized that cultural differences help explain the perpetuation of inequality by invisibly limiting access to elite cultural norms. However, there has been little investigation of the ways students reconcile shifts in habitus gained in educational settings with existing, nonelite habitus. The authors use both qualitative and quantitative data to examine the ways students navigate what Bourdieu called a ''cleft habitus.'' In particular, the authors examine how students of low socioeconomic status experience contacts with their families and hometown friends, arguing that these moments are crucial to understanding whether and how their habitus is changing and whether that change creates a divide between those students and their origins. Interview and survey data both show that social mobility does not come without sacrifice and that these sacrifices warrant more serious study in the sociology of stratification.Keywords college, habitus, higher education, mobility, socioeconomic status Social mobility through higher education is as much the process of learning elite mannerisms, behaviors, and ''rules of the game'' as it is the process of gaining credentials, knowledge, or wealth. Scholars of mobility have documented the inherent clash between elite and nonelite ways of being that arises during that process, typically focusing on how upwardly mobile students fare on campus (e.g.,

Healing the Hidden Injuries of Class? Redemption Narratives, Aspirational Proxies, and Parents of Low‐Income, First‐Generation College Students

“…The success of these students contributes to complicated interpersonal dynamics and feelings of guilt in relation to their families of origin (Dews and Law ; Grimes and Morris ; Hurst ; Ryan and Sackrey ; Tokarczyk and Fay ; Welsch ). Lee and Kramer (:31) find that “… class‐disadvantaged students (i.e., those whose families have lower incomes or education levels) report higher senses of lost community” than do their more socioeconomically advantaged peers as a consequence of pursuing a four‐year degree at an elite college, in ways that did not significantly differ across racial lines. Hurst (:65) engages the painful processes through which LIFG students are encouraged to envision their academic success “juxtaposed to the failure of people they love,” thereby imbuing their educational attainment with connotations of repudiating regard for the families and communities that had raised them.…”

Socioeconomic Diversity in Selective Private Colleges: An Organizational Analysis

“…Case studies have offered enriched understandings of particular nexuses of students, families, and institutions (e.g., McDonough, 1997), large-scale, survey-based studies have brought quantitative rigor and generalizability (e.g., Long, 2004), and mixed methods have further enriched understanding (e.g., Lee & Kramer, 2013). Uniformly, such studies have highlighted the stratification endemic in U.S. postsecondary education.…”

The student-institution fit at university: interactive effects of academic competition and social class on achievement goals

“…On the one hand, in more competitive departments, first-generation students’ values of positive interdependence should be more incongruent with institutional individualistic culture and more negatively interdependent practices than continuing-generation students’ values. Moreover, they should experience a stronger feeling of incompatibility between their socio-familial identity, their new institutional identity, as well as with their future possible identity (i.e., more elevated status; for examples, see Reay et al, 2009, 2010; Lee and Kramer, 2013). …”