Resource or Obstacle?: Classed Reports of Student–Faculty Relations

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between undergraduate students' class-based cultural capital and their facility in developing relationships with faculty. Based on in-depth interviews with 44 students at an elite university, this study reveals that lower-and middle-class students tended to inadvertently opt out of this key relational opportunity. Compared with upper-class students, who predominantly reported an "appreciative ease" orientation toward faculty, students from lowerclass origins tended to approach faculty with "hesitant appreciation" and middle-class students with "critical suspicion." These orientations or interaction styles of nonelite students were obstacles to the potential benefits of student-faculty relationships. These findings suggest that scholars and policy makers should pay attention not only to the experiences of lower-class students, but also to the challenges confronting middle-class students at highly selective universities.

Disparate Lessons

“…Sociologists and education scholars examine schools’ organizational cultures (Binder and Wood, 2014; Clark 1992; Stevens 2007) and identify several latent functions of the college experience, including creating a sociopolitical consciousness (Castillo-Montoya 2013), and teaching students how to act politically (Binder and Wood, 2014), how to socialize (Armstrong and Hamilton, 2013), and even how to date (Mullen 2010). Scholars also document how colleges shape male, female, high-income, middle-income, and low-income students’ academic and social experiences differently (Armstrong and Hamilton, 2013; Mullen 2010; Thiele 2016). Like the college activists involved in the “I, Too, Am…” campaigns, these scholars contend that ethnic and racial minorities experience the college setting distinctly from their White peers, particularly at predominantly White institutions (Bonilla-Silva 2012; Feagin et al, 1996; Hughey 2010; Lewis 2012; Rankin and Reason, 2005; Saenz et al, 2007; Sidanious et al, 2010).…”

“Not Your Average Nerd”: Masculinities, Privilege, and Academic Effort at an Elite University

“…Similarly, Khan argued that students of color resisted performing ease because they were skeptical of buying into an elite worldview that contradicted their lived experiences. Thiele (2016) extends these cultural analyses to elite higher education, finding that upper-class students attending a highly selective university were more likely than middle-or lower-class students to approach and spend time with faculty. Because establishing rapport with faculty is associated with concrete benefits such as grade negotiation, letters of recommendation, and access to coveted internship opportunities, these disparate interactions perpetuate inequality.…”

Social Stratification at the Top Rung

“…Acknowledging that class distinctions are more fluid than objective categories can adequately account for, we assigned students to social class categories (i.e., lower, middle, and upper) based on a composite measure of their socioeconomic status. Following Bourdieuian and other class scholars, we used a holistic determination of students’ social class that included their self-reported class (Kaufman 2005); information about their parents’ occupation, education, and finances (including their family’s ability to pay for college); as well as other details about their background (which varied from person to person, but included amenities like vacation homes and/or other lifestyle signifiers; Thiele 2016; Armstrong and Hamilton 2013; Lareau 2011; Silva 2014; Stuber 2011). 2 Table 1 highlights the typical social class characteristics of students within each category.…”