Social Inequality at the End of College: The Importance of Cultural Resources and Narratives

• In Event: Roundtable Session 19
  In Roundtable Session: Inequalities in Higher Education

Abstract

While ample scholarship documents inequalities in students’ transition into college, sociologists have dedicated much less attention to students’ experiences during college, and especially to the end of the journey – students’ senior year. Our study, based on 62 in-depth interviews with college seniors, examines how students navigate their transition out of college. We identify four approaches – pursuing flexibility, conflicted planning, informed/strategic planning and constrained planning – and find that they are related not only to students’ class background but also to their race. The findings illuminate how social class and race intersect at the end of college and how individual cultural resources and broader cultural narratives contribute to social inequality at this crucial juncture on the journey to adulthood.

Authors

• Josipa Roksa, University of Virginia

• Blake Silver, University of Virginia