Moral Mobility Cultures: How Two Universities Recognize and Support Their Low-Income, First-Generation Students

• In Event: Accepting Responsibility for Designing Equitable Student Supports

Abstract

To understand how cultural and organizational processes intersect to enable the success of low-income, first-generation (LIFG) college students in two distinct contexts, I conducted a year-long ethnographic study of two universities with unusually high LIFG graduation rates. Drawing on Lamont’s (2018) concept of “recognition”, I found that at both universities, recognizing LIFG students required ongoing “boundary work.” University actors drew inclusive symbolic boundaries around LIFG students and the institution, while simultaneously delegitimizing traditional meritocratic notions of worth and prestige. This boundary work established positive campus-level meanings about LIFG students which helped divert resources to LIFG students and their advocates. This study provides key insights into organizational and cultural dynamics that promote inclusion and improved outcomes for LIFG students.

Author

• Becca Spindel Bassett, Harvard University