How Highly Selective Business-Related College Student Organizations Reproduce Social Advantages Through Bourdieu’s Forms of Capital

• In Event: Applying Theory to Student Experiences: Understanding the Various Social Contexts of Higher Education

Abstract

This multiple case study qualitative inquiry investigated how members of highly-selective business-related college student organizations constructed access through their recruitment and selection processes through the lens of Bourdieu’s (1986) forms of economic, social, and cultural capital. Using student interviews, document analyses, and observations of two student-run business-related clubs, examples of students’ intentional and unintentional reliance on types of social and cultural capital in how student leaders recruited and selected new members were identified. Implications include the need to investigate the long-term employment effects of these student clubs on their members and several practice-related recommendations for the institution at which this study was conducted.

Authors

• Sally Kline Armentrout, University of Virginia

• Karen K. Inkelas, University of Virginia