Expectations, Aspirations, and the Achievement Ideology: Re-Examining Social Reproduction Within the Transition to College

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 5
  In Roundtable Session: High School–to–College Transitions: Are We Building Bridges or Borders? Studying the Policies and Practices That Shape the Transition to College

Abstract

This ethnographic study attempted to reexamine MacLeod’s critique of the achieve ideology through interviewers, observations, and document analysis at an urban high school in the western United States. The findings of this study illustrate how schools socialize students with differing expectations for college. These differing levels of expectations lead to differing college-going aspirations. Ultimately, the expectations that are set and the aspirations that are attained reproduce the structural inequalities of society within schools through these processes.

Author

• Shawn Richard Coon, University of Utah