Creating the Marketed University: How Academic Institutions Pitch Their Students as Corporate Investments

• In Event: 366 - Section on Sociology of Education Paper Session. Post-secondary Experiences and Outcomes

Abstract

Level of parental education has been documented as the single strongest correlate with college student academic outcomes. First generation college students face myriad challenges not faced by their peers with higher educated parents. While these hurdles have been explored through both cultural and structural lenses, an underdeveloped area of scholarship on this topic is the embodied dispositions (i.e. cultural capitals, such as self-efficacy) synergistic with academic success. Self-efficacy is developed through ‘performance accomplishments’ – the real opportunities given by academic institutions. This study surveys students at top Ph.D. programs to compare self-efficacy levels between first generation students and their peers. It also explores the performance accomplishment opportunities afforded them by their undergraduate institutions, in order to better understand which interventions had the greatest impact on the academic trajectories of high achieving students.

Author

• Daniel Davis, University of California-San Diego