Uncommon Advantages and Educational Successes

• In Event: 207 - Section on Sociology of Education Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 25. Opportunities to Develop Human Capital

Abstract

Abstract
This study focuses on the relationship between collegiate experiences and adult leadership achievements among American Rhodes Scholarship winners selected between 1947 and 1992. Extensive survey data collected from 1100 living Rhodes Scholars across five historical cohorts were triangulated with interview material from 70 Rhodes Scholars and fieldwork at five universities that have produced a disproportionate number of Rhodes Scholars over the past 60 years. These data were used to answer the central question: Given the exceptional achievements of the Rhodes Scholars, what role does undergraduate experience play in leading to the pathway to leadership attainment?
A two-stage analytical models of schooling and the pathways to public leadership roles based on the assumption that resources—defined by various forms of capital—are the key to the making of the contemporary power elite. The cultural resources contribute to school success. In turn, the symbolic structure of elite schooling contributes to unequal access to resources and subsequent attainment. Rhodes Scholars attain public leadership roles as a result of a chain of resource accumulation and conversion, including: access to status culture in elite educational institutions; an Oxford experience that heightens the awareness of public and international issues; expanding social ties in prestigious law schools; and broadening of loose networks through civic engagement, board membership, and access to influential media and political actors.

Author

• Ted I.K. Youn, Boston College