Social Class, Cultural Capital, Peer Networks, and Help-seeking in Engineering at an Elite Private Research University

• In Event: 136 - Open Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 09. Class, Beliefs and Behavior on Campus

Abstract

While there is growing research on the role of social class on help-seeking strategies with teachers and other authority figures, researchers have not acknowledged the help students receive from their peers in academic settings. This study examines how students’ social backgrounds shape the formation of their peer group networks in an effort to navigate the academic culture of engineering at an elite private research university in the Midwest. Drawing on a socio-demographically diverse interview sample of 55 current and former engineering students, I describe how the institutionally rigorous and competitive norms and practices of the engineering school require intense outside-of-the-classroom collaboration, which results in the formation of peer networks. Students collaborate with peers who are socially and culturally similar to them and draw on these cultural signals to determine whether they would be compatible working and/or study partners. However, peer grouping based on cultural similarity disadvantages students of color who do not possess dominant forms of cultural capital because it significantly narrows the range of peer networks to which they have access to effectively participate in the help-seeking process. Going beyond help-seeking strategies with teachers and other authority figures, the findings demonstrate how culture—at the institutional and individual levels—shapes how peer group networks are created, and its implications for the reproduction of inequality within academic settings.

Author

• Anthony Matthias Johnson, Northwestern University