Variable Middle-class: How College and Community Cultures Redefine Understandings of Social Class Among Mexican-American Students

• In Event: 1211 - The Culture of Schooling

Abstract

While social class scholars identify the family as a provider of class advantages, how the institution that has long been credited with facilitating upward mobility enables middle class assimilation remains less than clear. This study investigates how university structures socialize working-class students from Mexican-American backgrounds to become “middle-class.” Using semi-structured interviews and participant observation, I take a comparative assessment of the experiences of students from one working-class community who attended a moderately selective, flagship institution and students from the same community who attended a less competitive local, four-year university. I argue that conceptualizations of what it means to belong to the middle class largely vary based on the selectivity of the university as well as the community in which it is located. How these acquired class culture conceptualizations compare to the culture of students’ working-class communities carries important implications for the reproduction of the stratification structure.

Author

• Alma Nidia Garza, University of California-Irvine