Contending with the Double Bind: How Student-Parent Expectations Matter for First-Generation College Experiences and Outcomes

• In Event: 3429 - Section on Sociology of Education Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 11. Higher Education and Mobility

Abstract

First-generation and low-income students in the U.S. are attending four-year colleges at higher rates than ever before. This demographic shift comes, in some part, from recent university initiatives aimed at reducing structural barriers to college access. For social scientists and educational professionals – as well as the popular press – these improved educational opportunities for low-income students are among the most powerful (and taken for granted) methods for stimulating upward mobility and decreasing the negative impacts of poverty on individuals and society. Yet, the traditional conceptualization of mobility in the social sciences that focuses narrowly on economic outcomes measured in statistical significance overlooks the ways in which “becoming” upwardly mobile is a social and interactional process – and one with many possible trajectories and outcomes. Drawing on in-depth interviews and participant observation with 150 students attending elite colleges and universities in four major US cities, I argue that first-generation and low-income students experience a consequential double bind in their college careers. Their ability to be a student in these elite settings demonstrates their dedication and commitment to social mobility – often motivated by their desire to be able to give back to their families and lower-resourced communities. Yet, as they progress in college, they must balance personal and social transformations that college can bring with their histories and ties to home. Unlike their classmates from more privileged backgrounds, these students must simultaneously “buy in” to the elite educational context without “selling out.” Navigating this double bind often disrupts student trajectories and negatively impacts outcomes, campus engagement, and ties to home communities. Paying attention to the power of social beliefs and relational ties reveals that upward mobility is best understood as an experiential and longitudinal social process – a process that must be considered alongside conventional notions of economic gain when approaching questions of social mobility.

Author

• Melissa Osborne, Western Washington University