Paradoxes of Success: How Colleges Shape First-Generation, Working-Class Students’ Outcomes

• In Event: 21020 - Section on Sociology of Education Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 15: Resilience, Equity, and Success for First-Generation College Students

Abstract

Sociologists have long recognized schools as important factors in student outcomes, but prior work often takes institutional forces for granted when analyzing class inequality in higher education, focusing instead on students’ skills and resources. This study applies the Critical Cultural Wealth Model to argue that institutions differentially impact long-term academic, professional, and social-emotional outcomes of first-generation, working-class (FGWC) students and their peers. School effects analyses of data from the College and Beyond II Study reveal several key findings. First, colleges and universities differentially affect students’ academic and social-psychological outcomes. Second, these institutions shape academic, professional, and social-emotional disparities between FGWC students and their peers. Finally, institutions that most positively affect academic outcomes for FGWC students have more negative impacts on these students’ social psychological outcomes. These results affirm that higher education institutions matter for student success and class inequality but show they may do so in contradictory ways.

Author

• Lauren J. Harvey, Rice University