Degrees of Mobility: How Do Mobility Pathways Shape College Students' Success?

• In Event: Sociology of Education Roundtable

Abstract

This study examines how students’ mobility pathways, that is, students’ experiences travelling from high school to college within specific institutional contexts (e.g., from high schools with a low college-going culture to elite colleges), lead to different educational outcomes. Analyzing data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen, this study finds that students tend to get higher GPA’s if they are in relatively culturally aligned mobility pathways, namely attending high schools and colleges sharing similar institutional contexts. Moreover, the importance of mobility pathways in predicting GPA’s decreases as students proceed from freshmen to senior years. This study makes several notable contributions to cultural capital research, and understanding of socioeconomic inequality in higher education more broadly.

Author

• Yapeng Wang, University of Virginia