Is This Gonna Look Good? Families Consuming Opportunities to Prepare for College

• In Event: 365 - Section on Sociology of Culture Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable: Section on Sociology of Culture Roundtables. Table 01. Consumer Studies Network

Abstract

In this paper, I explore the way that parents and children conceptualize and consume opportunities as they prepare for college applications. This research contributes to work in consumer studies and economic sociology by highlighting the often overlooked consumer decisions that parents and children make at a time when their future path is forged. Through 65 interviews with upper to lower middle class parents and their college-bound high school students, I find that parents, more so than their children, are elusive about the monetary terms of their college preparations. However, their decision-making processes reveal consumer choices that are highly influenced by social class and parenting expectations, which inevitably impact their child’s social mobility. In the U.S. context of a hegemonic culture of market thinking, whether they hire an SAT tutor or send their child to leadership camp, families operate as consumers who strategize and purchase opportunities for their children to attend college. The intimate relationship between parents and children complicates the decisions they make regarding their children’s future; they do not necessarily make the most advantageous or cost effective choice even when they have the knowledge and resources because there is significant emotional and relational work involved in each decision (i.e. idea of children as priceless). My participants shed light on the relationship between consumption and emotions at a moment when their choices hold significant implications for their child’s ability to reproduce or exceed their own social location.

Author

• Cara E. Bowman, Boston University