Class and Campus Life

Class and Campus Life PDF Author: Elizabeth Lee
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501703889
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
In 2015, the New York Times reported, "The bright children of janitors and nail salon workers, bus drivers and fast-food cooks may not have grown up with the edifying vacations, museum excursions, daily doses of NPR and prep schools that groom Ivy applicants, but they are coveted candidates for elite campuses." What happens to academically talented but economically challenged "first-gen" students when they arrive on campus? Class markers aren’t always visible from a distance, but socioeconomic differences permeate campus life—and the inner experiences of students—in real and sometimes unexpected ways. In Class and Campus Life, Elizabeth M. Lee shows how class differences are enacted and negotiated by students, faculty, and administrators at an elite liberal arts college for women located in the Northeast. Using material from two years of fieldwork and more than 140 interviews with students, faculty, administrators, and alumnae at the pseudonymous Linden College, Lee adds depth to our understanding of inequality in higher education. An essential part of her analysis is to illuminate the ways in which the students’ and the college’s practices interact, rather than evaluating them separately, as seemingly unrelated spheres. She also analyzes underlying moral judgments brought to light through cultural connotations of merit, hard work by individuals, and making it on your own that permeate American higher education. Using students’ own descriptions and understandings of their experiences to illustrate the complexity of these issues, Lee shows how the lived experience of socioeconomic difference is often defined in moral, as well as economic, terms, and that tensions, often unspoken, undermine students’ senses of belonging.

Class and Campus Life

Class and Campus Life PDF Author: Elizabeth Lee
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501703889
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
In 2015, the New York Times reported, "The bright children of janitors and nail salon workers, bus drivers and fast-food cooks may not have grown up with the edifying vacations, museum excursions, daily doses of NPR and prep schools that groom Ivy applicants, but they are coveted candidates for elite campuses." What happens to academically talented but economically challenged "first-gen" students when they arrive on campus? Class markers aren’t always visible from a distance, but socioeconomic differences permeate campus life—and the inner experiences of students—in real and sometimes unexpected ways. In Class and Campus Life, Elizabeth M. Lee shows how class differences are enacted and negotiated by students, faculty, and administrators at an elite liberal arts college for women located in the Northeast. Using material from two years of fieldwork and more than 140 interviews with students, faculty, administrators, and alumnae at the pseudonymous Linden College, Lee adds depth to our understanding of inequality in higher education. An essential part of her analysis is to illuminate the ways in which the students’ and the college’s practices interact, rather than evaluating them separately, as seemingly unrelated spheres. She also analyzes underlying moral judgments brought to light through cultural connotations of merit, hard work by individuals, and making it on your own that permeate American higher education. Using students’ own descriptions and understandings of their experiences to illustrate the complexity of these issues, Lee shows how the lived experience of socioeconomic difference is often defined in moral, as well as economic, terms, and that tensions, often unspoken, undermine students’ senses of belonging.

Social Class on Campus

Social Class on Campus PDF Author: Will Barratt
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000977897
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
This is at once a playful text with a serious purpose: to provide the reader with the theoretical lenses to analyze the dynamics of social class. It will appeal to students, and indeed anyone interested in how class mediates relationships in higher education, both because of its engaging tone, and because it uses the college campus as a microcosm for observing and analyzing the concept of class – and does so in a way that will prompt the reader to reflect on her or his location in the continuum of class, and understand how every member of the campus community helps co-construct social class.Will Barratt starts from the premise that there is more than one way to study any idea; and that the more tools we use to examine a concept, the more fully we understand it in all its complexity and ambiguity. To illustrate salient features of class on campus, he introduces five fictional European-American women – Whitney Page, Louise, Misty, Ursula, and Eleanor – and also includes the real stories of students who represent a diversity of backgrounds.Social class is often neglected or ignored as an important issue in the lives of students. The book provides the reader with a language for analyzing class, with theories of class that go beyond standard economic and sociological models, and examples of the manifestation of class – all toward the end of helping the reader have more agency in working with this difficult and challenging concept. This book is suitable for students going to college for the first time, for courses exploring multicultural issues in contemporary society, and for anyone professionally involved with students. Each chapter includes a suggested experience and reflection questions to prompt readers to explore their thinking and feeling about class, as well as class discussion questions.

Black Campus Life

Black Campus Life PDF Author: Antar A. Tichavakunda
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438485921
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
An in-depth ethnography of Black engineering students at a historically White institution, Black Campus Life examines the intersection of two crises, up close: the limited number of college graduates in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, and the state of race relations in higher education. Antar Tichavakunda takes readers across campus, from study groups to parties and beyond as these students work hard, have fun, skip class, fundraise, and, at times, find themselves in tense racialized encounters. By consistently centering their perspectives and demonstrating how different campus communities, or social worlds, shape their experiences, Tichavakunda challenges assumptions about not only Black STEM majors but also Black students and the “racial climate” on college campuses more generally. Most fundamentally, Black Campus Life argues that Black collegians are more than the racism they endure. By studying and appreciating the everyday richness and complexity of their experiences, we all—faculty, administrators, parents, policymakers, and the broader public—might learn how to better support them. This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem)—a collaboration of the Association of American Universities, the Association of University Presses, and the Association of Research Libraries. Learn more at the TOME website, available at: openmonographs.org, and access the book online through the SUNY Open Access Repository at http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12648/7009

College Life through the Eyes of Students

College Life through the Eyes of Students PDF Author: Mary Grigsby
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438426399
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
The struggles and achievements of today's college students are thrown into stark relief in this fascinating account of how such students make meaning of their lives. Author Mary Grigsby uses the voices of students themselves to discuss how they view, adjust to, and participate in the college student culture of a large midwestern university and to explore what they think of their educational experiences. Topics include a look at a typical day on campus, student subcultures and the lifestyles they engender, whether college life conforms to the images and scenarios of popular culture, and student approaches to making it through college. Going to college has become the major coming-of-age experience for many people in the United States, and Mary Grigsby has provided a compelling, readable, and up-to-date account of this formative period.

No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal

No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal PDF Author: Thomas J. Espenshade
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691162131
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 569

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Book Description
How do race and social class influence who gets into America's elite colleges? This important book takes a comprehensive look at how all aspects of the elite college experience--from application and admission to enrollment and student life--are affected by these factors. To determine whether elite colleges are admitting and educating a diverse student body, the authors investigate such areas as admission advantages for minorities, academic achievement gaps tied to race and class, unequal burdens in paying for tuition, and satisfaction with college experiences. Arguing that elite higher education affects both social mobility and inequality, the authors call on educational institutions to improve access for students of lower socioeconomic status. Annotation ♭2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

College Belonging

College Belonging PDF Author: Lisa M. Nunn
Publisher: Critical Issues in American Ed
ISBN: 9781978807655
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
College Belonging reveals how colleges' and universities' efforts to foster a sense of belonging in their students are misguided. Colleges bombard new students with the message to "get out there!" and "find your place" by joining student organizations, sports teams, clubs and the like. Nunn shows that this reflects a flawed understanding of what belonging is and how it works. Drawing on the sociological theories of Emile Durkheim, College Belonging shows that belonging is something that members of a community offer to each other. It is something that must be given, like a gift. Individuals cannot simply walk up to a group or community and demand belonging. That's not how it works. The group must extend a sense of belonging to each and every member. It happens by making a person feel welcome, to feel that their presence matters to the group, that they would be missed if they were gone. This critical insight helps us understand why colleges' push for students simply to "get out there!" does not always work.

Campus Life Exposed

Campus Life Exposed PDF Author: Harlan Cohen
Publisher: Petersons
ISBN: 9780768904987
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
College advice columnist Harlan Cohen uses examples from his readers as well as his own insights to discuss college life outside the classroom.

Paying for the Party

Paying for the Party PDF Author: Elizabeth A. Armstrong
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674073541
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Two young women, dormitory mates, embark on their education at a big state university. Five years later, one is earning a good salary at a prestigious accounting firm. With no loans to repay, she lives in a fashionable apartment with her fiancé. The other woman, saddled with burdensome debt and a low GPA, is still struggling to finish her degree in tourism. In an era of skyrocketing tuition and mounting concern over whether college is "worth it," Paying for the Party is an indispensable contribution to the dialogue assessing the state of American higher education. A powerful exposé of unmet obligations and misplaced priorities, it explains in vivid detail why so many leave college with so little to show for it. Drawing on findings from a five-year interview study, Elizabeth Armstrong and Laura Hamilton bring us to the campus of "MU," a flagship Midwestern public university, where we follow a group of women drawn into a culture of status seeking and sororities. Mapping different pathways available to MU students, the authors demonstrate that the most well-resourced and seductive route is a "party pathway" anchored in the Greek system and facilitated by the administration. This pathway exerts influence over the academic and social experiences of all students, and while it benefits the affluent and well-connected, Armstrong and Hamilton make clear how it seriously disadvantages the majority. Eye-opening and provocative, Paying for the Party reveals how outcomes can differ so dramatically for those whom universities enroll.

Inside the College Gates

Inside the College Gates PDF Author: Jenny M. Stuber, University of North Florida, author of "Inside the College Gates: How Class and Culture Matter in Higher Education"
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 9780739149003
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
This book is intended to bring greater nuance to the study of inequality and higher education. Rather than focusing on human capital and students' experiences inside the classroom, the author highlights the ways in which the experiential core of college life-the social and extra-curricular worlds of higher education-operates as a setting in which social class inequalities manifest and get reproduced.

The Real World of College

The Real World of College PDF Author: Wendy Fischman
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262547260
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
Why higher education in the United States has lost its way, and how universities and colleges can focus sharply on their core mission. For The Real World of College, Wendy Fischman and Howard Gardner analyzed in-depth interviews with more than 2,000 students, alumni, faculty, administrators, parents, trustees, and others, which were conducted at ten institutions ranging from highly selective liberal arts colleges to less-selective state schools. What they found challenged characterizations in the media: students are not preoccupied by political correctness, free speech, or even the cost of college. They are most concerned about their GPA and their resumes; they see jobs and earning potential as more important than learning. Many say they face mental health challenges, fear that they don’t belong, and feel a deep sense of alienation. Given this daily reality for students, has higher education lost its way? Fischman and Gardner contend that US universities and colleges must focus sharply on their core educational mission. Fischman and Gardner, both recognized authorities on education and learning, argue that higher education in the United States has lost sight of its principal reason for existing: not vocational training, not the provision of campus amenities, but to increase what Fischman and Gardner call “higher education capital”—to help students think well and broadly, express themselves clearly, explore new areas, and be open to possible transformations. Fischman and Gardner offer cogent recommendations for how every college can become a community of learners who are open to change as thinkers, citizens, and human beings.