Strategically Unequal: How Class, Culture, and Institutional Context Shape Academic Strategies

When facing common setbacks like a missed due date or low assignment grade, some students take action to change the outcome while others do not. This study compares academic strategies by social class and across institutional context through interviews with working- and upper-middle-class students a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inSocial sciences (Basel) Vol. 11; no. 11; p. 500
Main Author Scherer, Mary L.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 01.10.2022
Subjects
Academic achievement
Classrooms
College professors
College students
Colleges & universities
Context effects (Psychology)
Cultural capital
Culture
Educational anthropology
Educational aspects
Habitus
Higher education
Individualism
Inequality
Institutional theory
Learning strategies
Middle class
Negotiation
Norms
organizational habitus
Psychological aspects
Regions
Social aspects
social class inequality
Social classes
Social norms
Social privilege
Social reproduction
Strategies
Student aspirations
Students
Working class
United States
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Summary:When facing common setbacks like a missed due date or low assignment grade, some students take action to change the outcome while others do not. This study compares academic strategies by social class and across institutional context through interviews with working- and upper-middle-class students at a public regional and flagship university. Academic strategies are based on parentally-transmitted skills and knowledge as well as class-cultural norms of selfhood and the meaning of being a student. At the flagship, class-privileged students negotiated grades and deadlines using strategies rooted in a sense of entitlement and norms of individualism and self-exceptionalism, whereas working-class students’ norms of interdependence and compliance inhibited negotiation, reproducing existing inequalities. Institutional context mediated this effect: at the regional, both groups requested flexibility but did not (successfully) contest grades, minimizing class-privileged students’ advantage. Organizational habitus explains why academic strategies differed and were more or less likely to reproduce inequality at each university.
ISSN:2076-0760
2076-0760
DOI:10.3390/socsci11110500