Social Stratification at the Top Rung

Abstract

Drawing on 44 in-depth interviews with undergraduates, this research explores whether and how class background matters for students’ social experiences at an elite university. The findings reveal that, compared with upper-class students, both lower- and middle-class students are disadvantaged in their social integration due to a lack of resources (time and money) and a mismatch of cultural styles. Middle-class students tend to reference upward to their upper-class peers, developing a critical view of the campus social system. In contrast, lower-class students reference their less advantaged peers or family members who do not have access to elite spaces. Our findings suggest that the stratified social system on campus reduces lower- and middle-class students’ potential for upward mobility within a high-stakes setting. Thus, scholars and policymakers should pay attention not only to the experiences of lower-class students but also to the challenges confronting middle-class students at highly selective universities.

Keywords

higher education social class reference group theory

I hear kids and they are just like “why are you so stressed. Damien? Why are you so stressed?” And I’m just like, “I’m filling out my student aid stuff, I have two different, three different loans I have to fill out.” And they’re like “oh, my parents take care of that for me.” I have heard from some kids they haven’t done laundry for the first time ever and I’m like, “Honestly?” Some kids, I guess, can’t even pack their own paper bag lunch.

—Damien (middle-class male)

Introduction

Recent quantitative research showing minimal effects of class background (i.e., occupational status, income) among bachelor’s degree holders has revived the notion that college is a “great equalizer” (Torche 2011). This research validates the widespread belief that in the United States, youth of all socioeconomic classes can attend college to gain tangible skills they can trade for high salary and status. Yet this belief also stands in opposition to a long line of critical scholarship arguing that higher education reproduces and legitimizes preexisting inequalities based on class, race, and gender (Espenshade and Radford 2009; Horowitz 1987).

The most selective universities serve predominantly elite populations, and lower- and middle-class students are “extremely underrepresented” on these campuses (Reardon, Baker, and Klasik 2012:1). At elite institutions, competition among students is fierce and the social environment is highly exclusive. In this article, we argue that a student’s ability to establish a full and supportive social network on an elite campus depends on his or her class background. We expect upper-class students to define and dominate the social environment on campus. In contrast, we expect middle- and lower-class students to experience a sense of incongruity that magnifies class-based differences. Specifically, we theorize that student social class background informs several dimensions of social adjustment, including social efficacy, or belief in one’s ability to succeed socially; social referencing, or student’s comparative evaluations of one’s social well-being; and, finally, the student’s propensity to invoke a class-based analysis of his or her social situation, whereby students use another social class group on campus as a benchmark to evaluate their own social standing (Bandura et al. 1996; Merton 1957). Through a comparative analysis of lower, middle-, and upper-class students, this study identifies barriers to social mobility for nonelite students, suggesting several mechanisms by which social class shapes students’ social adjustment on campus.

Education and Structured Social Experiences

Elite Social Space and Cultural Capital

Nearly 60 years ago, C. Wright Mills (1956) argued that simply attending an elite university did not guarantee nonelite students access to the full range of resources available on campus. His assertion remains true today. Upper-class students are less burdened by student loan debt, less likely to be employed while attending college, and, when employed, work fewer hours compared with lower- and middle-class students (Espenshade and Radford 2009). Ultimately, students are tracked into networks based on social class. This tracking may result in an accumulation of advantage for upper-class students and disadvantage for lower- and middle-class students (Merton 1957).

Structural distinctions among students by class are compounded by cultural distinctions in characteristics such as mannerisms and personal styles that subtly separate the members of different social groups. Cultural capital, or cultural knowledge and tastes, and common interests in leisure activities, food, and clothing are based on socialization that varies by social class position (Bourdieu 1984). Students perform or “do” class (Bettie 2003) and use status markers, such as styles of appearance, to mark their status (Milner 2004). These cultural differences can impede friendship building across social class lines.

Classed cultural homophily, or the tendency for individuals to gravitate toward those who share similar forms of cultural capital (McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Cook 2001), is often parlayed into social capital. Social capital refers to the collective value of individuals’ social networks (Coleman 1988). Within the context of university life, social capital refers to the pathways through which individuals effectively develop and maintain relationships with fellow students. Social capital can include close-knit study groups, friends who share memorable experiences, and academic and personal support networks, which support students beyond the university setting (Martin 2009). Taken together, cultural and social capital can perpetuate class inequalities (Bourdieu 1984).

Social Efficacies, Referencing, and Expectations

Beyond structural and cultural differences, class position can influence how students feel about their social selves, or their social efficacy. Social efficacy includes characteristics related to social interactions, such as participation, trust, cooperation, dependability, and a firm belief in oneself (Bandura et al. 1996; Sedlacek and Sheu 2004). Social efficacy has been linked to positive academic outcomes and can also act as a buffer in difficult social transitions (Sedlacek 2004), such as those experienced by nonelite university students on a competitive, class-diverse campus.

Within class-diverse environments, class-based social groups act as reference groups—Individuals reference across class boundaries to evaluate their own situation. Robert K. Merton (1957) theorized that individuals tend to reference groups that occupy a social role or position that they themselves would like to occupy. However, when people compare upward, they judge their own conditions in worse terms than when they compare downward and feel comparatively advantaged (Klandermans, Roefs, and Olivier 2001; Merton 1957). In universities, Jenny Stuber (2010) found that middle-class students referenced their upper-class peers and felt at a comparative disadvantage. Even perceived differences lead people to feel relatively deprived, negatively affecting their social efficacy. Regardless of actual circumstances, people who feel that they are worse off than others may also feel that they are worse off than they used to be or that they are headed for a worse situation in the future (Klandermans et al. 2001).

Research by Victoria Medvec, Scott F. Madey, and Thomas Gilovich (1995) on Olympic medalists reached a similar conclusion. According to their research examining Olympic medalists, gold medalists appeared happiest, brimming with feelings of achievement and status. Silver medalists, however, appeared less happy with their placement than both gold and bronze medalists. The authors hypothesize that silver medalists reference upward, comparing themselves with gold medalists and experiencing dissatisfaction with their placement. Their position relative to gold results in their discontentment. According to Medvec et al., compared with silver medalists, bronze medalists appeared more satisfied with their win because they referenced downward to athletes who did not “medal” and were happy to have placed at all.

We expect upper-class students on an elite campus to show the characteristics of gold medalists. These students are raised with the appropriate repertoire for successful social integration at an elite university. They possess the most highly valued forms of cultural capital, which present as natural personal attributes that lead to an enthusiastic reception on elite campuses by their peers (Bourdieu 1984). Because of their structural and cultural advantages, we expect these students to report the most social efficacy and to hold a more optimistic attitude toward school in comparison to middle- and lower-class students. Likewise, we do not expect upper-class students to critique the campus social environment. We do not expect upper-class students to commonly reference other class-based social groups; however, when they do engage in this referencing, we expect them to feel comparatively advantaged.

We expect middle-class students on an elite university campus to show the characteristics of silver medalists. These students will report a more difficult social adjustment to campus life compared with their upper-class counterparts. In addition to experiencing differences in resources and cultural capital, middle-class students will reference the social lives of their financially, socially, and culturally privileged upper-class peers. Through this upward referencing, they will feel relatively deprived (Stuber 2010). Therefore, we expect social efficacy to be lower among middle-class students than among upper-class students. Due to their perceived relative deprivation, we also predict that middle-class students will be more likely than both lower- and upper-class students to develop an ambivalent or critical relationship toward the social class system on campus or to develop a class analysis to describe their social situation (Anyon 1981).

Socially speaking, lower-class students face a range of obstacles not confronted by their middle- and upper-class counterparts. They have the fewest financial resources and, like some middle-class students, often work long hours to afford their higher education (Espenshade and Radford 2009). However, lower-class students have achieved beyond what is expected of them. To use the metaphor of Olympic medals, they have “placed.” As a result, we expect lower-class students on an elite campus to mirror the characteristics of bronze medalists. Perhaps they will demonstrate more social efficacy than some middle-class students.

Finally, based on their long-term disadvantaged position in the social status hierarchy, on-campus stratification may be less surprising to lower-class students than to their middle-class peers. Furthermore, many lower-class students have little to no experience with an elite community (Nenga 2003). This gulf may in fact buffer the desires of lower-class students to fit into an elite community, attenuating the frustration of exclusion felt by their middle-class peers (Kuh et al. 2005; Nenga 2003). Therefore, we argue that even as lower-class students exhibit an acknowledgment of social inequalities off-campus, they will be less likely than middle-class students to evaluate their social position on campus with reference to the upper-class group or to engage in a class-based analysis of social relations at the university.

Recent research shows that demographic factors such as class, race, and gender impact students’ experiences within the U.S. education system.¹ Focusing specifically on social class, we expect lower- and middle-class students to describe difficulties transitioning to the campus social environment compared with upper-class students. Because of their limited familiarity with high-status cultural capital, we expect these students to report less social efficacy and less social capital than their upper-class counterparts. Nevertheless, we also expect distinct qualitative differences between lower- and middle-class students’ narratives regarding why and how these social difficulties manifest. In sum, this research explores how class-based group referencing structures students’ social experiences at an elite university, offering particularly counterintuitive insights for middle-class students’ social adjustment.

Data and Method

Site Information

Of the many colleges in the United States, only a very small number are considered “highly selective.” Highly selective universities attract more elite applicant pools than less selective schools as measured by parents’ education levels and annual incomes (Espenshade and Radford 2009). Southern Valley University (SVU, pseudonym) is an elite university. Although most American colleges and universities accept at least 80 percent of their applicants, SVU accepts fewer than 25 percent (Espenshade and Radford 2009). Most incoming students at SVU were in the top 10 percent of their high school class, and nearly 10 percent of the students of the 2010 incoming class at SVU were valedictorians. In the 2010–2011 school year, approximately 20 percent of students at SVU were legacy students, meaning that someone in their immediate family was an alumnus. Only about one-tenth of the 2010 incoming class was comprised of first-generation college students.

SVU is a large, urban, secular school with nearly 20,000 undergraduates, located in a racially and ethnically diverse area on the West Coast. The private university’s campus is also racially and ethnically diverse. About 45 percent of the student body identifies as white, and Asian American students are the second largest racial/ethnic category represented, making up nearly one-quarter of the student body. Twelve percent of the incoming class identify as Hispanic/Latino and 7 percent as African American. SVU is typical of U.S. universities in that it has slightly more females than males.

Composition of Sample

There is a long-standing debate among sociologists as to how best to determine and designate class. Some scholars argue that class is no longer a useful categorization (Pakulski and Waters 1996) whereas others argue for upward of 30 class categories based on occupation (Weeden and Grusky 2005). Despite such contention in the field, class remains a fundamental line of sociological inquiry, particularly within the realm of elite higher education (Weis, Cipollone, and Jenkins 2014).

Acknowledging that class distinctions are more fluid than objective categories can adequately account for, we assigned students to social class categories (i.e., lower, middle, and upper) based on a composite measure of their socioeconomic status. Following Bourdieuian and other class scholars, we used a holistic determination of students’ social class that included their self-reported class (Kaufman 2005); information about their parents’ occupation, education, and finances (including their family’s ability to pay for college); as well as other details about their background (which varied from person to person, but included amenities like vacation homes and/or other lifestyle signifiers; Thiele 2016; Armstrong and Hamilton 2013; Lareau 2011; Silva 2014; Stuber 2011).² Table 1 highlights the typical social class characteristics of students within each category.

Table 1.

Characteristics of the Three Major Class Groups.

Class	Typical characteristics
Upper (43%)	Students are only eligible for loan-based financial aid. At least one parent has a high-status, high-paying, highly autonomous occupation, such as owning a business. One parent may stay at home. Both parents are college educated. Students most likely attended private school at some point in their schooling. Several attended an elite or “top-notch” public school.
Middle (37%)	Students are eligible for some form of need-based assistance, such as work study. Often both students and parents take out loans to finance the student’s education. Parents have middle-status occupations, such as middle management occupations, and may or may not be college educated. Students likely attended public schools their entire schooling career.
Lower (20%)	Students are eligible for need-based aid and/or have received scholarships based on financial need. Often parents are struggling financially and have occupations characterized by low prestige, little autonomy, and low wages. Some parents are unemployed. Students’ families may have received public assistance. Students are likely to describe their schooling as underprivileged.

Researchers estimate that upper-class students comprise between 58 and 67 percent of all students on the most selective college campuses (Reardon et al. 2012). Thus, although upper-class students were the largest group in our sample (43 percent), they were underrepresented compared with their presence on elite campuses. The lower-class contingent is underrepresented on the campuses of most selective colleges; Sean F. Reardon et al. (2012) estimated that these students make up approximately 10 percent of the student body on elite college campuses. To avoid problems with comparison across class groupings, we oversampled lower-class students, who make up 20 percent of our sample. Slightly over one-third of students on elite campuses have middle-class origins; likewise, 36 percent of the students in the sample were categorized as middle class.

In total, the study sample includes 44 interviewees: 19 upper-class, 16 middle-class, and 9 lower-class students. The racial composition of the sample mirrors the racial diversity at the school and is predominantly composed of white students (59 percent). There are 27 females and 17 males in the sample. The 44 students spanned a range of 22 different majors on campus.

Method

The 44 in-depth, semistructured interviews began in February of 2009 and were completed in November of that same year. Recruitment began with a convenience sample established through preliminary ethnographic fieldwork and was expanded through snowball sampling and direct recruitment within social science courses. Additional purposive recruitment at campus organizations serving low-income students yielded two additional recruits and bolstered our oversampling of lower-class respondents.³ Compensation was not provided for participation. The interviews lasted approximately one hour, though response length ranged from 30 minutes to over three hours. The students were overwhelmingly candid about their lives and opened up about a variety of topics, including alcohol and drug use, death, sex, relationships, and problems with friends, family, and school. They described a range of both positive and negative social experiences. All but 1 of the 44 interviews were conducted on or within a mile of campus. Interview transcription was completed in late 2009.

Open coding of field notes and memos generated a set of themes and over 40 coding categories (Corbin and Strauss 2008). To explore the relationship between class background and social adjustment at SVU, we first analyzed the range and quality of students’ social relations on campus. We examined whether students reported any obstacles to their social lives such as financial and/or time constraints. Next, we looked at each student’s level of social efficacy, or the attitudes and behaviors they described when discussing their social selves. We then examined who they referenced to describe their social position on campus. To explore referencing, we examined each student’s relationship to several dominant social groups on campus: fraternities/sororities, upper-class students, and the school’s “Aardvark family.”⁴ Finally, we noted students’ critiques of social life on campus. Once we coded these dimensions of social life for each student, we analyzed how these outcomes were patterned by class background.

Findings

The findings displayed in Figure 1 illustrate the complex interplay between students’ social class backgrounds and their social lives and efficacies on campus. The first series of bars (A) in Figure 1 displays students’ reports of their ability to participate in on-campus social activities as they wish. Upper-class students were least likely to report obstacles, such as time or money constraints, that prevented them from attending social events on campus. In contrast, both middle- and lower-class students reported obstacles that prevented them from participating in on-campus events to the extent that they desired, with middle-class students faring worst in this category.

Figure 1.

Student reports of social experiences on campus by class.

The second series (B) shows that upper-class students reported the most positive attitudes toward their social lives on campus. Lower-class students reported more positive attitudes toward their social lives than middle-class students. The third series (C) in Figure 1 exhibits whether students reported having an on-campus support system or safety net. Middle-class students were least likely to report this type of social network, whereas both lower- and upper-class students described more extensive social supports. The fourth series (D) represents whether students invoked a “class analysis” to describe the social relations on campus. Students invoked a “class analysis” when they reported that differences in students’ class-based resources made the social space on campus unjust. These critical students referenced peers in more advantaged social groups than their own when describing their social situation. Middle-class students were far more likely than both lower- and upper-class students to invoke such a narrative.

Scholars tend think of class advantage in linear terms, with individuals experiencing greater benefits as they ascend in class rank. Yet in our findings, class background does not appear to have a straightforward linear relationship with students’ social experiences: lower-class students fare better in the three categories that measure well-being and these students are also less likely to invoke a class critique compared to middle-class students.. The students’ stories describing these interwoven themes illustrate their classed experiences of social integration at SVU. In the remainder of this article, we elaborate on these themes to show how students’ social lives on campus are patterned by the three major social class groupings, and we further explain the finding that middle-class students in particular view themselves as socially disadvantaged. We use the Olympic medalist analogy presented in Table 2 to frame these counterintuitive findings.

Table 2.

Typical Characteristics of Medalists’ Social Experiences on Campus.

Social experience	Typical characteristics
Gold medalists	Students were well adjusted socially. They reported feeling good about their social lives and failed to describe obstacles, including financial or time constraints, to their social lives on campus. They described strong support networks and feeling connected socially. They lacked a class critique of the campus social structure.
Silver medalists	Students reported feeling stressed about their social lives. They often described obstacles, such as financial or time constraints, which impaired their social lives. They failed to describe strong social support networks and did not feel connected to the student body on campus. They referenced their upper-class counterparts and past selves and felt they were at a disadvantage socially. They invoked a class critique of the campus social structure and were hyperaware of status markers.
Bronze medalists	Students referenced their previous disadvantage and friends and family members who had fewer educational opportunities. They were proud of their achievements. Many (some of which were part of a targeted institutional scaffolding program and who found alternative social supports) described having strong support networks on campus. Others described lacking a strong support network. They were less likely to invoke a class critique of the campus social structure and they did not reference their upper-class peers to describe their particular social position.

Upper-Class Students

The most prominent social groups at SVU are fraternities and sororities. There are over 30 “white Greek-letter organizations” (WGLOs) on campus (Hughey 2010).⁵ According to Ted, an upper-class, white junior, males at SVU who do not belong to a fraternity are socially “kind of screwed.” Describing the importance of the WGLO social scene Greek life, Ted said,

I couldn’t even compare the fraternity culture with the people who are not in fraternities. It just doesn’t, there is no connection. They are completely separate cultures.

When asked if he has friends outside of his fraternity, Ted added,

Yeah, I do, but very few of them. And they are just clearly not woven into our culture. We have to make an effort to get to see them really. One of my best friends isn’t in a fraternity. . . . He was just too stubborn to join a fraternity. Now he hates himself. He wishes he did because [without a fraternity] you just don’t have anything to do here really. If you’re a social person, you’ve got to be in a fraternity or sorority because that’s how it works here. The Greek life here is very exclusive. If you are not a part of it, I think you feel really ostracized by the community. It’s a really strong, tight-knit organization.

Historically and currently, WGLOs are composed primarily of class-advantaged white students, not least because the high costs of membership and participation make it difficult for middle- and lower-class students to keep up with the demands of the system (Horowitz 1987; Hughey 2010). Particularly at expensive universities like SVU, there are steep membership fees and other expected and often compulsory expenses. These monetary requirements are one way in which WGLOs act as a social arbiter by sorting students into specific, class-based and exclusive social spaces. The system of WGLOs at SVU caters to privileged students.

Several of the upper-class students in our sample were members of a WGLO. Brynn, an upper-class, white female, demonstrated high social efficacy. She was a happy and socially well-adjusted student. Upon arrival, Brynn knew “no one” at SVU. She matriculated “based on the reputation of the school and the Greek system and the people.” A year later, Brynn, now a sophomore, was having “an absolute blast.” She had an active social life at SVU, felt connected to the “Aardvark family,” and was heavily involved in her sorority. Describing her schedule, Brynn provided a long list of activities that intertwined career goals and academics with her social life:

I volunteer at the news station here, about eight hours a week . . . and then I have six classes, and then for sorority stuff we have, I’m probably in 10 hours a week of meetings. I’m in a few societies with the school for journalism so every few weeks we have meetings for that and then socializing, oh gosh that probably takes up, like a part-time job [laughs]. I would say probably 20 hours a week socializing.

Despite her busy schedule, Brynn reported feeling socially at ease at SVU. Her volunteer work directly related to her desired career in the field of journalism. She was able to participate in such activities because she did not need to earn money to support herself during school. Her social and volunteer commitments added to her already extensive stock of cultural and social capital. Brynn’s “part-time job” socializing allowed her to build cultural capital and augment her social connections:

[The Greek System] is huge here, it’s very well-connected. . . . Although there are the rivalries among the different houses, everyone bands together to help each other. . . . When I’m looking for an internship, if someone in another sorority has a connection, they are more than willing to help me. . . . Just because you are in the Greek life and . . . everyone kind of knows each other on the row.

Brynn’s narrative illustrates how WGLOs magnify and perpetuate social class divisions. WGLO activities cultivate social capital among their members. These organizations attract class-privileged students and then reproduce these students’ advantages.

To draw on the metaphor used earlier, the majority of upper-class students are “gold medalists” in terms of their social experiences on campus. They report the highest levels of social efficacy and report the fewest cultural and financial obstacles to fitting in. Overall, they describe a relatively seamless social transition. Nearly three out of four upper-class students (74 percent) described social lives that were positive, and all upper-class students reported a strong campus-based social safety net. Cristina, an upper-class, white female described feeling a strong fit with the social scene on campus even before matriculating:

I went on the initial tour before I got in . . . and just walking around, I felt like I belonged. And I went to a private high school and a private middle school and a private elementary school so I think that’s kind of why I was attracted to here. . . . I thought, “I want to be a part of this.”

Cristina, a junior, spent years in the private school system honing her social and cultural capital. This private schooling pathway influenced her decision to attend SVU. Beyond an academic match, Cristina felt it was important to choose a college where she felt at home socially. Similar to many upper-class students, Cristina’s life at SVU was an extension of her time in high school and an expansion of her already-solid social and cultural foundations.

Non-Greek upper-class students describe equally fulfilling social lives. Like Cristina, Charlie, an upper-class white male in his first year at SVU, attended an elite high school. But Charlie was not a member of the Greek system, nor was he considering joining. Nonetheless, Charlie displayed high social efficacy. Prior to his arrival on campus, Charlie had many SVU contacts. These acquaintances smoothed Charlie’s transition to university life. They gave him insights into important lifestyle choices, such as which dorms were considered the best. He relayed, “I heard that Fremont Hall (pseudonym) was basically very quiet. My cousin lived in Fremont and he really recommended this, so I applied and I got into Fremont. It was my first choice on housing.”

Charlie’s social capital facilitated his transition to SVU. Although he was not a member of a Greek organization, Charlie still had social connections at SVU. These ties allowed Charlie to avoid the Greek pathway, a pathway that Charlie believed, “may not be forgiving later in life.” He was glad to be insulated from the party scene on campus. He said,

In this [specific dorm] I’m a little bit insulated…the people here are . . . a little bit more serious, not necessarily partiers or, people who might have negative connotations attached to them.

Charlie’s closest friends were also not members of WGLOs. They provided Charlie with information to confidently navigate a social life at SVU outside of the university’s party scene. Although Charlie acknowledged that WGLOs were very popular on campus, he was pleased with his decision not to “go Greek.” Other upper-class students who were not members of fraternities or sororities shared a similar outlook as Charlie, framing their decisions to opt out of WGLOs as “lifestyle choices” not tied to financial resources or class background. These students did not reference their WGLO-affiliated peers as superior. Despite their own lack of WGLO affiliation, they were members of elite peer groups and reported high social efficacy. Charlie described strong on-campus ties, including connections with the “Aardvark family”:

SVU is one of the few [schools] that I’ve seen that actually seems to have the credibility to back up [the reputation of high social capital] and they really do have this connection going on that I haven’t seen at other places. . . . [The Aardvark family] can help you get a job.

Upper-class students, regardless of their WGLO affiliation, tended to report high levels of social efficacy. Many upper-class students arrived on campus with social networks already in place. They were more likely to describe social options than social constraints and they did not describe financial impediments to their social lives. The majority of upper-class students (58 percent) did not describe the WGLO system in terms of privilege. In fact, several upper-class, non-WGLO-affiliated students reported looking down upon “Greek life.” None of the upper-class students described a superior social class group or saw themselves as “better off” in the past—Rather, these students felt that they were part of an elite social scene and that they were enjoying one of the best times of their life. They did not invoke a class analysis of the social scene on campus because class did not appear relevant to their social lives.

Upper-class students experienced a strong fit between their resources and on-campus social opportunities. Students like Ted, Brynn, Cristina, and Charlie spoke positively about their social life at SVU and displayed signs of successful integration. Students in the other two major class groups were less likely to report such exceptional social ease.

Middle-Class Students

Among middle-class students, fewer than one in five (19 percent) displayed a positive attitude about their social lives. Fourteen of the 16 middle-class students described obstacles to fitting in at SVU—They reported lacking important resources like time and money. They reported that these constraints limited their possibilities for successful social lives. Middle-class students were the least likely to describe a strong support system and they often referenced upward to their upper-class peers or to a happier past schooling experience when describing their social lives. Middle-class students were the most likely to invoke a class analysis to describe social relations on campus. They were critical of the WGLO system and directly referenced social class disadvantage when describing their social positions and problems on campus.

Jaime, a white, middle-class first-year female, had not adjusted well socially to SVU and considered transferring to another school:

Well honestly, I’m thinking about transferring because I don’t really like it very much. . . . I find that it’s, sort of, I don’t know, like pretentious and the people are not necessarily as interested in, you know, academics as I thought they would be. It’s more like a party school and people just don’t seem to care as much as I thought they would at this good of a school. . . . I think that since SVU isn’t like one of, it’s a good school but not one of the best schools, like an Ivy League or something, the people who go here tend to be . . . like rich kids who weren’t smart enough to get into Ivy League schools. . . . I can’t really identify with that because I, I don’t have a lot of money and I worked really hard to get here.

Jaime’s feelings were not unique—At universities where the dominant social scene involves a partying environment, students generally treat academic rigor as secondary, and academically focused students experience social marginalization (Armstrong and Hamilton 2013). Like other middle-class students, Jaime felt that her purpose at SVU was to focus on academics and gain tangible skills she could use on the job market. She did not prioritize the development of social or cultural capital. Jaime reported feeling alone in her critical attitude toward the “party atmosphere” at SVU and was unable to find an alternative social scene. Interestingly, Jaime did not blame herself for this lack of fit; rather, she blamed her “pretentious” peers and felt that the university should place a stronger emphasis on academics. The different priorities of her peers were not Jaime’s only obstacle to social fit at SVU—Her lack of financial capital also blocked her ability to relate to her upper-class peers.

Jaime’s social location acted as a wedge between herself, her peers, and the university. She had a few friends at SVU, but both of her closest friends were considering transferring, one because she was not fitting in and the other for financial reasons. Even if Jaime continued at SVU, she might lose what little social capital she had managed to establish.

Charlie, an upper-class student described above, shared Jaime’s focus on academics and lack of interest in the party scene. Yet unlike Jaime, Charlie arrived at SVU equipped with elite social and cultural capital, which mitigated the potential negative effects of the mismatch between his interests and the dominant campus social scene. Jaime and other middle-class students did not share a similar social safety net and felt unhappy with their social experiences at SVU.

Many middle-class students reported feeling disconnected from the dominant social scene at SVU and were critical of this scene. They also felt disconnected from the university as a whole. When asked if she has ever felt like she belonged to a community on campus, Alex, a middle-class white female senior, said,

No, I see maybe a community happening, but I don’t feel like I’m a part of it. . . . I have my boyfriend and an old friend I hang out with. Other than that, I stick to myself and my work.

Alex’s feelings about the university were similarly unambiguous:

I hate SVU. . . . My mother got a job at the day care on campus and I get a full ride. . . . I had high hopes coming here, but I am more often than not disgusted by the people. Their attitude about things is really just, it just doesn’t match anything that I stand for.

Middle-class students viewed their social problems not in isolation but as connected to school-wide “social problems.” They referred to their upper-class peers as pretentious and shallow. Alex did not participate in the dominant social scene on campus and never considered the WGLO pathway in part because of her feelings toward her peers:

This sounds really bad, but I just call them sheep. I don’t even call them students, I just call them the sheep. All the sheep are going to the game, the sheep are going to class, the sheep are riding their bikes. It’s kind of mean.

Like Alex and Jaime, Damien, the middle-class male quoted in the introduction, described both tangible obstacles, like his work schedule, and less tangible sociocultural differences as hindrances to his social life. Like other middle-class students in the sample, Damien worked long hours (15–25 hours a week) in a low-status, federally funded work-study job. As seen in the epigraph (and below), the perceived precariousness of his financial situation increased Damien’s stress and inhibited his social efficacy. Damien, a first-year Latino student, displayed anxiety and described having frequent stress-related stomach problems. He reported feeling immense pressure to do well in school because of the large loans he and his parents were taking out. Like Jaime, he prioritized academics over his social life:

The reason why I don’t drink right now or why I don’t drink during the school year is simply because my grades are too important to me. I hear kids and they are just like “why are you so stressed. Damien? Why are you so stressed?” And I’m just like, “I’m filling out my student aid stuff, I have two different, three different loans I have to fill out.” And they’re like “oh, my parents take care of that for me.” I have heard from some kids they haven’t done laundry for the first time ever and I’m like, “Honestly?” Some kids, I guess, can’t even pack their own paper bag lunch.

In addition to referencing his upper-class peers, Damien also referenced his high school experience in relation to his experiences at SVU. Unlike the majority of upper-class students at SVU, his transition to college life was not a seamless extension of his past:

[In high school] I did so many extracurriculars. I did soccer, track, a cappella, different shows at school. I did senior planning, a peer counseling thing. I liked it a lot . . . All I do really right now is work . . . I really wish I could experience things like I did in high school, where I could join as many extracurriculars or do as many things as I wanted to, but you really can’t because of the workload.

Damien reported having been very involved in high school activities, but at SVU he participated in only one extracurricular activity, a recreational hip-hop group. This campus activity enabled Damien to develop a small social network, but with his busy work schedule, Damien was unable to spend much time socializing. He wanted to do more, but felt limited by work, money, and the competitive social scene at SVU.

Like Jaime, Damien was burdened beyond material disadvantages. He felt disconnected from the social scene at SVU. However, unlike Jaime, who reported being opposed to the party scene, Damien reported feeling disappointed that he was unable to socialize with his peers. He described himself as a social guy, saying, “I generally go out of my way to talk to people.” He continued,

I thought it would be easier to get along with people . . . but I just, it was a little bit difficult to adjust. . . . A lot of people, I felt, gave the cold shoulder a lot of the time and didn’t really want to make friends.

Damien felt that the social scene on campus was inaccessible. The day of his interview, he reported feeling uneasy about the campus fashion scene and specifically commented that the brand of sunglasses he was wearing was not good enough. He compared his resources, including clothing, with what he saw as the norm—the styles of his more privileged counterparts—and this referencing affected him negatively. Unlike the upper-class student Brynn who laughingly described her social commitments as a “part-time job,” Damien felt stressed by his lack of time. Even his leisure time was spent trying to maximize his financial investment in his schooling. Preoccupied by loans and the need to succeed, he reported being unable to relax.

The overwhelming majority of middle-class students described financial obstacles to fitting in at SVU. Many middle-class students ruled out the WGLO pathway at the outset because of the associated financial and time requirements. Even when middle-class students appreciated the camaraderie and goals of the Greek scene, they expressed apprehension about membership. For example, Ali, a middle-class Latino, first-year male, reported that members of the WGLO system “seem like a family” but added that “it’s a lot of money and I’m already paying enough to be here.”

Middle-class students invoked a class analysis to describe the WGLO system, even those who had joined or who would have liked to join. Of course, some middle-class students did join WGLOs. Often, these students took on additional student loans to support their membership. Within the WGLO system, middle-class students were continually confronted by the resource gap between themselves and their upper-class peers. Reed, a middle-class white male in his first year, referenced his upper-class peers and his high school experience to illustrate his social position on campus:

In high school, you come across people with lots of money, compared to mine, because their parents have, like work in an oil company or something like that. . . . And then you come here and you find some filthy rich people . . . I went sunglass shopping with a couple of friends of mine, I just tagged along with them, they were just looking at Ray-Bans. They were like 135 bucks, you know, and they were going, “Okay I’ll get these.” Just like nonchalantly, you know, “Yeah, I’ll get these,” just like they were buying a pair of socks or something. I just realized that I’m too poor for this.

Evocative of Medvec et al.’s (1995) “silver medalist syndrome,” Reed referenced both his upper-class peers and his high school experience to describe his current situation. In so doing, he felt relatively deprived and inadequately equipped for the elite social scene at SVU (i.e., that he was “too poor”). Many middle-class students invoked a class analysis when describing social situations where they felt that a lack of class-based resources created a division between them and their upper-class peers.

Although admission to a highly selective university signals success, many middle-class students reported feeling as though they did not belong to the SVU social environment. All but two of the middle-class students referenced their upper-class peers to frame their experiences at SVU. They saw the social successes and efficacies of their upper-class peers as out of reach. These students highlighted class-based inequalities and invoked a class analysis. Like the silver medalists in Medvec et al.’s (1995) study who were frustrated by their proximity to the gold, these students compared themselves unfavorably with their upper-class counterparts as well as their past selves and felt relatively deprived. In sum, middle-class students saw the ladder to success as inaccessible—a sentiment that was less widely shared among their lower-class counterparts.

Lower-Class Students

Contrary to the middle-class students, many lower-class students reported feeling socially content at SVU. They expressed satisfaction with their achievements at SVU and reported feeling connected to the “Aardvark family.” Reminiscent of Medvec et al.’s (1995) bronze medalists, they did not reference upward to upper-class students. Instead, they referenced their previous disadvantaged schooling experience and friends or family who had achieved less as they evaluated their social experiences on campus. In comparison with middle-class students, lower-class students were less critical of the dominant WGLO social scene than middle-class students, were happier with their social experiences on campus, and were less likely to critique the social environment on class-based terms.

Whereas many middle-class students referenced upward with frustration and dismay, lower-class students referenced their less successful counterparts. Like bronze medalists in Medvec et al.’s (1995) study, they were happy simply to have achieved access to an elite university campus. They described attending disadvantaged schools in the past, and they were grateful to have more opportunities than unemployed, underemployed, or undereducated friends and family members. Structurally, they were set up to view their new social position differently than their upper- and middle-class peers at SVU. They interpreted their successful entry into an elite environment as evidence that with hard work, it is possible to achieve despite one’s disadvantaged background. This made them less cynical of social stratification on campus and less inclined to find fault with the dominant, exclusionary culture, even if they did not fit into it.

Selena, a lower-class Latina first year, participated in an organization designed to help low-income students gain admissions to and succeed academically at SVU from 7th to 12th grades. The program was highly selective and required an intense time commitment from junior high and high school participants, but student participants who were admitted to SVU received full tuition waivers. Selena, along with four of her close friends, completed the program. All four females lived in close proximity to one another on campus. She was grateful to have been admitted to SVU and to have her friends at the same school:

I love having my close friends here—that’s a comfort. . . . The friends that I have made here have been really, really nice and understanding and really open, they are really open-minded. That is what I love about SVU.

University-sponsored programs that worked to socialize lower-class and underrepresented minority students to SVU helped them feel connected to the school. Selena described part of her path to establish a sense of belonging at SVU:

I never thought that I would be able to come here. I was really doubting my acceptance here and I remember during the summer program we played this game where our RA asked the question like, “Do you feel like you belong, like you should be here, like you deserve to be here?” And I stepped in to say “No.” Because I really didn’t feel like I belonged here, but then coming to the classes and actually starting school, that made me realize that I am supposed to be here. So now I kind of embrace that more—that I am supposed to be here. But before that, I felt like I didn’t deserve it.

Whereas in the past, Selena felt that she did not belong at SVU, during the interview, she expressed pride in her status as an SVU student. Although few lower-class students were connected to the dominant social scene, they reported successes in building their own networks to help attenuate problems transitioning to life at an elite university. Of course, not all lower-class students had access to institutional social scaffolding or resources aimed at aiding their social transition. In contrast to Selena, Jill, a lower-class, first-year white female, did not know anyone upon her arrival at SVU and had not acclimated well to SVU. The central focus of her social life and her immediate reference point was her boyfriend who “didn’t even graduate high school.” She was not happy about her social position at SVU:

Socially, umm, I’m not really [clears throat] having the greatest experience and that’s my own fault because . . . I just don’t feel comfortable. I like having my boyfriend with me at social gatherings. I do wish I had made some close friends to just like hang out with and eat with and stuff like that, but I get a little bit of social anxiety now, in terms of making friends and I don’t know why. . . . I don’t know, I don’t really understand it. Socially, not so much. I would say I only have acquaintances here. . . . I don’t know why. Probably some deep psychological issues or something.

Jill blamed herself for her less-than-successful social adjustment at SVU. Unlike her middle-class counterparts who blamed pretentious peers, Jill attributed her social isolation to the intrinsic factors of “social anxiety” and “psychological issues.” Although Jill described a similar “disconnect” from the social scene to Damien, the middle-class student mentioned earlier, Damien attributed this disconnect to external factors whereas Jill internalized her struggle.

Jill’s work obligations also infringed on her ability to participate fully at SVU, but she hoped to change her schedule to fit in more next year:

I hope I can cut my work hours down next year because . . . there are tons of organizations here on campus that sound interesting . . . And you know, I might check out other clubs too, but right now it’s not even [pause] important to me because I just want to go home and go to sleep and I mostly work during any, any club meeting times. I would also love to go to, just the events. There is this one initiative, where there’s all these cool speakers and artists always visiting campus. A lot of the time, I’m working during their performances and stuff, which are often free, which is just a great opportunity and I would really love to see more of those.

This excerpt from Jill demonstrates the structural disadvantages that prevented Jill from realizing her desire to socialize. However, unlike her middle-class counterparts, Jill did not reference others who were able to attend events freely or provide a class analysis of her inability to attend. Like Jill, many lower-class students who worked on campus felt that they participated less because of their work hours and expressed the desire to participate more.

Many nonelite students who did not participate in targeted scaffolding programs suffered socially. However, some lower- and middle-class students found alternative pathways to social participation (Mullen 2010). The only band members in the sample were two lower-class students. When asked to describe her social life, De, a lower-class, black female senior, said,

Basically 90 percent of the people I know are in band, just because that’s how it is, like we spend so much time together. Otherwise, I do have a few friends in classes and stuff, but usually I don’t hang out with them as much as people from band. Pretty much when you’re in band, your closest friends are in band and you hang out and you party and you, do whatever. . . . My roommates have been in band with me for four years.

In addition to providing strong social support, De’s involvement in marching band connected her to the “Aardvark family.” During our interview, De sang the university fight song. She also described the “Aardvark family”:

The Aardvark family. Basically a lot of people come here just because the connections you have are ridiculous. Like a lot of the stuff on campus is paid for by alumni because there are a lot of rich alumni. A lot of people just want a piece of that. If you can come here and graduate from here that’s like a really, something really good to have, you can always have somebody be, “oh you’re an Aardvark.” “I’m an Aardvark.” You can network really easily because there’s people all over the world, like Aardvarks, like an Aardvark network.

When asked about her relationship with the WGLO social scene, De described her experience in band as being “kind of a fraternity with instruments.” Band provided De an alternative forum for social participation that was not antagonistic to the dominant social scene.

Rachel, a lower-class Asian American female sophomore, established her network of support on campus by joining a multicultural sorority. Rachel saw her sorority as different from WGLOs because “mainstream Greeks are richer and much more into partying.” Although participation in her sorority was considerably less expensive than for WGLOs, it still conformed to upper-class ideals. Thus, through this sorority, lower-class members like Rachel interacted with upper-class peers and acquired cultural capital to ease their upward mobility. According to Rachel, her sorority taught her “how to be a disciplined person.” Elaborating on the intangible resources the sorority provided, she said,

I wasn’t as attuned to how things look before, it’s kind of hard to explain . . . Like we had to pick a really nice venue that looked really classy, and which was really nice. And we had to think about what kind of dress we were wearing and the food we were serving and the party favors that we were giving out because we only gave out glass party favors so it is classier. And I guess like, yeah, I learned about event planning and what it takes to make an event classier so that it doesn’t look tacky.

Like many of her peers, Rachel was extremely busy. In addition to heavy involvement in her sorority, Rachel had a work-study job on campus and participated in several other extracurricular activities on a regular basis. She was socially integrated into a group that helped her gain elite cultural and social capital and compared her present self with her past, less “classy” self:

I’m a lot more high maintenance now. The other day, my boyfriend wore a wrinkly shirt on a date with me, and I told him, “Don’t wear a wrinkly shirt.” I probably would not have noticed that his shirt was wrinkly [before]. . . . And places that we go to for dates, like we go to [location 1] a lot because it’s like, it’s nicer, it’s a lot cleaner than [location 2], we used to go to [location 2] more because I really like [location 2]’s food and I miss [location 2]’s food, but we go to [location 1] more just because it’s more popular, as a place to go to, just because the restaurants and the gift shops there are, they cater to SVU students and like middle to high class families because it’s a lot cleaner and the restaurants are nicer.

Rachel developed upper-class cultural capital through exposure to “popular” places that catered to upper-class tastes. Prior to joining her special interest sorority, she was not attuned to nuances in taste or décor, both tangible (e.g., glass vs. plastic party favors) and more subtle (e.g., the way cheaper food tastes compared with more expensive food). Rachel was aware that upper-class culture dominated at SVU and worked to become a part of it. In other words, her peers provided her with lessons on upward mobility and she was a willing, knowing participant, a “class renegade” (Hurst 2010).

Unlike middle-class students who consistently referenced their upper-class peers and the WGLO system, lower-class students only referenced their upper-class peers when prompted to do so or when such a comparison allowed for them to better describe their particular social niche, as when De likened her experience of being in band to that of being in a fraternity. Like the bronze medalists in Medvec et al.’s (1995) study, many of these students were pleased with their academic and social positions. Their attendance at SVU offered proof of their success, and they were not overly preoccupied with their marginalized social position—Rather, they described feeling content within alternate social scenes. In sum, several lower-class students in the sample displayed high social efficacy without being directly connected to the dominant social culture on campus. The remaining lower-class students with low social efficacy did not target the exclusive, pretentious nature of the social scenes on campus but were more likely to blame themselves for their lack of social fit.

Discussion and Conclusion

Far from the standard American narrative of meritocracy, our education system works to reproduce privilege and disadvantage. Students start out with different cultural, social, and familial class-based resources that either limit or reproduce their potential for successful social adjustment on campus. Upper-class students are set up structurally to succeed socially on campus by capitalizing on their abundant resources of time, money, job situations, and social and cultural capital. In comparison, both lower- and middle-class students face more obstacles to smooth social adjustment. Further intensifying class-based inequalities, these obstacles often work to preclude lower- and middle-class students from connections with elite students and, by extension, from important cultural and social capital. In short, the social scene at SVU accumulates advantages for the class-advantaged and disadvantages students from nonelite class backgrounds. These class-differentiated social pathways are apparent when students discuss their social experiences on campus.

One of the major benefits of attending an elite school is the ability to interact and network with high-status peers to gain elite cultural and social capital. The dominant social scene at SVU reflects the culture of elite, upper-class life. This cultural matching affords upper-class students advantages in their social integration at SVU. The transition from their home life to university life is smooth because they experience the elite culture of SVU as familiar. In navigating their social life on campus, they reference their home and past social lives, which closely mirror the social scene at SVU, and their transition progresses with little effort compared with low- and middle-class students. In addition, these students have social networks they can draw on for advice about how to find a social niche that best fits their interests even when they do not fit into the dominant social scene.

Whereas the culture, families, and peer groups of upper-class students prepared them for a smooth transition to life at SVU, both lower- and middle-class students arrive at SVU both financially and socially unprepared to make such a seamless transition into a new and unfamiliar culture of privilege. Interestingly, however, middle-class students fared the worst in terms of social efficacy. These students referenced the social ease and elite lifestyles of their privileged upper-class counterparts with envy. They felt relatively deprived in their lifestyle and social activities. These students’ social efficacy related as much to their actual social class as to the standards of the social class reference group to which they compared themselves (Merton 1957). For middle-class students, this perceived relative deprivation manifested in a heightened sense of disadvantage and many developed a view of the campus social system as unfairly based on class inequalities. These social insights may buffer middle-class students’ feelings of self-doubt and blame. For if they do not succeed, these students can fault the system over themselves.

Lower-class students reported more positive attitudes regarding their social experiences compared to middle-class students, in part because their immediate reference group was other lower-class individuals who did not attend college. As members of the least privileged social class, lower-class students’ primary and secondary schooling experiences were often disadvantaged. The university recognizes the potential barriers faced by lower-class and underrepresented minority students and offers scaffolding programs to support their adjustment to university life. Lower-class students who participate in these programs receive important formal and informal socialization that supports their social efficacy and helps them to become more socially integrated than other nonscaffolded lower- and middle-class students.

A primary limitation of this research is that we do not address the long-term effects of the difficult social transitions described by many students. A follow-up study could further investigate former students’ postgraduation social capital measured as career networks in relation to social class. In addition, the partial recruitment of students in social science courses may have resulted in a sample that was better prepared to discuss social class compared with students enrolled in other types of courses. However, the 44 students in our sample span a variety of different majors on campus (22), and student majors were diverse across class groups; we are confident that these results are not biased by students’ disciplinary affiliation. An additional limitation rooted in our sampling strategy is that we recruited 2 students from university organizations serving lower-class students, and several other lower-class students in our sample participated in similar programs. We do not have data on the number of lower-class students who access these services on campus and so we are unable to directly assess whether the experiences of the lower-class students in this study are typical of all lower-class students at SVU.

Given the uniqueness of elite universities (based on prestige, occupational success, and graduation rates), these findings cannot be generalized to a larger population. However, these results can inform broader scholarship on the relationship between class and social efficacy in general and in the transition to university in particular. This research underscores how cultural and social capital moderate the relationship between individuals, social class “reference” groups, and social participation within the stratified realm of higher education. Future research should consider how race and gender influence students’ social efficacy, and how these dimensions of social status intersect across different levels of class to shape student experience.

If class status were inconsequential for one’s lived outcomes, then social science researchers would be hard-pressed to find significant differences in social efficacy across social classes. Instead, on the SVU campus, class inequality was reproduced along several dimensions of students’ social lives. In other words, acceptance into SVU did not guarantee an equal experience for students across social class backgrounds. To facilitate meritocracy, SVU should consider scaffolding lower- and middle-class students. Nationally, we can invest more in higher education and cut student debt burdens to effectively scaffold both middle- and lower-class students and reduce the social class gap on campus.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Susan K. Brown, Jessica Cobb, Thurston Domina, Katie Furuyama, Ann Hironaka, Stefan Malizia, Diana Pan, Daisy Reyes, David S. Meyer, Simon Weffer, the anonymous reviewers, and members of the Irvine Comparative Sociology Workshop and the Sonoma State University Faculty Writing Program for their helpful advice and comments on early versions of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biographies

Megan Thiele, is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at San José State University. She conducts both qualitative and quantitative research at the intersection of education, social stratification and policy.

Brian Joseph Gillespie, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University. His primary research interests include the life course, family, and demography. He has recently published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Journal of Family Issues, Journal of Research on Adolescence, and Advances in Life Course Research, among other venues. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the ASA Section on Methodology.

References

Anyon

Jean

. 1981. “Social Class and School Knowledge.” Curriculum Inquiry 11(1):3–42.

Armstrong

Elizabeth A.

Hamilton

Laura

. 2013. Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Bandura

Albert

Barbaranelli

Claudio

Caprara

Vittorio Gian

Pastorelli

Concetta

. 1996. “Multifaceted Impact of Self-efficacy Beliefs on Academic Functioning.” Child Development 67(3):1206–22.

Bettie

Julie

. 2003. Women without Class: Girls, Race, and Identity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Bourdieu

Pierre

. 1984. Distinction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Coleman

James S.

1988. “Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital.” American Journal of Sociology 81(Suppl.):S95–S120.

Corbin

Juliet

Strauss

Anselm

. 2008. Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory. 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Espenshade

Thomas J.

Radford

Alexandria Walton

. 2009. No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal: Race and Class in Elite College Admission and Campus Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Horowitz

Helen Lefkowitz

. 1987. Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Present. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

10.

Hughey

Matthew

. 2010. “A Paradox of Participation: Nonwhites in White Sororities and Fraternities.” Social Problems 57(4):653–79.

11.

Hurst

Allison L.

2010. The Burden of Academic Success: Loyalists, Renegades, and Double Agents. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

12.

Kaufman

Peter

. 2005. “Middle-class Social Reproduction: The Activation and Negotiation of Structural Advantages.” Sociological Forum 20(2):245–70.

13.

Klandermans

Bert

Roefs

Marlene

Olivier

Johan

. 2001. “Grievance Formation in a Country in Transition: South Africa, 1994-1998.” Social Psychology Quarterly 64(1):41–54.

14.

Kuh

George D.

Kinzie

Jillian

Schuh

John H.

Whitt

Elizabeth J.

2005. Student Success in College: Creating Conditions That Matter. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

15.

Lareau

Annette

. 2011. Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. 2nd ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

16.

Martin

Nathan D.

2009. “Social Capital, Academic Achievement, and Postgraduation Plans at an Elite, Private University.” Sociological Perspectives 52(2):185–210.

17.

McPherson

Miller

Smith-Lovin

Lynn

Cook

James M.

2001. “Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks.” Annual Review of Sociology 27:415–44.

18.

Medvec

Victoria

Madey

Scott F.

Gilovich

Thomas

. 1995. “When Less Is More: Counterfactual Thinking and Satisfaction among Olympic Medalists.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(4):603–10.

19.

Merton

Robert K.

1957. “Continuities in the Theory of Reference Groups and Social Structure.” Pp. 281–386 in Social Theory and Social Structure, edited by Merton

R. K.

Glencoe, IL: Free Press.

20.

Mills

C. Wright

. 1956. The Power Elite. New York: Oxford University Press.

21.

Milner

Murray

Jr.

2004. Freaks, Geeks and Cool Kids: American Teenagers, Schools and the Culture of Consumption. New York: Routledge.

22.

Mullen

Ann L.

2010. Degrees of Inequality: Culture, Class, and Gender in American Higher Education. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

23.

Nenga

Sandi Kawecka

. 2003. “Social Class and Structures of Feeling in Women’s Childhood Memories of Clothing, Food, and Leisure.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 32(2):167–99.

24.

Pakulski

Jan

Waters

Malcom

. 1996. The Death of Class. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

25.

Reardon

Sean F.

Baker

Rachel

Klasik

Daniel

. 2012. Race, Income, and Enrollment Patterns in Highly Selective Colleges, 1982-2004. Center for Education Policy Analysis, Stanford University. Retrieved June 14, 2014 (http://cepa.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/race%20income%20%26%20selective%20college%20enrollment%20august%203%202012.pdf).

26.

Sedlacek

William E.

2004. Beyond the Big Test: Noncognitive Assessment in Higher Education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

27.

Sedlacek

William E.

Sheu

Hung-Bin

. 2004. Academic Success of Gates Millennium Scholars. Seattle, WA: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

28.

Silva

Jennifer

. 2014. Coming Up Short: Working-class Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

29.

Stuber

Jenny

. 2010. “Class Dismissed? The Social-class Worldviews of Privileged College Students.” In Educating Elites: Class Privilege and Educational Advantage, edited by Howard

Adam

Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

30.

Stuber

Jenny

. 2011. Inside the College Gates: How Class and Culture Matter in Higher Education. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

31.

Thiele

Megan

. 2016. “Resource or Obstacle? Classed Reports of Student-Faculty Relations.” The Sociological Quarterly. doi: 10.1111/tsq.12117.

32.

Torche

Florencia

. 2011. “Is a College Degree Still the Great Equalizer? Intergenerational Mobility across Levels of Schooling in the United States.” American Journal of Sociology 117(3):763–807.

33.

Weeden

Kim A.

Grusky

David B.

2005. “The Case for a New Class Map.” American Journal of Sociology 111(1):141–212.

34.

Weis

Lois

Cipollone

Kristin

Jenkins

Heather

. 2014. Class Warfare: Class, Race, and College Admissions in Top-tier Secondary Schools. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.