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

Mary L. Scherer ()
Additional contact information
Mary L. Scherer: Department of Sociology, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX 77341, USA

Social Sciences, 2022, vol. 11, issue 11, 1-18

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: higher education; social class inequality; social reproduction; organizational habitus (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/11/11/500/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/11/11/500/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:11:y:2022:i:11:p:500-:d:958627

Access Statistics for this article

Social Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Yvonne Chu

More articles in Social Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().