Belonging and Boundaries at an Elite University
Open Access
- 10 September 2022
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in Social Problems
Abstract
Scholars posit that lower-income undergraduates experience “cultural mismatch,” which undermines their sense of belonging, promotes withdrawal from campus, and limits mobility upon graduation. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 103 undergraduates at an elite university, we examine how students’ diverse trajectories to college affect how they identify as members of the community and modulate the relationship between social class and sense of belonging. While upper-income undergraduates find commonalities between themselves and college peers and integrate into the community, lower-income students offer divergent accounts. The doubly disadvantaged—lower-income undergraduates who attended local, typically distressed public high schools—felt a heightened sense of difference, drew moral boundaries, and withdrew from campus life. Alternatively, the privileged poor—lower-income undergraduates who attended boarding, day, and preparatory high schools—adopted a cosmopolitan approach focused on continued expansion of horizons and integrated into campus. Through detailing this overlooked diversity among lower-income undergraduates, our findings expand theoretical frameworks for examining sense of belonging to include boundary work that shapes students’ agendas, thereby deepening our understanding of the reproduction of inequality in college.Keywords
This publication has 60 references indexed in Scilit:
- A cultural mismatch: Independent cultural norms produce greater increases in cortisol and more negative emotions among first-generation college studentsJournal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2012
- Cultural Foundations of TokenismAmerican Sociological Review, 2010
- Who Benefits Most from College?American Sociological Review, 2010
- ‘Culture shock’: Black students account for their distinctiveness at an elite collegeEthnic and Racial Studies, 2009
- Sieve, Incubator, Temple, Hub: Empirical and Theoretical Advances in the Sociology of Higher EducationAnnual Review of Sociology, 2008
- METASTEREOTYPES AND THE BLACK-WHITE DIVIDE: A Qualitative View of Race on an Elite College CampusDu Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 2004
- The Study of Boundaries in the Social SciencesAnnual Review of Sociology, 2002
- Urban Poverty afterThe Truly Disadvantaged: The Rediscovery of the Family, the Neighborhood, and CultureAnnual Review of Sociology, 2001
- Reconceptualizing Mentoring at Work: A Developmental Network PerspectiveAcademy of Management Review, 2001
- Intraracial Diversity and Relations among African‐Americans: Closeness among Black Students at a Predominantly White UniversityAmerican Journal of Sociology, 2000