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Determinants and Effects of Student Involvement at Elite Colleges and Universities in the United States

Michael, Joseph
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1394725246

Abstract Details

2014, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences: Sociology.
Stratification researchers have long recognized the primacy of educational institutions in generating and reproducing socioeconomic inequality. A large body of research has shown that students’ socioeconomic background is related to their likelihood of attending college and the prestige of the colleges they attend. However, scholars have paid much less attention to processes and mechanisms that produce and reproduce social inequality during the course of college. In this dissertation I investigate these processes and mechanisms, paying particular attention to the role of college involvement, or participation in extracurricular activities such as social clubs and student groups. I restrict my analysis to students at a set of elite college and universities where, in theory, social class background effects ought to be muted by the fact that students at these institutions have, in a sense, “made it” to the most elite post-secondary level. In sum, this research engages with theories of social action, cultural capital, and human capital to understand the development of social stratification within elite higher education institutions in the United States. I propose that such stratification does not occur primarily because of group differences in grades, skill development, or other human capital-conferring effects of higher education, but rather through group disparities in college involvement. I test this hypothesis with data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen, a longitudinal study of a cohort of students at 28 elite colleges and universities in the United States. I use a variety of statistical methods to examine the predictors of college involvement, the extent to which that involvement is likely to produce contact with Whites among minority students, and the effects of college involvement on graduate school expectations. My research yielded three key sets of findings. First, I find that first-generation college students at these institutions tend to have lower levels of college involvement than their counterparts because they have lower levels of activity participation in high school and lower levels of cultural capital. Second, I show that first-generation minority students have lower levels of interracial college involvement than their non-first-generation counterparts because they have lower levels of high school activity participation and greater social distance from Whites. This difference is especially pronounced for minority students whose parents were born outside of the U.S. Finally, I find that college involvement predicts graduate school expectations, but college-generation status differences in graduate school expectations cannot be attributed to college involvement levels, as graduate school expectations tend to be high across the entire sample. Taken together, my findings suggest that programs specifically tailored to engage first-generation college students in college activities would serve to reduce inequality in cultural and social capital upon graduation.
Jeffrey Timberlake, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Littisha Bates, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Jennifer Malat, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
143 p.
Sociology
stratification; education; inequality

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Michael, J. (2014). Determinants and Effects of Student Involvement at Elite Colleges and Universities in the United States [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1394725246

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Michael, Joseph. Determinants and Effects of Student Involvement at Elite Colleges and Universities in the United States. 2014. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1394725246.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Michael, Joseph. "Determinants and Effects of Student Involvement at Elite Colleges and Universities in the United States." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1394725246

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1394725246
376
© 2014, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Determinants and Effects of Student Involvement at Elite Colleges and Universities in the United States by Joseph Michael is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.