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This is to certify that the
dissertation entitled

. Running a Race with Wornout Shoes:
Working Class Students and the Fulfillment of
College Aspirations

presented by

Michael E. Stone.

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

PhD degree in Educational Administration

 

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MSU i: an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution 0-12771

 

PLACE IN RETURN Box to remove this checkout from your record.
TO AVOID FINES return on or before date due.
MAY BE RECALLED with earlier due date if requested.

 

DATE DUE

DATE DUE

DATE DUE

 

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UN 0 2 2003

 

 

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MAY BE RECALLED with earlier due date if requested.

 

 

 

DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE
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RUNNING A RACE WITH WORN OUT SHOES: WORKING CLASS
STUDENTS AND THE FULFILLMENT OF COLLEGEASPIRATIONS

By

Michael E. Stone

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirement
. for the degree of
DOCTORATE OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of Educational Administration

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ABSTRACT

RUNNING A RACE WITH WORN OUT SHOES: WORKING CLASS STUDENTS
AND THE FULFILLMENT OF COLLEGE ASPIRATIONS.

By

Michael E. Stone

The focus of the study is the relationship between class background and the
fulfillment of college aspirations. The study features life histories of three working-class
students who chose to attend a small. private. selective liberal arts college located in the
Great Lakes Region. The scope of the life histories extends beyond what is typically
referred to as “college choice” to include the obstacles faced by the three students once
they arrived on campus. The study is framed using Lareau's ( 1987) definition of cultural
capital as the "social and cultural elements of family life."

The life histories highlight the importance of educational resources, namely the
educational history of the parents. in helping students make it to and ultimately succeed
in college. Further, the study highlights the importance of the “success orientation" that
many middle class students bring with them as they attempt to fillfili their coller e
aspirations. By contrast, the working class families featured in this study approached the
college experience with a sense of having little control over the final outcome.

A discussion of implications for practice and policy follows the life histories. The
discussion centers on two aspects of the effects of one’s working class background. First.
I discuss how high school counselors and college admissions personnel can work with

working class families to teach them how to deploy what resources they have at their

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disposal to improve the chances that their children will actually make it to college.
Second, I discuss how college faculty, particularly those teaching first-year orientation
courses, can help working class students overcome the cultural and psychological barriers
that can prevent them from firlfilling their college aspirations.

I discuss the ways that the college aspirations of these three students were
mediated by the availability of social and cultural resources. Using the latest research on
college choice, I discuss ways that practitioners can work with working-class students
and families to offset the disadvantages that result from discrepancies in social and

cultural resources.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter I: Introduction
Framing the Study
The Effects of Class: Social and Cultural Capital
How Class Affects College Choice
The Study of College Choice
Methods and Procedures
Selection of Participants
Participant Interviews
Writing Life Stories
The Limitations of Narrative Inquiry
Chapter 2: Hannah
Getting to College
The Professional Wormn
"Trying to Survive"
Epilogue
Chapter 3: Ethan
The Elements of Family Life
A System of Trial and Error
"Running A Race With Worn Out Shoes"

Epilogue

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Chapter 4: Rhonda
The Gradual Awakening
Heading Toward College
"Waiting to F ail"
Epilogue
Chapter 5: Discussion
Class and the Fulfilhnent of Aspirations
Implications for Practice
Conclusion

Bibliography

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141

151

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Chapter 1: Introduction

Jason began talking about going to college as early as the ninth grade. Although
neither of his parents had attended college, Jason was very much aware that one of his
uncles had graduated fi'om college, as did one of his aunts. In addition, the two cousins
closest to him in age were planning to go to college. All of this is to say that the idea of
going to college was familiar to Jason, if only vicariously. As far as his career
aspirations, Jason could not be specific about what he wanted to do after college. Even
today, Jason has difficulty imagining himself doing anything beyond construction and
carpentry work, things he has come to know through direct experience, though he thinks
that he might enjoy doing something with computer technology. Nevertheless, Jason is at
least thinking about his future and what part college might play in shaping it.

Jason is now eighteen years old, in what should be his senior year in high school.
It has been a difficult year for him academically and otherwise. Rather than making his
fmal decisions about where to attend college, Jason spent the past spring tending to other,
more pressing matters. About six months ago Jason decided to move out of his father’s
home, with whom he had been living during the past two years, and moved into an
apartment with a fiiend. In order to pay his portion of the rent, Jason has been working
two part-time jobs in the evenings and on weekends. His schoolwork, which was
sufl‘ering already from lack of attention, was shoved further down Jason’s list of
priorities. Eventually, the demnds on his time became overwhelming. Jason came to

terms with the fact that it would be impossible for him to graduate on time because of his

 

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poor performance in the classroom. So at the advice of his father, Jason dropped out of
school.

Jason had performed well academically in elementary and middle school, but
once he entered high school his grades began to slip. He was required to attend summer
school following his sophomore to stay on grade level, and from tint point on it seemed
that school steadily became of decreasing importance in Jason’s life. Consequently, his
grades accelerated in their downward spiral until the point where the only left for Jason to
do was to abandon the mission altogether. Despite the sudden turn of events in his life,
Jason still holds out hope that he may be able attend college in the fall. But as he knows,
much has to happen over the next few months to make it possible. Jason’s mother has
agreed to let him live with her while he sorts out his personal affairs, which relieves him
from a huge financial burden. Once he completes his GED, something he plans to do
over the summer, he will have to contact the colleges in the area to find out who will
accept him without ACT or SAT scores. Once he is able to find a job near his mother’s
home, he will be able to purchase an automobile, which in turn will allow Jason to
commute between home, school, and work. Only then will this very complicated puzzle
of Jason’s educational aspirations be complete.

Although he is not one of the three students featured in this study, the story of
Jason’s college aspirations encompasses many of the issues presented within it. My
perspective on Jason’s experience is shaped by two important factors. First, Jason is my
nephew. As such, I have known Jason literally from the day he was born and have had
the opporttmity to watch Jason’s life circumstances unfold over the years from up close.

In addition to sharing a common family and social heritage with Jason, I know his

 

temperament and personality very well, I know the educational and work history of his
parents, and I am privy to some intimate details of his sometirnes—troubled home life.

The second important factor shaping my perspective on Jason’s college
aspirations is my own professional work. I have spent the last twelve years as a college
administrator working with families on issues related to college. In the course of my
work I have had numerous conversations with students like Jason, often centering on the
most basic of concerns related to going to college. In addition, I have spent the last six
years engaged in the systematic study of higher education, out of which I have developed
an interest in the relationship between social class and one’s experience in the formal
system of education. Thus, I have enjoyed a dual relationship with Jason over the past
several years: looking for ways to intervene in the life of my nephew in order to nurture
his aspirations for college, while periodically stepping back to try and make sense of
predicament from the appropriate analytical distance.

There is no question that Jason’s poor academic performance in high school is a
problem he created for himself. It would be difficult for any student to set their sights on
college when the prospect of getting through high school grows dimmer each year. And
one might rightfully question the advice given to Jason by his father. But I can’t help but
wonder what might have led to a different set of circumstances for Jason. While I
recognize that the explanation for why Jason finds himself in his current predicament is
multi-faceted and complex, in my mind I keep going back to a conversation I had with
Jason’s mother when Jason was in the seventh grade. My question to her at the time was

straightforward: “Is Jason planning to go to college?”

 

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Lurking behind my question were several follow-up ones based on what is known
to nuke a difference in whether or not students who express a desire to go to college
actually end up going to college. Questions like: Have you started a savings account?
Do you attend parent-teacher conferences in his school? Are you going to enroll him in
the college-prep track in high school? Will he take the PSAT? In other words, I wanted
toknowwhat shewasplanningto doto increasethe oddsthat Jason would actually make
it to college. Her response to my question, surprisingly, was as straightforward as the
question itself. But her response was straightforward not in the degree of certainty with
which she expressed it, but in what it revealed about her perception of how much
influence she has over the final outcome. “1 want him to,” she said to me. Nothing more.
Nothing less. She wanted Jason to go to college.

While she did not attend college herself, her response suggests that she does at
least recognize the benefits of going to college. Knowing the family like I do, I am
certain she knows that a college education is the surest way for Jason to have a chance to
better himself in terms of the types of employment Opportunities that will be available.
But the statement also suggests that the idea of Jason “going to college,” though a
possibility, is not something she will take for granted. Partly, this is due to her lack of
knowledge of how to make it happen. Not knowing the importance of starting a college
savings account, for example, or how taking the PSAT puts students on the radar screen
of guidance counselors and college admissions personnel, can render parents passive in
pushing their children toward college. Lacking the confidence and sense of control that
accompanies such knowledge, her response “I want him to” is most fitting for the “wait

and see” attitude that characterizes her approach to Jason’s college aspirations.

Framing the Study

Educational and social science researchers have long been interested in the
college-going belmviors of America's high school graduates. Most of the research related
to college attendance is aimed at one or more of the following: 1) the development of
aspirations for college; 2) the formulation of a choice set of institutions from which a
student selects a college to attend; and 3) the factors that influence the selection itself.
The range of a single study may highlight one of the three aspects in particular, while
others are more comprehensive in scope. Regardless of the range of a particular study,
these streams of inquiry are grouped together under the tradition of research known as
"college choice.”

Within this genre of college choice research is a particular emphasis on the
development of "aspirations" for college. More specifically, educational researchers have
sought to understand what leads one to aspire to go to college. (In the college choice
literature "aspirations," "predisposition," "expectations" are terms used to describe the
process by which an individual decides whether or not to continue education beyond high
school [Hossler, et el, 1989]). The early research on college aspirations (e.g., Boyle,
1966; Brookover et al, 1967; and Sewell and Shah, 1968) examined the relationship
between family characteristics, student characteristics, and high school activities in
search of combinations of variables that were correlated with college attendance. With
the exception of the occasional critical ethnography (e.g., Willis, 1977; MacLeod, 1987;
Foley, 1990), the notion of aspirations has received little attention apart from their role in

initiating the larger college choice process.

 

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One of the more useful forms of college choice research is the comprehensive
choice model. Hossler and colleagues (1998) identify the four major combined models of
college choice, each of which presents a series of stages through which students and
families pass as they make decisions about college. Chapman's (1981) model of choice
reflects the influence of both student characteristics and external influences on the choice
of colleges to be considered. According to this model student background characteristics
(family SES, aptitude, aspirations, and high school performance) interact with external
influences (significant persons, fixed college characteristics, and college communication
with the student) to shape the students' general expectations of college life.

The Jackson Model (1982) consists of three stages, beginning with the preference
stage. It is during this stage that students develop the desire to go to college, a process
that is strongly related to academic performance (in Hossler et al, 1998). From there, the
' student moves to the exclusion stage,.whereby they begin to narrow down the range of
possible institutions by a process of elimination. Finally, the student moves to the
evaluation stage, at which time the final selection is made based on the relevant
institutional characteristics. The Hanson and Litten Model (1982) is similar in scope to
the Jackson Model, except that the former model consists of five steps, ranging fiom
“having aspirations” to “enrolling.”

The model presented by Hossler and Gallagher (1987), and later affirmed by
Hossler, Schmit, and Vesper (1998), represents a “simpler yet more conceptual model of
college choice, based partially on a synthesis and simplification of previous work”
(Hossler et al, 1998). This combined model highlight the factors that influence student

and family decision-making at each phase of college choice. In the predisposition stage

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the student considers college and non-college options. Stated another way, predisposition
represents the decision on whether or not to continue forrml education beyond high
school (Hossler et al, 1989). During the search stage the student develops a set of
institutions from which they will select a college or university to attend. The final
selection is considered the choice stage of the process, and is represented by the selection
of a particular college or university. This model is useful because it identifies points in
the process where certain individuals, such as peers, parents, and high school guidance

counselors, are most influential in shaping decisions related to college choice.

Jason’s “College Choice” Experience

One conclusion reached fiom a review of this literature is that class nutters in all
aspects of college choice. In many ways Jason’s predicament reflects some of the major
findings fi'om the college choice literature. Unfortunately, his experience is devoid of
many of the behaviors that are known to increase the likelihood of going to college. The
latest research by Hossler, Schmit, and Vesper (1998), for example, points to the
importance pre-planning activities in increasing the likelihood of college attendance,
behaviors such as ongoing parental encouragement, taking the PSAT, and starting a
college savings accmmt. Further, they remind us of the importance of relationships with
college-bound peers in nurturing college aspirations. The fact that Jason did not consult
with his guidance counselors in high school and has not yet applied to colleges is
consistent with findings fi'om early research on the relationship between class and college
choice behaviors (Gilmour, 1981). And if Jason does end up attending college he

probably attend one of a small group of geographically-bound colleges (Zemski and

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Oedel, 1983) and will probably attend his first choice institution by virtue of self-
selection (Manski and Wise, 1983). Chances are, he will end up either at a community
college or a low-selectivity four-year institution (Alexander et al, 1987; Hearn, 1991;
Karen, 1991).

Further, many aspects of Jason’s college choice experience graft neatly on to
Hossler and Gallagher’s (1987) combined model of college choice. The fact that Jason is
still considering going to college suggests that to some degree he was predisposed to the
idea in the course of growing up. Time will tell whether or not to Jason decides to follow
through on his expressed desire to attend college. If he makes the decision to go to
college Jason will soon move in to the search phase, where he will begin to gather
infortmtion about the institutions in his geographic area. From there Jason will move to
the choice stage, with the final decision about where to go following consideration of the
institutional characteristics that are most relevant to Jason given his current
circumstances: proximity to his mother’s home, affordability, and low selectivity.

But there are also aspects of Jason’s experience that are not represented in the
college choice models. What is missing from the descriptions of Jason’s predicament in
the vocabulary of college choice is an account of the effects of Jason’s family
background that shape his current predicament, and which ultimately determine whether
or not Jason will be able to fulfill his college aspirations. For example, it is one thing to
be able to situate Jason in the college choice scheme, but where would one turn for an
explanation of why he is in this predicament in the first place? How do you factor into
the college choice equation the “wait and see attitude” that he and his mother take toward

his fixture? How do you properly weigh the impact of a general lack of knowledge about

 

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the system of higher education and the lack of clarity and certainty surrounding his
expressed desire to go to college? And how will this general orientation toward college,
devoid of certainty and purpose, affect his ability to attain his degree once he arrives on a
college campus?

Thus, the story of Jason’s college aspirations is still in progress. Knowing that
Jason is slowly moving through the college choice process, it remains to be seen whether
or not he will actually make it to college and, if so, where he will attend. And perhaps of
more importance is the question ofwhat will happen to him once he does make it to
college. It is this aspect of Jason’s educational predicament that shapes the study at hand:
how trying to make it to college without a clear sense of what lies ahead, without the
benefit of a guide to see you through, and with the feeling that ultimately you have little
control over the final outcome can determine whether one’s educational and career

aspirations are delayed, compromised, or fulfilled.

Focus of the Sttgly

Featured in the study are life history accounts of the college choice experience of
three students who chose to attend the same small, private, liberal arts college (referred to
by the pseudonym “Central College”). But the three students in featured in the study
share characteristics that differentiate them fi'om Jason. Unlike Jason, Hannah’s, Ethan’s,
and Rhonda’s notable academic performance in elementary and middle school continued
into high school. Ethan struggled a bit in high school but was still able to graduate with a
respectable grade point average. All three students scored above the national average on

the ACT. The results of a recent study suggests the greatest predictor of whether or not a

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student will attain the bachelor’s degree is the degree of “academic resources” that
students have in their background (Adelman, 1999). The effects of academic resources, a
variable that takes into account the strength of the high school curriculum and test scores,
is more pronounced than the effects of socioeconomic status. “Students from the lowest
two SES quintiles who are also in the highest academic resources quintiles,” Adelman
reports, ‘persist at a higher rate than a majority of students from the top SES quintile” (p.
vii).

The aspect that most differentiates Hannah, Ethan, and Rhonda fi'om Jason is the
outcome of their college choice experience. Unlike Jason, these three students made a
smooth transition from high school to college. Even if Jason does rmke it to college he
will more than likely not end up at a private, selective liberal arts college. In this respect
Hannah, Ethan, and Rhonda are unlike most other students with similar family
backgrounds, given what is known about the relationship between class background and
college attendance patterns. As the review of the literature will show, students from the
lower and working classes are becoming increasingly more likely to attend community
colleges and less-selective four-year colleges and universities. This growing tendency
toward increased stratification supports the earlier conclusion that “the patterns of college
choice are stitched deeply into the social and economic fabric of the nation” (Zemski and
Oedel, 1983, p. 44).

Despite these differences, Hannah, Ethan, and Rhonda share characteristics with
Jason that are of particular importance in the study of college choice. First, they are
similar to Jason in that they come fi'om homes in which neither parent attended college.

Consequently, their parents work histories, at least for those who did work, are made up

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of jobs that are not considered professional or managerial. Hannah and Rhonda share the
additional characteristic of having grown up in homes with a single mother and spending
at least part of their childhood on welfare. Rhonda’s mother did not work at all and
Hannah’s mother went to work once Hannah reached middle school, taking a job in a
nearby factory. Ethan’s parents both worked steadily throughout his primary and
secondary school years.

While the educational and work histories of Ethan’s and Hannah’s parents place
them securely in the working class, Rhonda’s background is perhaps more accurately
described as lower class. However, the differences between the conditions of the lower
class compared to the working class are less usefirl in this study than are their similarities.
Namely, the students are bound together by the educational histories of the parents and
the fact that they are not in the professional middle class. Thus, for the sake of simplicity,
Hannah, Ethan, and Rhonda will be referred to as working class students.

Second, despite the fact that their parents did not college, Hannah, Ethan, and
Rhonda knew at a relatively early age that they would attend college. Like Jason, the
three students remember thinking about going to college as early as middle school, even
though they are unable to trace their desire to go to college to a specific episode or event.
This is perhaps due to the fact that they are part of a large cohort of late twentieth-century
students who, despite the fact that many end up missing the target, at least grow up
thinking that “going to college” is where you aim. The early expression of the desire to
attend college is of particular importance given that students whose aspirations are in
place by the ninth grade are more likely to actually attend than students whose aspirations

are formed later (Hossler et al, 1998).

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The most important characteristic that the three students share with Jason is that
the stories of their college aspirations extend beyond the college choice models. Thus, in
this study I examine the relationship between family background and the fidfillment of
college aspirations. In focusing on the fulfillment of college aspirations I bring together
two aspects of the students’ experiences. First I seek to uncover the aspects of their
college choice experience, despite the fact that it ended successfully with their decision to
attend Central, are not represented in the traditional college choice scheme? Specifically,
I explore the following:

o What were the experiences within the family, with their peers, and in their

high schools that shaped their ability to get to college?

0 What resources were available to them that would help ensure that they would

actually make it to college?

0 What obstacles did they have to overcome in order to firlfill their desire to go

to college?

In keeping with the comprehensive view of college choice, the life histories cover
the range of events and experiences beginning with the predisposition toward college,
through the selection of Central College. Returning to Jason, the story of his college
aspirations will not end once he makes it to college. Only when he is able to attain the
bachelor’s degree will his aspirations be fulfilled. And the same is true for Hannah,
Ethan, and Rhonda. As such, I extend to scope of the life histories beyond their arrival at
Central College to include the delays, disruptions, and tensions that accompany their

college experience. In other words, I seek to illustrate the small margin for error facing

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working class students in the fulfillment of their college aspirations, even after they have
been successful in getting to college.

So despite the unusual nature of their choice, the primary aim of the study is not
to explain how it was that Hannah, Ethan, and Rhonda were able to make it to Central
College. Rather, the value of the study is in what these college choice “success” stories
reveal about the relationship between class, aspirations, and mobility. By examining the
effects of family life on the fulfillment of college aspirations beyond college choice we
begin to see how vulnerable these college choice success stories come to being stories of

delayed, compromised, or unfulfilled aspirations.

The Eflects of Class: Social and Cultural Capital

McDonough (1997) notes that there have been three basic approaches to the study
of college choice. Social psychological studies examine the effects of internal and
external influences on students' choices, including the students' assessment of fit with a
particular institution. In economic studies, college choice is viewed as a rational
investment decision, and rests on the assumption that families have access to perfect
information, which in turn allows them to carefully weigh the costs and benefits
associated with a particular choice. Within this strand of research two types of choices
are modeled (Hossler et al, 1989): in one type, the student chooses between college and
other non-college options; and in the other the focus is on the choice of a particular
college or university fi'om a pre-determined choice set.

By comparison, this is a study in status-attainment, meaning that the focus in on

“how the socialization process, family conditions, interactions with peers, and school

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environments shape the college choice experience” (Hossler et al, 1998, p. 144).
Underlying the status-attainment approach is an emphasis on the relationship between
social class, resources, and educational attainment. The effects of cultural capital are
manifest in part in the academic achievement of students. Schools, according to
proponents of the cultural capital view, valorize the cultural competencies of the middle
class (i.e. cultural background, knowledge, disposition, and skills [Swartz, 1977]) and
undervalues those same attributes as they are embodied in working class students.
Hence, cultural experiences in the home facilitate academic achievement for the middle
class student, thereby transforming the family's social and cultural resources into
educational "capital" (Lareau, 1987 p. 74). By converting these social hierarchies into
academic hierarchies, Bourdieu (1977) writes, the education system fulfills a function of
legitimation of the cultural capital of the middle class. Consequently, the differences
between the two groups on the measure of cultural competencies become translated into
educational distinctions based on merit.

The cultural capital framework has spawned a collection of well-known
ethnographies aimed at understanding how working class culture shapes the educational
and career aspirations of working class high school students (Willis, 1977; MacLeod,
1987; Foley, 1990). The aim of these studies was to understand, in the words of Willis,
how it is that ‘Vvorking class kids get working class jobs.” The cultural capital
fi'amework has also been employed extensively in studies of college choice. DiMaggio
and Mohr (1985), for example, attempted to assess the impact of cultural capital, defined
in this study as having "high cultural interests" and participating in "high cultural

activities [p. 1231]) on the likelihood of individuals attending college. They concluded,

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in part, that cultural capital does indeed increase the likelihood of attending college. By
facilitating access to information about educational opportunities, they argue, students are
exposed to settings in which education is valued.

Two recent studies of note are Valadez's (1996) study of the effects of cultural
capital on a group of working class community college students and McDonough's
(1997) study of how social class and high schools shape a student’s opporttmity structure.
Valadez looked at how class position, as a form of cultural capital, facilitates success in
higher education. Specifically, be explored students' definition of what knowledge is,
and how they proceed to claim the knowledge they need to know to make educational
decisions. McDonough, in examining how students formulate their choice set of
institutions, concluded that the amount and quality of pre-college guidance offered was a
reflection of the prevailing cultural values, a form of collective habitus, of the community
in which the school was located.

Despite its popularity in the educational and social science research communities,
an exact definition of cultural capital remains elusive. Bourdieu himself has used the
term to describe a number of phenomena, including informal academic standards,
indicators of class position, power resources, and class attributes (Lamont and Lareau,
1988). Lamont and Lareau (1988) offer a definition of cultural capital as "widely shared
cultural signals" in the form of attitudes, preferences, formal knowledge, behaviors,
goals, and credentials used to differentiate members from non-members (p. 156). In this
study I employ Lareau’s (1987) definition of cultural capital as "the social and cultural
elements of family life" (p. 73). This definition narrows the concept of cultural capital

while preserving the features most relevant to this study: the ability to draw on the social

15

 

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and cultural resources, both in the home and outside of it, to enhance the educational
outcomes of the children in the family.

The distinctions between social capital and cultural capital, though useful in some
contexts, are intentionally blurred in this study. In employing Lareau’s definition as
cultural capital as “the social and cultural elements of family life” I am able to take into
account the features family life that are relevant to the purposes of the study. The social
elements family life include the following:

0 Students’ peer relationships
0 Parents’ family and social networks
0 Access to community resources, including college preparation and

planning support available in the high school

The cultural elements of family are manifested in, among other things, the
family’s attitude toward and relationship with the formal system of higher education.
Specific aspects include:

o Involvement in the education of children

0 Orientation toward education, such as whether one acts as a passive
recipient of education, or one deploys resources to gain advantage

0 Knowledge of “the rules of the game” when it comes to college

An analysis framed by the social and cultural elements of family life also takes
into consideration the predisposition that develops from observing the behaviors of those
in the immediate environment (what Bourdieu [1986] refers to as habitus). Aspects of

predisposition include the use of leisure time, the availability of books in the home, and

16

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topics of dinner conversations, the result of which is a set of expectations, beliefs, and
hopes that the student comes to take for granted about his or her future.

Although working class culture is not uniform or monolithic, writes a working
class faculty member, it does socialize its member to view the world with different
beliefs, hopes, and attitudes than middle class people (Dewes and Law, 1995). In this
study the concepts of social and cultural capital are used to understand the challenges
faced by these three students in the firlfillment of their college aspirations. Though the
efl‘ects are played in different ways, the phenomenon is the same - how their working
class background shaped the construction of their day to day experiences as they moved

through and beyond “college choice.”

How Class A fleets College Choice

A review of the college choice literature shows that all things are not equal when
it comes to going to college. The effects of family background are evident in the pre-
planning stages of college choice. Stage and Hossler (1989) measured the effects of
background characteristics on parents' expectations, parents' savings for college, and
discussions with students about college. For males, fathers' education and marital status
both positively influenced the tendency to discuss college, while the strongest influence
for females was number of children already enrolled in college, which was a negative
influence. In addition, the authors found that family income and parents' education
positively influenced parents' expectations. Not surprisingly, student aspirations were

most strongly influenced by parents' expectations.

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And we know fiom a long tradition of college choice research that working class
families behave differently fiom middle class families in aspects of the search and
application phases. Gilmour (1981) interviewed college fi'eshmen, parents, and guidance
counselors. He divided the college choice process into six phases and found differences
between those students whose parents attended college and those whose parents did not
attend college in all phases of the choice process. The more significant findings are
highlighted below:

0 Of those students whose parents did attend college themselves, 52%

considered their parents as the primary influence on their decision to attend.
Of those students whose parents did not attend college, only 23% considered
their parents as the primary influence.

0 Students whose parents attended college were more likely to consult with
guidance counselors, write to colleges for information, consult with their
parents, consider academic program more heavily than cost, and develop a
longer list.

0 Students whose parents attended college were more likely to apply earlier,
apply to more institutions, and show less interest in cost.

0 Students whose parents attended college were more likely to nuke a final
choice by the winter of the senior year, be accepted at two or more
institutions, place less emplmsis on cost, and consult with parents.

Zemski and Oedel (1983) studied, among other things, the effects of parental

education on college choice. In general, they found that "students and their families

organize the process of college choice by choosing from among just a handfirl of often

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very similar institutions" (p. 30). In deciding which group of institutions to consider,
parents operate within the limits of family income and the distance of the institutions
fi'om home. Students, on the other hand, are sensitive to peer influence and tend to
consider particular institutions out of a need to "maintain a sense of social belonging" (p.
29). They conclude that college-educated parents encourage a wider range of institutions
for their children to consider than do parents who did not attend college, citing their
finding that just over 70% of the students from families in which both parents have
college degrees concentrated their college choices among regional and national
institutions (p. 32).

In an attempt to more fully understand the application, admission, and attendance
patterns of students, Manski and Wise (1983) analyzed data fiom the National
Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972, which included data from over
23,000 seniors fi'om over 1,300 high schools. Among the more relevant findings at the
application phase was that the likelihood of applying to a four-year institution increased
with high school class rank, SAT scores, and .parents’ education. Parents' income is
relatively unimportant at this stage of the choice process. They also found that most
applicants in their study were admitted to their first-choice school, and that the likelihood
of applying to a four-year institution increased with high school class rank, SAT scores,
and parents education level. Thus, the authors conclude that "self-selection is the major
determinant of attendance" (p. 4), a process which itself is heavily influenced by parents.

As one would suspect, a similar relationship exists between family background
and patterns of attendance. Thomas et al (1979) found that students whose father's had

gone to college were two-and-a-half times more likely to attend college than were those

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whose father's had not completed high school. This influence was "very strong and
consistent across all race and sex groups" (p. 139). Heam (1984) found that Blacks,
women, and lower SES students were less likely to attend the more selective colleges and
universities, even when controlling for "educationally relevant factors" (p.25). He
concluded that social characteristics at least partially influence the placement of students
within the educational hierarchy of the US, and states that "in the high school-to-college
transition, the academically and socioeconomically rich become richer while the
academically and socioeconomically poor become poorer” (p. 28).

This phenomenon was supported in a hter study (Hearn, 1991) in which he
focused on the relationship between personal characteristics and the type of college and
univeristy attended. Among the more significant findings was that student with less
educated parents were especially likely to attend lower-selectivity institutions even if
their academic ability and achievements were high (p. 164). Thus, Heam observes,
"contrary to meritocratic norms, entry into the most prestigious and selective colleges has
been found to be a function not only of test scores, grades, and the like, but of ascriptive
factors” (p. 160). “The most fundamental threats to equality of opportunity,” Heam
concludes, “may lie in the realm of choice" (p. 169).

The results fiom other research on attendance patterns by family background
point to a similar conclusion. Alexander and others (1987) found tlmt students fi'om
lower socioeconomic backgrounds have become increasingly likely to attend community
colleges rather than four-year colleges. And the same pattern holds true for when we
compare the attendance rates for students from lower socio-economic backgrounds at

elite and non-elite universities and colleges (Karen, 1991). Thus, as Karen (1991)

20

concludes, "it may be the case that the relationship between being fiom a low socio-
economic background and being located lower in the higher education hierarchy has

become stronger" (p. 218).

Conclusion: The Effects of Class

Stated simply, working class students differ from middle class students in all
phases of the college choice process. In general, working class parents are less likely to
initiate the idea of going to college than are middle class parents; working class families
begin the application process later and are more likely to look outside the home for
support with the process; and working class students apply to fewer institutions and are
more bound geography. And not surprisingly, these differences in choice behaviors
result in stratified attendance patterns. The tendency for lower and working class
students to attend community colleges and less-selective four-year colleges, when
compared to middle class students, has actually strengthened over the past decade. A
carefirl reader of the growing body of college choice research will conclude that the
meritocratic foundation on which the relationship between our system of higher
education and the hope of social and economic mobility rests is beginning to show signs
of stress.

This study exposes another area of weakness in the foundation of meritocracy: the
relationship between class background and the ability to actually fulfill one’s college
aspirations. In one sense, Hannah, Ethan, and Rhonda are a subset of the larger
population of working class kids with aspirations to attend college, in that they were able

to at least make it to a private, selective, liberal arts college. And, as has been

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demonstrated, where one attends college matters. Students who attend more selective
colleges show higher immediate gains is socioeconomic status (Smart and Pascarella,
1986) and in long-term earning potential (Grubb, 1995). So while the decision whether
or not to go to college is still the crucial one, the range of economic and social mobility is
duped in part by the decision about where to attend. If we stop telling the story at the
point of choice, then Hannah, Ethan, and Rhonda are examples of college choice success
stories.

Even considering their experiences within the traditional college choice scheme,
the three life histories provide another layer of insight into the college choice experience
by the highlighting, among other things, the difficulties faced by these three students in
actually getting to college. However, the story of a student’s college aspirations does not
end once the student nukes his or her way through the college choice model. Economic
and social mobility is possible only if students are able to fulfill their aspirations by
graduating fiom college. As such, in this study I extend the scope of aspirations beyond
college choice and into the domain of persistence, illustrating how the effects of class
continue to shape the firlfillment of aspirations even after a student has been successful in
getting to college. Thus, this study bridges the concepts of “college choice” and

“persistence” and reconstructs the two into the notion of the fulfillment of aspirations.

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The Study of College Choice

Researchers working in the domain of college choice, despite the variety of
methods by which an individual inquiry may be made, generally adhere to a common set
of assumptions about the proper study and representation of the college choice
experience. Consequently, the way the inquiry is conducted, the types of questions
asked, and the scope of application of a given study is determined by these assumptions
about what can be known about the phenomenon While I recognize the contribution
made by researchers operating within the college choice fiamework, I also recognize the
inherent limitations imposed by it: the way we understand college choice is shaped by the
way the educational and social science research community conceives of it, the methods
used to study it, and, ultimately, by the claims we can make as a result.

Though the presentation of life history I am able to present an alternative telling
of the college choice story by showing what the process looks and feels like for those
involved in it. The decision to approach the topic in this way is founded on the
recognition tlut "college choice," despite the confidence and regularity with which
educational researchers invoke it, is merely a construct fostered by educational
researchers as a way of nunaging what is in reality an idiosyncratic and complex
collection of individual experience. Hossler and his colleagues (1998) readily
acknowledge tlut college choice does not occur in a linear, predictable fashion, and that it
does not occur the same for all students. However, in order to “inform marketing
approaches and help those charged with recruiting students” (Hossler et al, 1998, p. l42),
they posit, the complexity and ambiguity of the college choice experience must to be

contained within a simple, manageable framework.

23

My purpose in conducting the study using life history is to recapture those
idiosyncratic aspects of experience tlut are left out of choice models or stage theories.
Rather than imposing the college choice template over their experience, I seek to
understand how the students themselves make sense of their college aspirations and their
college choice experience. In unpacking the notion of “aspirations” within the context of
the study of college choice I seek to restore the complexity of the experience to
complement the descriptive approach as represented in college choice models. In doing
so, I am able to reveal aspects of the aspirations of these three students that are not
typically included in the traditional telling of the college choice story: the varying degree
of certainty and specificity surrounding their expressed desire to go to college; the subtle
shades of influence coming from family, peers, and the high school; and the ubiquitous
pushes and the pulls working on and against their expressed educational and career
aspirations. This nuance of 'day to day experience, while difficult to categorize or even
contain, nevertheless contains insights that can lead to improved policy and practice. The
challenge for college choice researchers is to find a way to include some of these

variables into future college choice research.

24

 

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Methods and Procedures

Selection of Participants

With assistance from the Registrar at Central College, twelve students who
entered Central in the fall of 1995, and whose parents did not attend college, were
identified. The parents’ education level was taken fiom admissions data that became part
of the students' permanent records. Each of the twelve students was then contacted by
phone to see if they would agree to participate in a series of interviews related to their
decision to attend Central College. Of the twelve, eight agreed to participate. Those
eight students were then sent a short questionnaire asking for details about the
educational and work histories of their parents. One student was unable to participate
due to scheduling problems, which left a total of seven students who were interviewed for

the project. From the seven students, three were selected for inclusion in the study.

Participant Interviews

In gathering the data for the study, Hannah, Ethan, and Rhonda were invited to
literally tell their stories of how they got to college. The vignettes that nuke up the three
narratives are organized around difi‘erent dimensions of the students' college choice
experience. First, there is the issues related to the very act of going to college: when they
first knew that they would go to college, how they ended up at Central College, and why
going to college is important given their life predicament as they understand it. Second,
in considering the pursuit of their college aspirations, our attention turns to how the

students were able to nuke it to college: where they found for support of their college and

25

career aspirations, the resources that were available to them, and the obstacles that had to
be overcome in order to make it to college. And third, the significant events,
experiences, and relationships that take place in any or all of three contexts: the family,
the high school, and the community.

In gathering the information to construct the individual narratives I engaged the
students in in—depth, life history interviews (Seidman, 1994) over a six week period.
Each student was interviewed four times with each interview lasting from between sixty
and ninety minutes. I interviewed the students again eighteen months after the initial
round of interviews to check the accuracy of my interpretations, as well as to allow them
to offer their reflections on their experience with the project).

This interview method differs from more conventional approaches in several
ways. First, the interviewer uses primarily open-ended questions. The participants were
presented with general categories ("the family," "the community," "the high school," and
"significant others") within which they were allowed to describe events, experiences, and
relationships that were significant in the shaping of their college aspirations. Second, the
participants were invited to reconstruct their experience rather tlmn remember it. As
Seidman points out, reconstruction is based partially on memory and partially on what the
participant now senses is important about the past event (p. 67). And third, the
pmicipants were invited to offer storied responses to the questions, which includes
descriptions of the events, experiences, and relationships that were influential in shaping
their college aspirations as well as reflections on the relative significance of each.

The interviews were guided by a three-stage interviewing protocol. The first

stage of the interview process was semi-structured and allowed the participants to tell the

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story of how they came to decide to go to college, how they were able to realize their
college aspirations, and how they came to select Central College. This phase was by
design participant-centered in that the students were allowed to talk at length about
experiences and events within the three major contexts. The information gathered in the
first interview was analyzed in search of significant themes, events, or actions that in turn
served as points of departure for the second stage of the interview process.

During the second stage the participants were given the opportunity to clarify and
then elaborate on the information gathered in the first interview. This served to focus the
conversation on those aspects of the student's background that seemed to be the most
significant to them. The first task was to confirm with the participants my understanding
of the relative importance of certain events, experiences, and relationships in shaping
their college aspirations. From there I sought clarification on particular aspects of their
previous responses, including factual information and the sequence of particular events.

Finally, in the third stage the participants were invited to offer their reflections on
the relative significance of the key events, experiences, and relationships that were first
identified and then elaborated on during the two previous interviews. In other words, the
conversation shifted fi'om the descriptive to the relational aspect of the experiences that
comprised their individual stories. It was during this stage of the interview process that
we began to uncover the themes that gives unity to their stories.

As Polkinghorne (1988) reminds us, "we are in the middle of our stories and
cannot be sure how they will end; we are constantly having to revise the plot as new
events are added to om lives" (p. 150). This ins particular relevance when we consider

aspirations as evolving and fluid, rather than as a one-time event. While our stories never

27

 

 

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end, we can revisit them on occasion in light of new insights that often accompany new
experiences. As such, I visited Hannah, Ethan, and Rhonda eighteen months after our
initial meeting to provide the reader with a sense of where each of their stories (and their
lives) stand now. They were given the opportunity to offer comments on the
interpretations and conclusions drawn by the researcher. Hearing their experiences in the
context of a unified story gave the participants the opportunity to clarify pertinent details,
to reallocate the amotmt of emphasis given individual experiences, and to respond to the

conclusions about their college choice experience drawn from the individual accounts.

Writing Life Stories

Contained within each of the three narratives are elements of both ”life history"
and "life stories." With life history the researcher presents experiences in chronological
sequence, and the emphasis is placed on the significance of the experiences at the time
they happened (Rosenthal, 1993). In the context of this study the life history approach is
useful because it allows the students to "retrace their steps" and to point out those events
and experiences that were of particular significance in their college-going experiences.
From a life history perspective, the researcher attempts to tie together specific events,
conditions, and significant others in such a way that we have an understanding of how
something came about.

”Life stories," on the other hand, are regarded as but one part of a life history, the
part tint is told to another (Kotre, 1996, p. 34). Whereas life history is aimed at
explanation of outcomes, the purpose in gathering life stories is to provide interpretation

of significance and meaning from the point of view of the participant. As utilized in this

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study, the life stories shared by the students provide an additional layer of insight by
helping us to see the relative significance of certain events, as well as the relationship
between the various events, experiences, and relationships that make up the life history.
More importantly, the life story aspect of the narrative enables the students to reflect on
the significance of going to college, itself an action that is situated within a larger
narrative structure.

Because life history (the events) and life story (the narrative) always come
together, attention needs to be paid both regardless of which one is of primary interest
(Rosenthal, 1993). One the one hand we are interested in what we can learn from the
actual events and experiences related to going to college. In treating the narrative as
”data" (Sewell, 1992) we take at face value what the students tell us about their
experiences. We must assume that the accounts of that significant events, experiences,
and relationships influenced their college aspirations are accurate and that they actually
did contribute to the outcome in the way the students' perceive that they did.

The first step in organizing the interview data was to chart the flow of content
fiom one interview to the next. This was done separately for each student. To begin the
topics from each individual interview were listed sequentially in a column. The
reminder of the interviews were catalogued in the same fashion and placed in columns
alongside one another. From there, I looked to see what themes carried over from one
interviewcto the next and which ones received little or no additional mention. This
allowed me to determine which experiences were of greater significance in the larger
scheme of the college choice experience. Relationships or connections between separate

topics were also noted with the use of arrows and other visual notations.

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What emerged from this process was a visual representation of the component
parts of the narrative and their relationship to one another. This allowed me to identify
the threads that ran throughout the interview process and to see how the participants
organ'md the events, while also allowing me to discern the relative significance of each
one. As one would expect, some aspects of the story were relegated to the background,
or were discarded altogether, while others serve as central features of the narrative. It is
this core theme, comprised of both description and reflective commentary, that serves as

the organizing principle around which each narrative is constructed.

Limitations of the Study

The Limitations of Narrative Inguuy'

While the use of life history is well suited for my stated pmposes, the reader
should be aware of the limitations of narrative inquiry as advanced by its critics (see
Philips, 1994). First, it is important to remgnize that narrative inquiry deals with
perception and interpretation on the part of the participant, and, therefore, is subject to
distortion and inaccuracy. The fact that a story is credible, Philips argues, tells us nothing
about whether it is true or false. But as Philips goes on to state, the desire for truth
depends on your research purpose: ”if we want to know what about a person's beliefs
makes him or her behave in a certain way, it might be of little consequence to us that his
or her key beliefs are unfounded" (p. 19). In the context of this study, it is the persons'
beliefs, and their responses to them, that are of the greatest concerned.

Further, even in cases where the account of an event may be true, in the sense that

the participant's account is consistent with others' perceptions of the same event, the

30

interpretation of the significance of the event may be inaccurate. To state it another way,
the researcher may have a more theoretically correct interpretation of the action than the
participant -- or the participant may lmve no theoretical interpretation of the event at all.
In either case, the researcher is left to choose between the participant's own intuitive
sense of importance, and the imposition of a meaningful, more useful fiamework from
the outside.

Because of the subjective nature of perception and interpretation, and hence the
somewhat suspect nature of the stories they produce, narratives can serve as justifications
or rationalizations of behavior that is undesirable or that contradicts the image that the
participant prefers to project for him or herself. An example of this potential for
distortion is found in the story of Ethan, who frames his educational experience in terms
of his deficiency of economic, social, and cultural resources rehtive to the other students
in his school. While as the researcher I find his interpretation credible, a critic of
narrative inquiry could argue that framing his story in this way may in fact be Ethan's
way of masking the possibility that he failed to commit himself to the degree that others
did, or that he simply lacked the innate intelligence of those around him.

Lastly, Philips asks us to consider two fundamental questions in judging the value
of narrative inquiry: 1) what is the role of scientific inquiry in narrative? and 2) what
follows from a good narrative? The value of the narratives presented in this study is
found both in their capacity to stand alone as individual stories, and in their ability, when
considered collectively, to broaden our understanding of the phenomenon around which
they are organized. As individual stories, the narratives are presented as examples of the

ways in which going to college takes on meaning only when understood within the

31

077.1111 0

context of the life of the individual. Considered in this way, the three narratives are meant
to be read and understood as separate, self-contained stories, each of which adds texture

to descriptive accounts of how students get to college.

“The Problem of Induction ”

I employ the cultural capital fiamework in this study fully aware of "the problem
of induction" (Guba and Lincoln, 1994) in choosing to reduce the students' experiences to
a single interpretation. "Not only are facts determined by the theory window through one
looks for them," Guba and Lincoln write, "but different theory windows might be equally
well supported by the same set of facts" (p. 107). In truth, each story is "abou " many
things: they are working class; they are male or female; they are white; and they live in a
particular time in our nation's economic history. However, my theoretical interpretation
is intended as one version of a multi—faceted story, an interpretation well suited to the
stated purpose of this study: to inform the practice of those whose work brings them in

direct contact with working class students who aspire to go to college.

32

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Chapter 2: Hannah

"Survival means being able to take a position and withstand criticism, so you can
maintain your own identity. And in this sense my mom is not surviving. She just doesn't
have an identity all her own. She goes to work because she has to do a job she doesn't
like, in an environment she shouldn 't be in. And she does it just to survive. She hasn 't

known any other way. And I don 't want to be stuck that way. "

Introduction

The many academic awards that Hannah has won over the years are proudly
displayed on the main wall of the living room in the apartment that she and her brother
share with their mother. The wall contains ”everything I have ever won," according to
Hannah, and is the first thing people see when they enter the apartment. The awards on
the wall are a testament to the academic ability that Hannah began to show at an early
age. Hannah always enjoyed school, she recalls, and much of the work she was required
to do seemed to come naturally to her. As a result she received much encouragement
from her teachers and from some members of her family to continue on in pursuit of her
ultimate dream, which is to become a lawyer. While Hannah is proud of all that she has
accomplished up to this point, there is little doubt that a diploma from Central College

will become the center attraction on the living room wall.

33

That Hannah is now enrolled at Central is not surprising at all. Quite literally,
Hannah has known from the time she was in grade school that she wanted to go to
college. She began setting her sights on college when, in the seventh grade, she wrote a
paper on careers in the legal profession. This experience, Hannah recalls, solidified her
desire to become an attorney, an interest originally sparked by the portrayal of lawyers on
television. But Hannah's aspirations for college and career were developed beyond the
point of knowing what she wanted to be when she grew up and the recognition that, in
order to realize this dream, she would need to go to college. Hannah even knew where

she would attend college:

"I've always been interested in Central because I live in the town. To see
the kids walking back and forth to classes and see the various activities that go on,
like the football games..I always thought it was neat how college kids got to live
in dorms and got to get away from their parents, got to go to classes at various
times...They looked so grown up and it was just intriguing.

"It's odd, but -- because I grew up with it, I think it was always here, I
could always see it. I always saw some aspect of it, whether it was watching
the students paint the rock, or hanging up sheet signs, or doing the cardboard sled

race. Just everything about it."
If Hannah's choice of a college was driven largely by the desire to remain in

familiar surroundings, she had several options from which to choose. She could have

chosen to attend one of the two community colleges that are within twenty miles of her

34

home. Or she could have made a somewhat longer commute to one of the two or three
universities located within an hour's drive from the town of Central. Any of these options
would allow her to live at home and maintain her current way of life, while
simultamously fulfilling her desire to go to college. But as Hannah points out, her

expectations for the college life includes more than maintaining a sense of comfort and

familiarity:

"Even though it was my same town, I would be living with somebody and
learning to get along with them. Over the last four years living at home, it was
just me and my mom...I guess I was ready for this idea of having close friends,
and being friends forever...I had that in a sense at home, but I only had my mom.
And so we were close. So I guess what I was looking for was a living
environment so I could get away from what I lmd at home, but in a sense get the

same there."

Now in her sophomore year at Central, Hannah is doing well in her classes,
although she admits tint she was not expecting college-level work to be as demanding as
it turned out to be. But like most other students she quickly learned to devote more time
to her studies than in high school, and she has developed the self discipline needed to
handle the new freedom and independence that was handed to her when she went away to
school. Hannah has also learned to get by on less sleep than in high school, a

requirement given that she works between twenty and thirty hours per week to fill the gap

35

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between the total cost of attending Central and what she and her family are able to pay.
All of this she does so that she can maintain a full-time class load and graduate on time.
Hannah's self discipline and strong work ethic will suit her well as she continues
to pursue her educational and career goals. It is her focus on the goal of graduating from
Central, the first step toward law school, that compels Hannah to make the sacrifices
necessary for her dream to become a reality. And there have been many sacrifices.
Because of her work schedule she is unable to take advantage of many social and cultural
events available to the other students on campus. In fact, for many of the large campus
events she is required to attend as one of the "on duty" student ofiicers from the
department of campus safety. On most weekends when she is not working for campus
safety she goes to her job as a waitress at a restaurant in town. And this semester has
particularly difficult for Hannah. Whatever free time she is able to find in between work
and school she spends at home, providing comfort and support as her mother goes
through a serious of medical evaluations in search of the cause of her sudden illness.
Although other members of the extended family live in the area, Hannah feels a particular
sense of responsibility for her mother's well—being. As the only daughter Hannah and her

mother have developed a special kinship based on years of mutual reliance and support.

36

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Hannah's Story

The explanation for how Hannah ended up at Central serves as background to the
main features of her story. As we have seen, Hannah's commitment to her own education
was developed during her earliest years of schooling. Because schoolwork came rather
naturally to her, and because she enjoyed being in school, she garnered the attention of
her teachers in the form of encouragement and formal recognition. Further, her career
aspirations, defined in terms of the professional image in which she sought to create
herself, were also developed at an early age. And because she grew up in the town of
Central she developed a rather detailed and accurate image of wlut college life was
supposed to be like. It was this sense of familiarity, combined with her desire to remain
close to her home, that accounts for her decision to attend Central College.

Thus, no one had to convince her of the benefits of a college education. In fact,
Hannah has known from the time she was in the seventh grade that she was going to go to
college. Further, she received much support for her educational and career goals from
certain members of her family, and was fortunate enough to attend a high school where
students were encouraged fiom their freshman year to set their sights on college. In this
sense, Hannah's story begins with her aspirations clearly defined and already in place.

And yet contained within Hannah's story are illustrations of the difficulties she
faced in trying to nuke it to college, even though her aspirations were within her reach
academically. As a working class student with middle class aspirations, Hannah would
come to know firsthand the tension and conflict that accompanies life on the margin of

two cultures. Not only did Hannah have difficulty integrating herself into the middle class

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ethos of her high school, she must now find ways to deal with certain members of her
family, who harbor resentment over her wishes to leave behind her working class roots.
In the last section, entitled "The Origins of Aspirations," Hannah offers her
reflections on how she hopes to improve her life circumstances by going to college.
Using her mother's lifestyle as a reference point, Hannah talks about how going to college
will help her to create a version of family life different from the one she experienced with
her mother. But before she can consider starting her own family, Hannah feels she must
first establish a strong personal and professional identity. The literature on the career
psychology is employed as a framework for understanding the origins of Hannah's

college aspirations.

38

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1. Getting to College

Hannah's parents have been divorced fi'om the time she was three years old. From
that point until she entered college Hannah has shared and apartment in the town of
Central with her mother and older brother. Her mother did not work outside the home
until Hannah was fourteen years old, a choice she made out of her desire to spend time in
the home with her children. Hannah's mother, in choosing to stay at home rather than
work outside the home, was like most of the other moms in the neighborhood. "The
neighborhood I lived in," Hannah recalls, "all the moms stayed at home and took care of
the kids. So there was always a mom in every house." And, like most of the other kids in
her neighborhood, Hannah recognized the benefits of having a mother in the home.

But unlike most of the other families in the neighborhood, Hannah and her family
did not luve a father who provided for them financially. Hannah has little recollection of
her father and has had no contact with him to speak ofover the past fifteen years. She
does have vague memories of her father coming around during the first few years after
the divorce, visits related to his obligation to provide alimony and child support to
Hannah's mother. But her father made little money himself, which meant tlut Hannah,
her brother, and her mother could not count on the money always being there.
Consequently, as Hannah recalls, the family was able to get by financially, but often just
barely so. Needless to say, Hannah's father has had little positive influence in her life.

Hannah has had little actual contact with her father over the years, at least until
very recently, seeing him only periodically as a child, and even then for only brief

amounts of time. This past year, however, her father has attempted to reestablished

39

 

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contact with her. For the first time since she can remember, Hannah spent Christmas in

the company of her father:

"It’s awkward, actually. I see my father trying to fit into my life and
there’sno room forhim. BecauseI have the role model] need. I see itasthat. I
have my uncle who owns his own company. He’s successful and he’s always
there.

"I really don’t think be [my father] is ready to offer anything. I don’t
think he knows how. I’ve always seen him as kind of like a dead-beat dad in a lot
of ways. For not being there. He’s not as you see‘people getting a divorce and
the father or the mother takes them‘. you know‘scheduled weekends, every other
summer or whatever it is. He never did that. I don’t even think he paid his child

support. So, don’t come around now."

Hannah's recent contact with her father has re-ignited the resentment that had
been lingering in her mind due to her father's absence from her life. What Hannah
resents most is tlut he wasn't around to share in the joy, the excitement, and the pain as
she moved closer to her goal of going to college. "He wasn’t around in high school when
I was nuking all these accomplishments and doing everything," Hannah says with a tinge
of anger still in her voice. "It goes back to graduation and saying he was proud of me. I
thought, you have no right to be proud of me. You didn’t do anything. You weren’t

there." As far as Hannah is concerned, her father simply has been "out of the picture" too

40

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long for her to try and find a place for him now. His appearance in her life at this point

is, in her words, "too little too late."

The "Snotty" Iiigh School

Despite his absence from Hannah's life, her father left an unusual legacy that
would prove to be of vital importance in helping Hannah move toward her dream of
going to college. In her parents' divorce contract it was stipulated that Hannah and her
brother were to attend private schools through the twelfth grade. Even today, this
arrangement sounds strange to Hannah, given her father's lack of involvement in her life
otherwise. But at the time of the divorce Hannah's older brother was enrolled in a local
Catholic grade school and, according to Hannah, was doing pretty well. Her parents
attributed his success to the fact that the school was private, and thus it was agreed that
her father would pay for the first eight years of private schooling and her mother would
pay for the last four.

In order to take advantage of the opportunity to attend a private high school
Hanruh had to commute to the town of Logan. Holy Cross, a Catholic high school, is
located about twenty miles from the town of Central in an affluent suburb of Logan.
Expectations for student performance at Holy Cross are high, and the messages about the
importance of academic success and college preparation were sent early and often to
Hannah and the other students. The amount of emplusis placed on college preparation
by the high school teaching and guidance staff served as a constant reminder to the
students that the goal is not simply to graduate fi'om Holy Cross, but to gain access to a

quality college or university. Hannah remembers how they would always refer to the

41

importance of preparation and planning for the "college-bound student, affirmation that

she credits with reinforcing her own aspirations:

"My high school really pushed going to college, whether it was a
community college or a big university. They talked about colleges from your first
day until your last day...I thought that was really neat. They brought in colleges
about twice a week during the main recruiting time. And I just remember things
were always geared to help you to get into school, especially the college-bound
student...You know, you should take four years of this and four years of that.
"And we had counselors who always pulled us in and would ask ‘well, what
are you drinking about doing when you get out of here.'...They were always
evaluating the scores of your tests and exams and grades...I saw college pushed a
lot more in my high school than some of my fi'iends who went to public
schools...They weren't even talking about it in their freshman and sophomore
years, where we were and we were already sending out flyers saying we were
interested, and getting brochures...l guess that all the ideas I got about college, the

high ideals I got in grade school, were just reiterated in high school."

Looking back Hannah credits Holy Cross with fueling her college aspirations. To
begin, Holy Cross provided with the academic preparation she would need to be
successfirl in college. The classes were rigorous, she recalls, and the students were
motivated by a strong sense of competition both in and out of the classroom. Hannah

also credits Holy Cross with predisposing her to the liberal arts. "They would always

42

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bring in graduates of Holy Cross who had gone on to college and then on to successfirl
careers," Hannah recalls. "And a lot of them talked about the importance of a well-
rounded education." And just as important as the academic preparation Hannah received
fi'om Holy Cross was the time and energy the teachers and cormselors devoted to college
preparation and planning activities. Even though she came in with the desire to go to
college already in her mind, Hannah left Holy Cross with an even more deeply ingrained
image of herself as a fixture college graduate.

Hannah also benefited from being around the other students at Holy Cross. While
the attitudes of parents are most influential in shaping students attitudes toward higher
education, peers "may at least have a reinforcing effect upon each other in the choice
process" (Hossler and Gallagher, 1987, p. 211). Hossler and others (1989) suggest that
the composition of the student body in the high school leads to the formation of "peer
subcultures," which in turn influence the motivation for students to nuke plans for
college attendance (p. 239). As we might expect, relationships with college-going peers
increase the likelihood that a student will attend college (Hossler et al, 1998).

While the middle class culture at Holy Cross would ultimately serve Hannah well
in the pursuit of her college aspirations, it did not feel that way to Hannah at first. For the
fast time in her life Hannah would luve to interact on a daily basis with people whose
family backgrounds were far different from her own. Most of the students at Holy Cross
came fi'om homes where at least one parent had attended college, and many now hold
positions of relative prominence in the community. "My high school was very 'snotty,"'

Hannah remembers. "They had money and didn't think twice about not having it."

43

Despite her academic ability and her clearly defined aspirations, characteristics
that she held in common with the other students, Hannah began her experience at Holy
Cross High School very much an outsider. Coming from the town of Central, Hannah had
to fight against the prejudice that she felt greeted her when she entered the doors at Holy
Cross. "They looked at you as being different, that you were from Central, this godawful
town," Hannah remembers. In some ways, this perception of the town of Central was
accurate. Dubbed "little Detroit" by the locals because of its declining industrial base and
high level of unemployment, the conditions in Central do stand in stark contrast to the
way of life that most students at Holy Cross were able to experience in the affluent
suburb of Logan. And because she attended grade school and middle school in Central,
Hannah did not‘have the opportunity to connect socially with the students and families of
Holy Cross prior to attending there. "We didn't go through the same Logan schools that
they did and so we were different,” remembers Hannah. "And they weren't very
accepting of that, especially if you did well."

But what most separated Hannah fi'om her classmates at Holy Cross was not
geography, finances, or educational pedigrees. Her biggest fear, she recalls, was having

the shortcomings of her family life exposed for all of her classmates to see:

"Here I am trying to sit in this snotty school and I come from a single
parent home. Even though most of them probably knew my background, it's not

something you go arormd talking about. I would just hope that it wouldn‘t come

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For Hannah, the feelings of discomfort over being the outsider were present

fi‘omthe start:

"One of the first things I remember is the first day we went to school. You
know, we rode the 'Central' bus, there was a group of about 20 of us who got off
the bus. We all looked the same, we all had the same uniform on. You can‘t tell
that we are Central people, you can't tell that we weren‘t one of the Logan elite,
but it was very different. It was like when we walked into the school they just
turned and looked, and then went back to the little groups that they were talking
to...MycousinisthesameageasIamandwewereinthesamegrade,andwe
shared lockers. Sowewere walking inthe buildingarminarmandthinking
'what are we doing here,’

"Then you go to class...We had to go through and tell, you know, 'my
rurne is Hannah and this summer I did this,’ this kind of thing. I was so scared. I
was just so scared. I mean the first day was just awful. I just wanted to cry
because I felt so excluded. You'd walk into the lunchroom and everybody was in
groups at the table, and it was just my cousin and me...So we just sat in the comer

eating our lunch thinking 'what are we doing here.'”

Eventually, Hannah would come to terms with exactly "what she was doing" at
Holy Cross High School. In fact, once she came to recognize that this was exactly the
type of environment she would need to accomplish the goals she had set for herself, she

began to flourishe both intellectually and socially. Once she proved to herself that she

45

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could hold her own in the classroom, she gained the confidence and poise that made her
feel equal to her middle class peers in other ways. The risks she took in trying to become
fully integrated into the culture at Holy Cross paid off. In Hannah's words, "they came to
knowmeasjust Hannah, and not asHannah fiomthe single-parent home in Central."

Hannah's feelings of being the outsider who had to earn her way into the peer
groups at Holy Cross shaped her view of the significance of her high school experience.
It was the type of experience that would make her confront the reality that she was indeed
entering a difierem world of sorts. As a working class student she could indeed attend a
middle class high school. But Hannah didn't stop being working class once she entered
the doors at Holy Cross. But with her feelings of inferiority over her family background
safely tucked away, Hannah pressed forward in pursuit of her goals. But those same
feelings of discomfort over her backgrormd, the ones she had worked so hard to
overcome in those first few months at Holy Cross, would again surface before she left
there.

Considering Colleges

In a place like Holy Cross, college selection is considered a routine aspect of the
high school experience. Like most of the other students there, Hannah entered Holy
Cross certain in her own mind that she was going to go to college. Yet, Hannah was able
to envision her aspirations even a step further than simply expressing the desire to go.
Hannah knew, in fact, she had known for some time, that she was going to attend Central
College. Stating simply, Hannah came to believe that "college" was supposed to be like

what she lud come to know fiom years of observing the students at Central College. The

46

fact that Central is a small, residential liberal arts college made it even more appealing to
Hannah. She had the opportunity to spend a weekend in the residence balls as part of a
visitation weekend, she recalls, and that experience instilled in her the desire to become
part of a close, imimate community that she felt characterized life in the first-year
residence hall. "I thought it would be nice," Hannah remembers, "to be part of a close
knit family like that, where your door was always open and where you could cry, and it
would be okay."

All in all, Central seemed to offer just what Hannah was looking for in a college:
it was a liberal arts college, something she had come to appreciate through her experience
at Holy Cross; it was small and intimate; and, perhaps most important of all, Central was
close to home, which, Hannah believed, allowed her to "go away to college without really
going away." As far as Hannah was concerned, she could not have made a better choice.
Even if she was not able to get enough money to support herself living on campus,
Hannah was prepared to go to Central anyway, knowing that she would have to live at
home with her mother in order to do so. Whatever it would take, Hannah remembers, she
would have done it in order to realize her lifelong dream of attending Central College.
And all was going according to plan for Hannah until she realized how some of the other

students at Holy Cross approached the college selection process::

" We were in an English class working in small groups putting together
writing portfolios to send to colleges. And everyone was talking about where
they would send them. They were like, 'who's your portfolio going to, well mine's

going to the University of Michigan, Dartmouth.‘ I mean, they were everywhere.

47

 

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They were all going away, and they were all going to big universities that are
half-way across the country.

"They never said anything to me about going to CentraL but I was always
afraid that they would. It was like commuting was this bad word tlut you
shouldn‘t say. They associated it with, I thought, less of an education, like you
weren't good enough to get into a good college, so you commute. And I guess
they thought it was more economic status, like you had to commute because you

didn't have the money to go away to school. That's what I was always afraid of."

Proximity, the distance a student must travel to attend college, is an important
consideration in college selection. As Zemski and Oedel (1983) discovered, working
class students tend to consider a more narrow geographic range of institutions compared
to middle class students. Proximity takes on added significance for students whose
choice set of institutions may be limited by their life circumstances. For adult students
who work and attend college on a part-time basis, for example, the choice of a college is
limited to those that are within a reasonable commuting distance fi'om home. Stated
another way, these students simply may have no other choice. In Hannah's case the effect
of proximity on her college selection took on even greater importance. Because she grew
up in the town of Central she grew up thinking that college was supposed to look like
Central College. Hannah's decision to enroll at Central College following graduation
from high school was, in reality, a foregone conclusion.

After the episode on English class Hannah began to wonder if indeed she was

being to narrow in her thinking about where to go to college. She began to think that

48

maybe she should go away to school. "It started sinking into my head," she recalls. In
response to the perceived scrutiny from the other students, Hannah applied to St. Mary's
in Notre Dame. As Hannah points out, St. Mary's is similar to Central College in almost
every respect except that St. Mary's is all female. But the distinction that mattered most
to Hannah was tlut St. Mary's is not in her hometown. It is not even in the same state.
And the difference in location seemed to nutter. "Once I applied and got accepted,"
Hannah recalls, "it became a change in topic. People were like, 'where are you going?’
And I would say, 'oh, I might go to Central and I might go to St. Mary's.‘ And people
would say, 'oh, St. Mary's, that's cool.’ So that right there kind of changed things, the
way they looked at my decision to go to college."

Hannah did end up at Central College, but not before she called into question all
that she lud assumed was important for her to consider in selecting a college. To begin,
she wanted to renuin close to home so that she could be near her mother. And as the first
in her family to go to college, the opportunity to do so in an environment that was
familiar to her gave her a sense of comfort that took away many of her fears about
college. And as a liberal arts college, Central would offer her the type of educational
experience she felt she needed to achieve her personal and professional goals. What
Hannah did not anticipate was tlut her desire to attend Central, despite all the benefits of

doing so, would serve as yet another reminder of her working class background:

"I didn't want them to think that if I wasstaying at home it was because of

the money issue. That probably played into it a lot. It sounds odd, but in high

49

 

 

 

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school you have all kinds of things to worry about, including the way people look

at you. "

Hannah's experience at Holy Cross brought her face to face with her feelings of
inferiority about her social and economic background. Through the course of her
experience she learned about the psychological and emotional conflict that accompanied
her middle class aspirations. Attending a middle class high school and harboring college
aspirations, Hannah would learn, does not mean that you suddenly stop being working
class. Whether or not the other students at Holy Cross viewed Hannah and the other
students fiom the town of Central with disdain, her own feelings of insecurity over her
family background dramatically shaped her high school experience. She found herself in
a situation where her ability to benefit was potentially hampered by her perception of
herself as an outsider, in constant fear that the subject of her background would find its
way into casual conversation. Yet, despite the trepidation with which she entered Holy
Cross, in the end she flourished. So for Hannah, the most important thing she took away
fi'om Holy Cross my not be the diploma, but rather the sense of accomplishment
knowing that she had navigated her way through the first stretch of unfamiliar cultural

territory on her way to realizing her middle class aspirations.

50

Preparing for College
Hannah responds with warm admiration as she remembers the reaction of her

mother whenever an envelope with the return address of a college arrived in the mail.
"She would get so excited," says Hannah. "She would always say 'is this the one, is this
the one.’ She just didn't know how the process worked." Her mother's excitement was in
anticipation of the news Hannah had been waiting for. Hannah had applied to Central
College months before, and now, as her senior year at Holy Cross was drawing to a close,
she was waiting to find out if she was going to be allowed to pursue her lifelong dream of
attending Central College. Up until this point, her mother had not been actively involved
in Hannah's college selection. "I know that my mom gave me the decision to go
anywhere," Hannah recalls. "She said it's your decision, you know about college, I don‘t
know anything. But wherever you go I'll back you." Sharing Hannah's excitement over
getting accepted to Central was one way that her mother would be able to participate in
this important phase in Hannah's life.

The excitement over Hannah's impending news was her mother's way of
"backing" Hannah, and is a good illustration of how she would find ways to become
involved in the educational lives of her children. Hannah remembers her mother always
being supportive of anything she or her brother did. "She went to any activity, any event
that we had," says Hannah. "That's one of the positive sides of not having to work." In
her desire to push Hannah along toward her goal of attending college, Hannah's mother
showed interest in Hannah's academic life any way she could. The support continues
today, and Hannah attributes much of her own diligence in pursuing her educatiorul and

career goals to these expressions of support offered by her mother. Lacking the

51

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wherewithal to do so in concrete ways, Hannah's mother expressed her support for

Hannah's college aspirations in ways that were familiar to her.

"I think that's one of the reasons why I‘m still in college because every
time I pass a semester and my grades go home, my mom opens them and she's
like 'wow, you're doing so well in college, I could never do that.‘ That's a phrase
she comes up with a lot, 'I could never do something like that.‘ She has ideas that
college is some place, you know, for the gifted. Only certain people can go there
and if you survive its this magnificent thing."

"But most of her support was verbal. Because the homework I was doing,
she had no clue. I did well in high school so the support was mostly when grades
came, or when I received an award. I mean she always made sure she got the day
off and attended the ceremony. Just always being there. Like if I had a bad
grade and I canre home upset she would make me dinner or something and tell me

it would be OK, that she knew I could do it."

Parents become involved in the educational lives of their children at different
levels (Epstein, 1995). At the lowest level parents provide for the basic needs of the
children at home. This includes making sure that students receive proper nourishment
and rest so that they are able to attend school on a regular basis. When they are able,
parents may become involved more directly and more visibly by serving as a volunteer or

by supporting events that take place at the school. Moving along the involvement

52

C02”;

I a‘r

‘1
Int.

continuum, parents my choose to participate in the learning activities of the students.
Examples of this type of involvement include attending teacher conferences, helping with
homework, and, when necessary, attending meetings at the school to discuss the
individual educational plans for their student. At the highest level, parents will deploy
community, family, and school resources to enhance the education of their children.

A parallel scale of parental involvement is useful for understanding how parents
shape and nurture the college aspirations of their children. At the lowest level, parents
will express what might be called "benign support" for their children's educational and
career aspirations. This usually takes the form of statements that parents will support
their children in whatever they decide to do, even if the choice made by the student does
not involve going to college. From there, parents my become more direct in shaping
college aspirations by verbally expressing their desire for their children to attend college.
At the higher levels of involvement parents begin to deploy resources to enhance their
children's chances to attend college. For some families the goal is not simply to go to
college, but to nuke it to the best college possible. The deployment of resources at this
level takes various forms, ranging fiom the purchase of a home computer, to the
establishment of college savings accounts, to the enlistment of tutors and test preparation
courses for the ACT and the SAT.

Hannah appreciates at the deepest level the fact that her mother was always there
to support her academic pursuits, whether in the literal sense by taking time off fiom
work to attend awards ceremonies, or in the emotional sense by sharing Hannah's
excitement as she waited to get accepted into college. But as Hannah would discover, the

verbal encouragement she received fi'om her mother, while vital to Hannah's emotional

53

well-being, was not sufficient to ensure that she would nuke it to college. Stated another
way, her mother's verbal and emotional support was not matched by the actions required
to see that she would make it to college. The limitations of her mother's support were felt
by Hannah at the most basic level as she found herself trying to negotiate a process that
was complete unfamiliar to both her and her mother. But when it came to getting ready
to go to college Hannah was fortunate to have someone who could compliment the verbal

encouragement she continued to receive from her mother:

"I remember sitting at the dining room table with my typewriter trying to
answer these questions on the college applications, and my mom would want to
help me because she could see that I was fi'ustrated, but I couldn't ask her because

I knew that she wouldn't know. So I would call my uncle."

Seeking Approval: Extending the Support Continuum

Hanruh describes the Emily environment in which she grew up as supportive,
loving, and caring. Hannah feels that in a way her mother's side of the Emily, most of
whom live in the town of Central, pitched in to compensate for what might have been
lacking due to the absence of a father in Hannah's home. To this day, members of her
extended family get together to celebrate birthdays, holidays, and other special occasions.
One of the things Hannah appreciates most about her aunts and uncles is the nature of her
relationship with them. They really were, as Hannah says, more than just "extended"

family. They showed an interest in the each other's lives, and saw it as part of the

54

obligation to the larger Emily unit to help in the raising of each other's children. "Even
though I came fiom a single parent home," says Hannah, " I was still taught to love, obey,
and respect other people." As a result of this close kinship Hannah feels a deep sense of
connection and belonging with the members of her Emily, both the immediate and the
extended one.

Hannah enjoys a special relationship with one uncle in particular. He, too, lives
in the town of Central and has been involved in Hannah's life from the time she was very
young. Hannah is especially close to her uncle in part because he has a daughter who is
thesameageasHannah. Growingupinthesametown, Hannahandhercousinwere
virtually inseparable. They spent many days and evenings together in their younger days,
and even now they talk on the phone almost daily. To Hannah, her cousin is the closest
thing she has ever had to a sister.

Hannah has come to value her relationship with her uncle even more over the past
few years. As she began to think more seriously about going to college, she found herself
turning to him more and nrore for support. Her mother's support continues to encourage
Hannah forward in pursuit of her educational goals, but there is something different about
the support she receives from her uncle. Unlike the other members of her extended
family, Hannah's uncle went to college, graduated, and, as a result, now owns his own
business. It is hard to describe the difference in precise words, Hanruh acknowledges,
but the best way she can describe her relationship with her uncle is to say that he treated

her just like a father would:

55

"He's always asking me 'are you still going to be a lawyer; are you doing
this, are you doing that.’ He's done that since grade school. There would be times
when I would be talking to my cousin on the phone, and he would pick up the
other phone and be like, 'girls, don‘t you think you should be doing homework,’ or

he'd pick up the phone and ask if I had gotten any letters back and how the

application process is going."

In surrogate fashion, Hannah's uncle was able to step in and provide the tangible
forms of support to complement the verbal encouragement Hannah was receiving from
her mother. First, he helped Hannah with the application process itself. "He was on me
from the first day of my junior year about applying to colleges," Hanruh recalls. He also
provided financial support to Hannah by paying the application fee and the tuition deposit
that would allow Hanruh to apply to Central. Even now, as Hannah is beginning to think
more seriously about law school, his support continues. Through his regular contacts he
keeps tabs on Hannah's academic progress, knowing full well the importance of good
grades in getting into graduate school. Because he had been through it himself, Hannah
says, he wants to nuke sure that she is doing it right so she could get into the law school
of her choice.

Hanruh knows that without the material support she might not have been able to
afford to go to college at all. But beyond providing the nuterial support and guidance
that she needed in the college selection and application processes, she appreciates her
relationship with uncle for the intangible ways that he supports Hannah's career

aspirations. Perhaps it is this aspect of their relationship, the informal yet persistent

56

conversations about colleges and careers, that Hannah appreciates most. "Compared to
my mom," declares Hannah, "he seemed to ask the right questions. He got me making
sure that I was on the right track. "

Indeed, Hannah is on track to realize her educational and career aspirations.
Wlut her uncle has provided are the intangible forms of support that emanate from his
own educatiorul history. But the most important contribution that her uncle has nude to
Hannah's educational and career aspirations defies easy categorization. Hannah's own
intuitive sense tells her that her life is headed in the right direction. But what she was not
able to get from her mother was the validation that can only come from someone who has
been where you want to go, who understands what it takes to get you there, and who is

willing to invest themselves in your dream:

"I was always looking for his approval on things that I did, things that I
didn't do. Because I didn't have my dad to go to do that. And also, because he
had gone through college. He'd been there before and he knew what was going
on. It was that kind of support from a person who had aheady been through what
I wanted to go through. And I always thought that I was doing something right
when he would say 'good job,‘ or showed interest in what I was doing or in what I
wanted to do.

"It's always easier when it comes from somebody who knows you. He
treats me just like a father would. It's really nice. He still keeps in touch with me,

he'll call and I'll have a voice nuil message from him like, 'you'd better be doing

57

well in school, can't wait to see those grades.’ That kind of thing. He's always

been there."

Conclusion: "Who Does She Think She Is? "

We have long recognized the importance of parental support and encouragement
in shaping the college aspirations of young people. Not surprisingly, “parental
expectations” is the most influential Ector in determining whether or not a student will
aspire to go to college (Stage and Hossler, 1989). But when it comes to college choice
activities, students whose parents attended college, the primary determinant of the Emily
socio-economic status, differ from students whose parents did not in important ways.
Murphy (1981), for example, found that parents who had attended college themselves are
much more likely to initiate the idea of attending college than are parents who did not.
Stage and Hossler‘ (1989) found that parents' education level positively influenced
educational planning activities, such as parents' savings for college and discussions with
students about college. In a later study Hossler and his colleagues (1998) confirmed the
importance of these pre-college planning activities in increasing the likelihood of college
attendance.

Perhaps encouraged by her early academic success, Hannah's mother knew that
Hannah displayed the aptitude, the ambition, and the determination to "nuke something
of herself." And, as one who knew firsthand the drudgery and alienation of life in the
factory, Hannah's mother committed herself to doing everything in her power to see to it

that Hannah would have a better life than what she was able to provide for her. Thus,

58

despite the fact tlut neither of her parents attended college themselves, Hannah knew
from the time she was in grade school that she was destined for college.

Hannah's ability to realize her college aspirations is shaped by a combination of
influences. In terms of the influence of the Emily members on Hannah's ability to get to
college, her mother and uncle each in their own way are significant in Hanruh's life. The
verbal and emotional support offered by her mother and the guidance and direction fiom
her uncle each show the vital role that family members play in the development of
college and career aspirations. But at the same time, the ways in which Hannah's mother
and her uncle express their support for of her educational and career goals points to an
important distinction between active support on the one hand, and verbal encouragement
on the other.

The verbal encouragement offered by Hannah's mother represents her best effort
at contributing to the eventual success of her daughter. Fortunately for Haruuh, she was
able to look to her uncle to compensate for her mother's lack of resources. In essence, the
different types of support given by mother and her uncle illustrates the difference
between wanting the best for your children and knowing how to actually make it happen.
This disconnect between parents' high aspirations for their children on the one hand, and
the required knowledge, experience, and resources to Ecilitate the process of getting into
college on the other is critical to our understanding of the various roles Emilies can play
in helping students realize their college aspirations.

Indeed, the types of support Hannah received for her college aspirations span the
continuum. The encouragement shown by her mother and the support provided by her

uncle, each in their own way, have proven to be vital in helping Hannah succeed. If she

59

continues in her current direction she will indeed graduate fi'om Central College, and she
hopes to add to this accomplishment the distinction of graduating with honors. She hopes
to nuintain her level of performance as she leaves Central and goes on to law school.
Seemingly, the long journey toward the type of firture she wants for herself is well
underway. But there remains one more obstacle that Hannah must overcome if she is to

continue on in the pursuit of her college and career aspirations:

"It's weird because I get in different places I get really mixed support. I
mean] get the most support from my uncle and his wife, and my mom. But
outside of that they think that I'm crazy, you know, they think that - I'm weird.
Probably because I'm doing it and I'm going into debt. And I'm going into debt to
get a degree to go into law school but they don't see it that far. They just think 'oh
my gosh, she's paying how much to go to college and what is she actually
learning fi'om it.‘ Because they don't know.

"They don't know anything about the college life and so it's odd to them
and they think it's odd for someone like me to do it all by yourself and - it's
strange because I get support when I do something really great, like when I bring
home really good grades. But if] have a bad semester, and I beat myself up over
it, they're like 'what are you doing in college.’ 80 you get this kind of mixed,
strange support going on. Whereas people who have supported me fiom the

beginning are like 'it's OK, you'll do better next semester.’ "

60

As Billson and Terry (1982) point out, "the new values and behaviors tlut first-
generation students must develop if they are to achieve their long-term goals of securing
white collar or professional jobs carry some degree of conflict with the norms of their
families and peers in the community of origin" (p. 67). Despite the range of support
provided by her mother and uncle, Hannah must deal with the resentment from other
members of her extended Emily over her desire to "become something better." She fully
recognizes that in pursuing her career goals she is choosing to give up the way of life to
which she is accustomed. She is also fully aware that the rejection of her Emily's
lifestyle that is implied in pursuit of her career aspirations does not sit well with
everyone. This balancing act reminds Hannah that while she has publicly expressed her
desire to become middle class, she must maintain relationships with those Emily

members whose lifestyle she is trying to leave behind:

"I think tlut maybe they think I treat them like they're not good enough
Like when] go to Christnus dinner, they're like 'she just doesn't want to be like
us. What's wrong with her, what's wrong with the way we live.’ But I think there
issomethingwrongwiththewaythey live. Iwanttobe-n-Imean, whatarethey
doing? I guess if they're happy, then no there's nothing wrong with the way they
live...But if they're not happy, then yeah, there is something wrong with it. If all

they care about is me Eiling then they're obviously not happy."

61

I]. "The Professional Woman"

Hannah has talked about becoming a lawyer fiom the time she was eight years
old. At the age of eight Hanruh's desire to become a lawyer is perhaps no more
significant than my four year old son's current plans to become a firefighter. His
knowledge about what firefighters do is based on what he has observed in movies and in
books. While he may decide later in life to pursue something else, from where he sits
right now the appeal of sirens, hoses, and rubber boots is strong enough to shape his
desire for what he wants to be when he grows up. Similarly, Hannah's understanding at
that early age of what it means to be a lawyer lacked any real substance. What she knew
about the legal profession was limited to what she was able to learn about the work and
lifestyle of lawyers from how they were portrayed on television. Hannah may not have
understood much about the work that a lawyer does, but, as she recalls, "it was cool when
you were eight to walk around and tell your friends that you were going to be a lawyer
when you grow up."

Hannah's dream of becoming a lawyer has endured. In Ect, as Hannah worked
her way through junior high and then high school her resolve to achieve her goal grew
even stronger. No doubt encouraged by her early academic success, Hannah continues to
do well academically at Central College. She is beginning to think about preparation for
the LSAT, which she plans to take some time within the next year. Hannah has also been
talking to her uncle, himself a college graduate and successful businessman, about her
goals. He has been a key figure in Hannah's life, especially in the support he has shown

for her educational aspirations fiom the time she was in grade school. Tlunks in large

62

in:

of

l

."f

(I)

part to the support of her uncle, Hannah's dream of becoming a lawyer, once a childhood
fantasy drawn from television, day by day moves ever closer toward becoming a reality.
Hannah plans to pursue another dream following graduation fi'om law school.
WlutHannahwantsasmuchasanything inlife isto marryandhavea Emily ofher own.
She loves spending time with children, often volunteering to baby-sit for the children of
Central College faculty and staff members. But when Hannah decides that she is ready to
start her own Emily it will not be at the expense of her other priorities. "A Emily will
have to fit into the plan somewhere along the line," she says, "but I want to do something
more than just stay at home." Having grown up in a single parent home, Hannah saw
firsthand the consequences of placing family over career. To Hannah, her mother's
decision to stay at home rather than work outside the home has robbed her mother's soul

of any sense of personal identity. Stated in Hannah's words, her mother is not surviving.

Mothers and Daughters

The mother-daughter relationship is a critical aspect of the psycho-social
development of adolescent women (Rainey and Borders, 1997). One area where the
effects of this relationship are manifested is in the development of the self-concept of the
adolescent woman (Gilligan, 1982). Adolescent women, Gilligan argues, develop a
strong sense of identification and affiliation with the primary caregiver, which for most is
the mother. As a result of this close affiliation and identification with their mothers,
adolescent women develop the ability to empathize with others, to try and understand
circumstances and their effects as others experience them. In the reahn of moral decision

making, adolescent women, as a result of their highly developed sense of empathy, tend

63

r01

sir:

dc

to focus on the relational aspect of situations where a framework for moral decision
making is needed. In practice, this means that rather than making moral judgments
simply on the basis of objective standards of right and wrong, women first seek to
understand the motivations of the person who commits the act in question. Rather than
deciding whether stealing a loaf of bread is wrong, women might reason, let us first seek
to understand the circumstances of the person involved that would lead them to steal.

This work in the realm of women's moral development causes us to consider how
the personal identification daughters develop with mothers leads adolescent women to
define their own self-concept in the context of this relationship. One important aspect of
the mother—daughter relationship we can discuss with a great deal of confidence is its
influence on the career choices of adolescent women (O'Brien and Fassinger, 1993). In
the most general of terms, the career choices of adolescent women are characterized by
the extent to which they develop a strong career orientation versus a strong family
orientation. One of the strongest predictors of a career orientation in adolescent women
is the presence of a "pro-feminist attitude." High ability women, like Hannah, who
possess a pro-feminist attitude are likely to Evor nontraditional, high prestige jobs over
traditional, "feminized" occupations (F assinger, 1987, 1990).

Thus, it is apparent that the relationship between mother and daughter is crucial in
the development of career aspirations in adolescent women. At the most basic level, the
career choice of women is characterized by the extent to which they display a strong
family orientation versus a strong career orientation (Fassinger, 1987). As we nright
expect, one of the strongest predictors of the development of a career orientation in

women is the presence of a "feminist orientation," defined in part as the presence of

liberal gender role attitudes (Fassinger, 1990). This characteristic, along with high ability
and the presence of agentic characteristics successfully predict high levels of career
orientation, as well as career choices that were high in prestige in adolescent women
(Fassinger, 1990).

Theoretical explanations of the influence of the mother-daughter relationship on
adolescent women's career identity development divide into two camps. Psychoanalytic
explanations emphasize "daughters' unconsciousness internalization of maternal values
and behaviors, as well as the meaning of these values and behaviors" (Boyd,l989, p.292).
The consequences of close identification of the daughter with the mother, argues Boyd,
are felt as adolescent women begin the process of separation and individuation. During
this time adolescent. women begin to develop their own self concept, a process that
requires them to first define themselves in relation to the values and behaviors they see
expressed by their mothers. This process of separation, the time when adolescent women
begin to differentiate themselves fiom their mothers, serves as the backdrop against
which women begin to develop their own views toward, among other things, the
relationship between gender, Emily, and work.

Social learning theorists, on the other hand, rely on the principles of modeling to
explain the process by which young women come to identify with their mothers. By
having their imitative beluviors reinforced during early adolescence, young girls
eventually internalize the mothering behaviors as their own. Viewed in this way, young
women literally learn to be like their mothers. Regardless of the theoretical explanation,
Boyd writes, the mother-daughter relationship is the primary influence in shaping the

self-concept of adolescent women. One area where this relationship takes on particular

65

 

simific

fascia

life

mi

significance is in the development of views toward gender roles. Using their mother as a
baseline, adolescent women begin to form their own views of the relationship between
gender, work, and identity. In Hannah's case, her mother's expression of her identity
served as a backdrop against which Hannah began to develop her own sense of gender
and work.

"Part of my reason for wanting to be a lawyer," Hannah recalls, "was because at
that age my mom was at home." Granted, there was nothing unusual about her mother
being at home while Hannah was growing up. Hannah didn't know anything different
because, as she puts it, "everybody else's mom was at home doing the same thing. I
didn't know wlut else to expect." As might be expected, her mother was the first real role
model that Hannah bad. But Hannah would soon discover another role model, one whose
choices were very different fiom her mother's and, by consequence, whose very way of
life was vastly different that what Hannah had come to know with her mother. "80 I had
my mom," says Hannah, "and that was good enough for a while." But then, as Hannah

puts it, this striking woman rolled into her neighborhood, "this knight in shining armor;"

"We had a neighbor that was really good fi'iends with my brother. She's
an interior designer and she is just brilliant. She is a professional and she owns
her own business, and any time I talked to her I was just in awe. You know, look
what she's done. She went through college and she did this and she did that.
She's doing it for herself because she enjoys it.

"...I was really impressed with her. I was young and she used big words

andIhadnocluewhattheymeant. Andtoseeherwhensheleftthehouse,she

66

was always dressed so perfectly, had this briefcase, the portfolios with designs in
them. Toseeherworkandto go inandseetheofficethatshehad inherhome
with the big drafting board. It was cool, you know? Every other mom on the
block they just stayed at home and did laundry and cooked and cleaned and she
didn't do that. I mean she did that too when she came home, but to see all of that
was just like 'wow,’ you know, 'a woman can do it.’ And I want to do it. I wanted

to be a professional woman."

The differences between her mother and her neighbor were stark. What Hannah
saw in her neighbor was a strong personal and professional identity, one based on a solid
educational foundation. She was impressed with the fact that her neighbor had waited
until she was forty before starting her Emily. What this said to Hannah was that it was
indeed possible to work 3 Emily around a career. And her neighbor seemed to make it
work. She appeared confident in the way she carried herself, she was professionally
competent and, above all else, she seemed to genuinely enjoy her work. By contrast,
Hannah saw in her mother the consequences of missed opportunity brought on by
extreme self-sacrifice. "I saw that my mom was just, you know, a mom and raising kids,"
recalls Hannah. "I decided right there that just wasn‘t me. I'm glad mom stayed home
with us, but I couldn't see myselfdoing that."

As Hannah reflects on her aspirations for college and career she points to the one
aspect of her background that she identifies as exerting the most influence on the
development of her strong career orientation is her mother's life circumstances. Hannah's

ambivalence toward her mother's way of life centers on the void between the separate

67

worlds in which they seemed to live. Thus, the orientation toward family as expressed by
her mother held little appeal for Hannah as she began to imagine the type of relationship
she desires to have with her own children. By going to college Hannah hopes to develop
the parental voice that will allow her to participate in the daily lives of her children in a

more meaningful way:

"I felt like it was very hard to talk to her about things because she wouldn't
understand. It's not that I think my mom is stupid, but things like current events,
current issues, she couldn't relate to. And I began to link tlut to her staying at
home...She was always home, always there. I saw other parents who worked,
they were able to relate to issues. I just began to think that she was so secluded in
this house, never did anything without us, and because of that she was so isolated.

"If there was something that we had to talk about in school, or that we had
to write about and I didn‘t understand, or] didn‘t know which side I was on, I kind
of wanted to be able to talk to her about it and say 'well, what do you think.’ And
she didn't have an idea, or couldn‘t tell me what it was or what it was about. I just
thought that was something that was missing in our relationship. Because other
people could go home and talk to their parents about it. And I think I missed out

on that. I think we could have been closer...1n high school we weren't that close."

The story of family life was conveyed to Hannah in the form of the words and

actions of her mother. First and foremost, her mother's story is one of traditional gender

roles. Watching her mother she began to question the "selflessness" that characterized

68

her mother's commitment to her family. While she appreciated having her mother at
home, Hannah nevertheless preferred a more balanced approach to the family-career
continuum. One aspect of family life Hannah feels she missed out on is a core set of
beliefs and values on which the members of her Emily could agree. To Hannah, one of
the most important responsibilities of parenthood is to provide a baseline of values that

guides the decisions of the children:

"I see a lot of kids having the same ideas or the same beliefs about issues
as their parents because they were able to talk about it...They were able to show
their kids, you know, 'I see the connection, I see that point.’ Whereas I didn‘t have
anyone like that to talk to and I just think tlut's a vital connection. When you
have questions about something you should be able to answer it to the best of
your knowledge, and I think that my mom didn't have that knowledge because she
was so isolated.

"I think that ideas about certain issues are kind of like values that get
passed down fi'om one family to another. And I think that I missed that because
my mom wasn't aware of it. I didn't have anyone to guide me in my thinking,
didn't have anyone to say 'well, legally this is right and legally this wrong.‘
Whereasisshewasabletotalkaboutitshewouldbeableto say'I see itthisway
andIthinkthat it'sthebest because ofthis.‘ Andsolhadtotalkaboutthese
issues, or to think about these issues, I had to do it myselfand establish my own

opinions, which is good in a way, but it's that missing out on the family link."

69

Despite the benefits of having her mother at home, Hannah feels tlut in the final
analysis both she and her mother missed out on a critical aspect of Emily life. The sense
of loss runs deeper than the inability to talk about current events, or even the missed
opporttmity to be closer to her mother. What is lacking in the relationship Hannah shares
with her mother is the one aspect that for Hannah is most crucial in her view of the family
life: the opportunities for parents and children to participate in the shared construction of
systems of values and meaning. "It is through attentive love," Belenky writes, "the
ability to ask 'what are you going through? and the ability to hear the answer that the
reality of the child is both created and respected" (p. 189).

Whathermotherwasnotabletodowastoprovideanatmospherewheresheand
Hanruh could work together to create a common ground on which a Emily identity could
be forged. The common ground for Hannah is not necessarily a forum within which her
mother could impart a prescribed set of values and standards to guide her life. Rather,
Hannah longed for a common ground defined as a forum for conversations, where she
and her mother were equal participants in sustained parent-child dialogue. To put it
another way, what was missing in Hannah's relationship with her mother was the parental
voice that would enable her mother to participate in the creation of Hannah's story.
"Daughters," Belenky states, "wish their parents to luve voices of their own so that they

might be full participants in an ongoing conversations" (p. 176).

"I think that I would like to have a Emily and be able to raise the child

with the same values. That's part of the identity of the family, I think. And tlut

it'snotsomuchtosaytluttheyhavetoseeitthesameway,buttheyneedtobe

7O

aware of how ] would see it. I just think that they would have a better
understanding.

"Whenl have children] want to nuke sure that I always know what's
going on, not only in their school but the world that they live in. I see it as two
different generations have two different worlds. And my mom was kind of stuck
in her world. She didn't take an active way to try to nuke this bridge between our
worlds. And that's what was really hard. Because when I had a problem she was
like 'we didn't have that kind of problem in school.’ And I want to make sure that
when] luve kids that I know what's going on in their world and how it's different

and learn how to maybe help them or show them that, you know, it's OK."

The "significant other" can play a role in shaping the college choice experience at
various points along the way. Indeed, significant others play a central role in the
Hannah's story of how she was able to realize her aspirations by making it to college.
The person who lud the most direct influence on Hannah's ability to nuke it to college is
her uncle. In addition to the direction he provided in the college selection process and the
financial assistance he provided so that Hannah could complete the application process,
the significance of that relationship continues in other ways. The periodic calls to offer
encouragement, his insistence on seeing her semester grades, and the gentle prodding she
receives to nuke sure she is on track in the law school application process all remind
Hannah that she is not alone in the pursuit of her aspirations.

But there is present in Hannah's story the presence of a significant other of

another sort. Hannah's neighbor, whom she refers to as the "professional woman," played

71

no direct role in helping Hannah get to college, nor did she influence Hannah's decision
to attend Central College. Further still, her neighbor provided no material support. Yet,
her presence of in Hannah's life profoundly shaped Hannah's educational and career
aspirations. Rather than exerting influence in the form of direct involvement in her life,
her neighbor projected an image that Hamuh would use to define the kind of life she
hoped to create for herself by going to college. For Hannah, the image of the
"professional women" as projected by her neighbor was crucial in helping her to imagine
herself living an adult life other than the one she saw expressed by her mother.

As a smart, ambitious, career oriented woman, Hannah faces the challenge
confronting most college women today whose desire it is to "have it all" (Machung,
1989). In this sense we can view Hannah's college aspirations as an expression of her
feminist views toward women and work. Within this framework we can understand
Hannah's aspirations for law school as the rejection of the traditional gender roles as
expressed by her mother, an orientation manifested in her desire to "do something more
than just stay at home." But while Hannah's career orientation will indeed allow her to
construct a work identity different than tlut of her mother, there is another aspect of her
college aspirations related to her new image of the "professional woman." In addition to
allowing her to find meaning in her work, Hannah's college aspirations are significant in
helping her build and maintain a strong identity, for both herself and the Emily she hopes
to have soneday.

In the final analysis, Hanruh recognizes the conflict and tension tlut often
accompanies the educational and career aspirations of adolescent women. For Hannah,

the options fi'om which she can choose in defining her educational and career aspirations

72

are personified in her mother and her neighbor, the two women whose lives Hannah
knows best, and whose own choices Mve sharpened Hannah's thinking on what she
wants to accomplish in her life. She has weighed the benefits and the costs of each
choiceinhermind,and ismoreconvinced nowthaneverthattheonly way tobetrueto
herself is to keep her eyes on the prize she identified back when she was eight years old.
And Hannah Ms not lost sight of the Ect that her ability to continue on in the pursuit of

her career goals is due in large part to her mother's willingness to sacrifice her own:

"My mom would always tell me that she was at home for me. I loved

Mvingmymomathome,itwasgreat. Butnowthatllookbackonitlfeeltlut

maybe it deprived her of something she could Mve done."

73

III. "Trying to Survive"

The mother-daughter relationship provides a usefirl fiamework for understanding
the origins of Hannah's college and career aspirations. Through Hannah's reflections we
begin to understand the complex ways in which her own career aspirations continue to
develop against the backdrop of her relationship with her mother. On the one Mud, her
aspirations for college reflect a strong career orientation, a preference developed at an
early age, and which was strengthened as she became more aware of the limitations of
being a "stay-at-home" morn. With the help of her college-educated, career-oriented
neighbor, Hannah was able to see a new model for the working-women, one in which
career success and professional fulfillment serve as the foundation upon which a strong
personal identity is formed.

While a college degree is the first step toward Hanruh's goal of becoming a
"professional woman," there is aspect of college aspirations that speaks to another, less
apparent expression of her feminist orientation. In response} to her predicament Hannah
is attempting to create a new story of the Emily life in contrast to her mother's. Hannah's
image of the Emily life is founded on the ability of parents to bridge the gap between
themselves and their children, to provide moral and ethical guidance, and to impart a set
of values. Thus, Hannah's desire is to create this new version of Emily life for herself
and her children, one in which parents and children together build a Emily identity
around the shared construction of systems of meaning. In this sense, going to college
will provide her with the credential necessary to continue on in pursuit of her ultimate

career goals and, more importantly, will provide her with the parental voice necessary to

74

participate firlly in the lives of her children. Her decision to attend college, her desire to
become liberally educated, and her image of the lifestyle that will accompany her status
as a lawyer are all moving her toward this new version of the family life, a version
founded upon her own story of the relationship between gender, work, and identity.

A degree fiom Central College, then, represents many things to Hannah. At the
most basic level graduating fiom college represents something unique in her Emily, as
she will become the first in her immediate Emily and only the second in her extended
family to earn a college degree. Her college degree also represents an important step in
acquiring the credential necessary to gain access to law school. In this sense, a degree
from Central represents a first step toward life as a practicing attorney and her standing as
a professional wonun. But graduating from a liberal arts college means something much
more profound to Hanruh tMn racking up another academic accomplishment or
enhancing her opportunities for law school.

By going to college Hannah hopes to avoid the shortcomings of her mother's
decision to stay at home and raise children. In Hannah's estimation, the only way to
ensurethatsheismoreopen—mindedtlunhermotheristo pushherselfinto unfamiliar
academic and intellectual territory. She looks forward to her last two years at Central in
part because of the cMnges she knows will take place within her. "I Mve positions and
opinions on certain issues now, she explains, "but I know that with two years left those
views will probably change.” One view that she knows will not change is her resolve to
expose herself to "everything that's out there" so as to strengthen the relationship between
her and her own children. For Hamuh the college degree will provide her with the

foundation upon which the other aspects of her college aspirations will rest:

75

"To graduate fi'om a liberal arts school, and a private one at that. To be
able to apply to law school and say that I will be graduating fi'om Central College
in '99. I just Mve this image that this diploma, once you get there, it will help you
in other places. To help me get out of here, to help me get out of Central so I
don't get stuck in the same place, the same run of the mill thing that I watched my
older cousins or my mom and all of her Emily do, and I just don't want to do tMt.

"...I think that a liberal arts education is important to survival and success,
and if you want to be successful then you Mve to expose yourself to everything
that'soutthere. And I thinkthat mighttraceback to my momwhen] sawherat
home and she's so narrow minded, and she Msn't seen everything. I want to make
sure tMt I get exposed to everything and that I'm more open-minded than my
mom. So it was very important tMt I had a school that backed my ideas about

reaching out to all these different areas and become Emiliar with them."

So for Hannah, going to Central College is helping her achieve what she has
decided is most important in her life. Once she graduates from law school she will
consider going back and raising a Emily. "If it all works out," she cautions. At that
point in her life, Hanruh hopes to have a better idea of who she is and wMt she
ultimately wants to achieve in her life. "And I won't be stuck in a Emily rut where
family comes before," she goes on to say. "I hope to have this career established and then
build my family around that. And hopefully by doing tMt I wouldn't be restrained by a
Emily. Because I don't think that my mom ever reached an identity of her own. She

nurried, had kids and that's it. She didn‘t reach anything that she wanted to."

76

Trying to Survive

Hannah talks about the meaning of her desire to establish a strong career identity
for herself and a common identity for her own Emily in terms of her ability to survive.
As the central metaphor for the feminist movement, "survival" is a response of women to
the withdrawal of men fi'om family life (Belenky). Women became strong and
independent, Belenky argues, because their survival and the survival of their children
depend on it (p. 173). In Hannah's case, survival takes on added significance. On a
practical level she attributes her successfirl experience at Holy Cross High School to
surviving those difficult first few months, during which time she questioned the wisdom
of her decision to attend there at alL And on a larger scale, her goal of graduating fiom
Central and going to law school Ms survived despite the resentment fi'om members of her
extended family. And of more immediate concern to Hannah is surviving her two
remaining years at Central. Although she Ms done well academically she Ms Md to
sacrifice muchofher socialtime inordertoearnenoughmoneytorenuinatCentral.

While Hannah Ms proven that she is indeed a survivor she knows tMt the real test
of endurance Ms only begun. And when Hannah considers all that is at stake in her
attempt to complete college and go on to law school, the need to survive takes on
profound importance. In a world of moral relativism and multiple realities, the key to
Hannah's survival is to develop a strong personal identity for herself, which she can then
use to provide a common fiamework through which family members can participate in
the sMred construction of a system of values and meaning. As Hannah tries to capture

the essence of college aspirations, she once again looks to the plight of her mother for

grounding:

77

"I think tMt in order to survive in society today you Mve to be aware of
everything, every aspect and every side to an issue to be able to go out there and
Mve a belief and let it - to let that belief actually live, survive. You Mve to be
open to all areas of that. And if you don't know then someone comes along and
says ‘well, what about this?‘ And then it just isn't there anymore.

"...So survival means being able to take a position and withstand criticism
because you're aware of the different aspects of the position, and you can
maintain your own position and you own identity. And in this sense my mom is
not surviving. She just doesn't Mve an identity all her own. She goes to work
because she Ms to at a job she doesn't like, in an environment she shouldn't be in.
And she does it just to survive. She hasn't known any other way.

"Survival for her means just getting by. Even if it means not being
yourself. Because she's not herself when she goes and works on the line. When

she comes home she's not herself. And I don't want to be stuck that way."

78

Epilogue

As I Md become accustomed to doing throughout the interview process, I called
the campus security department at Central College to arrange a follow-up interview with
Hannah. Iwassurprisedto learnfromoneoftheofficerstheretMt Hannahno longer
worked for campus security. Hannah Md been a student officer fi'om the time she
entered Central, often working as nuny as twenty hours per week so tMt she could afford
to stay in school. Not only did Hannah no longer work for campus security, the officer
went on to tell me, Hannah was no longer a student at Central. I found this bit of news
rather surprising, to say the least. Fortunately, I had saved the phone numbers from the
other places where Hannah Md worked during the school year, as I often would Mve to
contact her at work to nuke arrangements for our meetings. I was finally able to reach
her at a local business in town, a distributor of satellite equipment, where Hannah Md
been working part-time for about two years. Hannah was very interested in meeting with
me again to update me on her story. As she told me at the time, it Md been a very
interesting eighteen months.

Indeed, it was true: Hamuh was no longer a student at Central College. Because
of her busy work schedule, Hanruh Md chosen to drop one of the courses she was taking
in the spring semester of her sophomore year. The course was part of the pre-law
curriculum and was unusually demanding, she recalls. Rather than risk failing the class,
Hanruh withdrew from the course, with the hope of making it up over the summer. But
she was not able to nuke up the course over the summer because, in her words, "I was

literally working four jobs over the summer. I just didn't Mve time to take a course."

79

The four jobs, of course, were necessary so tMt she could make enough money to return
to Central in the El]. Ironically, wMt Hannah didn't realize was tMt in dropping a course
she Md fallen below the minimum number of credit hours to nuintain eligibility in the
fall. Caught in a dilemma, she chose to take a leave from Central because without the
financial aid she simply could not afford to return

Overthecourseofthe summer, Hannathmanagedto weedoutafewofthe
part-time jobs she held and settled on the two she enjoyed most. One of the jobs she kept
was the one with the satellite company. She was given a firll—time job, promoted to sales,
and was asked to stay on full-time once the summer was over. The situation worked well
for Hannah. Not only would she be able to save money by working firll-time, she would
be able to take a few courses at the local community college, which Hannah felt was
important in keeping her connected with her educational goals. The company even
offered to pay for the remainder of Hanruh's college education if she would agree to stay
on indefinitely. ’ "It's enticing to want to stay here," Hannah admits. "But I can't. It's a
real learning experience, but it's not wMt I want to do." What she wants to do, she must
continually remind herself; is to move ahead with her plans to graduate fiom college and
go on to law school.

When Hannah does return to college to pick up where she left off, it will not be
the same as it was before: She is fairly certain tMt she will not return to Central College.
Inhertimeaway fromschoolsheMscometorealizetMtthethings tMt attracted her to
Central in the first place are no longer as important to her as they once were. There are
some things about Central tMt still appeal to her. She enjoyed her time in the classroom

and she treasures the relationships she developed with the other students in campus

80

security. But in other ways, she Ms gotten all she can out of her time at Central.
Whereas she once took comfort in the Emiliarity of the surroundings, she is now ready
for something completely different; and whereas the desire to be close to her family once
made it difficult for her to consider going anywhere else, she now feels ready to prove
that she can make it on her own. "It cMnged from going to the school that you Mve
always known," Hannah says, "to being stuck in the environment."

Working firll-time and taking classes in the evenings at a community college is a
far cry from the life of a full-time college student on the campus of a small, private,
liberal arts college. But Hannah keeps it all in perspective, knowing that the present
situation is temporary. But as she expected, the reactions among the members of

Hannah's family to her circumstances Mve been mixed:

"My uncle, he's letting me do it. He keeps asking me 'what are your plans,
what's going on.‘ And it's nice because we can also talk about the business
aspects. We understand each other. He is still there.

"But he wants me to go back, of course, as soon as possible. Because he's

afi'aid, too, that nuybe I won't go back."

As for her aunts and cousins, who Mve resented Hannah for her career aspirations

all along, the reaction was also predictable:

81

"They think I Mve failed. They don't think I will ever go back. They
think they were right. 'Look wMt Hannah's doing. She's messing up her life.’ I

hear that a lot. TMt I'm ruining my life."

Hannah is quick to defend herself against the suggestion that by taking a leave
fiom Central she is ruining her life. However, she does admit that the recent change in
plans is the result of shifting priorities in her life. A degree fiom Central College is
something Hannah Ms been aiming for fiom the time she was in grade school. By not
returning to Central College, she knows tMt she is settling for something less fi'om her
college experience. "I think that when I get my degree," she says, "wherever tMt may be
from, it's not going to be as rewarding as if it were from Central." But on balance,
Hannah feels tMt she has much more to gain by moving on to another college, in another
town, where she can continue to pursue her educational and career aspirations fiee fiom

the scrutiny tMt Ms plagued her thus far:

"Being able to live my own life and do what I want. I want to live my
own life and not Mve somebody watching it or trying to live it for me. A degree
is important. And I will Mve one. I'm not sure where fiom yet, but just being
able to live my own life -- tMt's wMt I want.

"You don't want to stay in an environment when it's that negative. When
people are just waiting for you to ruin your life. If I'm going to ruin it, I want to

do it insecret."

82

The one person who is Mving the most difficult time with Hannah's changing
circumstances is her mother. On the one hand, Hannah's mother knows the importance of
a college education. Like Hannah herself, she wants a life for Hannah much better tMn
the one she was able to provide. And also like Hannah, she other Ms full confidence in
Hannah's ability to finish college. But when it comes to the unexpected change in
Hannah's educatiorul circumstances, her mother finds herself unable to nuke sense of it

all:

"Ithinkitwasvery Mrdonherthatldecidedto dothis. Shehearsalotof
stuff. But it's really Mrd on her because she doesn't know what to do, wMt to
say, wMt to think. She doesn't know what to say when people say to her 'your

daughter is ruining her life.‘ "

Still Surviving

Seemingly, Hannah Md all of the elements in place to enhance her chances of
attending and eventually graduating fi'om college. First, she knew from the time that she
was in the seventh grade tMt she would go to college. Recent research Ms shown tMt
students whose aspirations for college develop before the eighth grade are more likely to
attend college tMn those are students who wait until high school before considering
going to college (Hossler et al, 1998). Second, she was fortunate to be able to attend a
high school in a middle class suburb of Logan, where most of the other students came

fi'om homes where at least one parent was college-educated. As McDonough (1996)

83

would argue, the educational values of the middle class families who attend Holy Cross
are reflected in the amount of emphasis tMt the teachers, counselors, and administrators
there place on college preparation and planning. And underlying both of these important
factors is the Ect that Hannah, fiom the time she was in grade school, displayed a high
level of academic ability.

But there were also circumstances working against Hannah in her attempt to
realize her college aspirations. First, because her mom was not equipped to offer more
tMn verbal encouragement for her college and career aspirations, Hannah Md to seek
support from outside the home in order to be able to go to college at all. Not only was
her mother uruble to help Hannah, she deferred to Hannah as the "expert" in such
matters, which reinforced tMt Hannah was indeed alone in trying to make everything
work out. Second, during those first few months at Holy Cross, Hannah's fear of Mving
her background exposed almost prevented her fiom being able to take advantage of the
supportive environment. Wondering to herself, "what am I doing here," it is easy to
imagine tMt Hannah Md serious doubts about whether she belonged at Holy Cross at all.
And perhaps the most difficult obstacle Hanruh Md to overcome is the resentment fi'om
some members of her family, and their expectations tMt she will fail in her attempt to
leave behind their way of life for something better.

Although Hannah was able to nuke it to college, the chlenges to the full
realization of her college and career aspirations continue. To begin, Hannah Ms Md to
work twenty to thirty hours per week during the school year, often Mving to juggle three
work schedules along with her class schedule, just to be able to remain at Central. While

she Ms been unable to take advantage of many of the ancillary benefits of attending

84

Central because of her busy schedule, she was at least able to keep her head above water
academically. That is, until last spring, when she was unable to keep up in one her
classes and chose to drop it. The consequence of the drop, Hannah discovered after the
fact, was that she failed to earn the minimum number of credit hours required to maintain
her eligibility for financial aid. And even three years into her college career, the
resentment fiom her aunts and cousins continues. The recent cMnge in Hannah's
circumstance is seen by those same Ernily members that, just as they predicted she
would, Hannah Ms Eiled.

Hannah sees things very differently tMn those members of her family who look
upon her circumstances as Eilure in progress. Rather tMn dwelling on the most recent
turn of events, Hannah continues to take the long view in making sense of her
predicament. Where she is now, rather tMn representing Eilure, is merely a disruption
from a journey that never promised to be smooth in the first place. Thus, despite the
unexpected delay in the realization of her college and career aspirations, Hannah looks
upon her current circumstances, and the Ect that she Ms made it this far, as indications of

her instinct for survival:

"Even though you are not raised in the proper environment, one that's
conducive to developing goals and then sticking to them, you kind of search out
what you think you need to survive. I obviously needed role models. So when I
grew up I picked out two. I didn't honestly realize I was doing it, but looking
back, I did. I Mve my uncle -- he's successfirl and he's always been there; then I

Mve my other mom -- the professional wonun."

85

Hannah knows tMt she will eventually graduate fi'om college and go on to law
school. In Ect, her work with the satellite company Ms helped her sMrpen her thinking
about her career goals by exposing her to the field of business law. And with the
opportunity to live on her own and support herself, Hannah continues to move ahead in
other important areas of her life. If she were writing a book about her life, Hannah
explains, the major theme would be, not surprisingly, survival. But the chter in which
she situates herself now, she says, is still being written. Stated another way, her present
circumstances are simply one episode in a much larger sub-plot. This is how the current

chter would read:

"Something about being on the right path, but it being a winding path.

Because you know, I go forward - but yet I'm still here. But I've still got a

couple of pages left to write. Hopefirlly, in the Ell I'll be back on a straight path."

86

Chapter 3: Ethan

"I think the worst thing about it is feeling like I 'm limited in what I can do.
That's the worst thing. Sometimes I felt like I was just being held down, I didn't
have any choice. Everything was going on without me. I felt like I was running a race

with worn-out shoes. "

Introduction

The system of education in the United States is based on the idea of contest
mobility, in which the governing objective is to give elite status, in the form of
educational distinction and college credentials, only to those who earn it (Turner, 1960).
"Under contest mobility," Turner writes, "the object is to train as many as possible in the
skills necessary for elite status so as to give everyone a cMnce to nuintain competition at
the highest pitch" (p. 863). This ideology of meritocracy emanates fi'om the belief tMt
ability and effort count for more than privilege and inherited status in a democratic
system of education (Hum, 1985). Underlying the meritocratic thesis, Hum writes, is a
conviction that achievement is a far more rational way of allocating status than ascription
(p. 49). In this scheme the contest is open at all times and anyone can choose to play.
And because the results are based on the achievements of the individual, those who come
out on top are, rightly so, entitled to the privileges that accompany their new social

position.

87

In theory, then, our system of education offers all students a level playing field on
which to compete for the economic, social, and cultural rewards tMt await the winners.
But we Mve learned from a strong tradition of research into the relationship between
social class, education, and occupations tMt the competition for credentials and middle
class status is far fiom open and fair. Social rcproduction theorists in particular challenge
the meritocratic underpinnings of our system of education. "Roulette," Bourdieu (1986)
writes, "gives a Eirly accurate image of this imaginary universe of perfect competition
and perfect equality of opportunity, a world without inertia, without accumulation,
without heredity or acquired properties, in which every moment is perfectly independent
of the previous one" (p. 241). The position of Bourdieu and others is tMt while the
competition for educational distinction and college credentials may be open to anyone,
not all participants began at the same place and thus not all Mve an equal cMnce of
coming out on top. While this strand of social reproduction theory is not without its
critics, a carefirl reader will find it difficult to deny that socioeconomic Ectors weigh

heavily in the outcome of educational competition.

Ethan's Story

Ethan will probably transfer from Central College at the completion of the current
semester, a decision dictated by his inability to afford what it would cost for him to
continue at Central. He was forced to take out an additional loan in order to come back
this year, and the interest payments on the loan requires him to work twenty horns per
week during the school year. To compound his financial problems, his parents Mve

informed him tMt the small amount of financial support they Mve been able to contribute

88

up to now will no longer be available. Ethan's only option is to transfer to one of the
regional state universities, probably the one nearest his home, so that he can afford to
finish college. He regrets tMt he will miss out on much of wMt attracted him to Central
in the first place, namely small classes, a small student body, and more personalized
attention in the classroom. But he also realizes tMt he really Ms no other options. Much
to his dismay, Ethan's plans for his last two years of college are being shaped by his
inability to secure the necessary financial resources.

Indeed, resources play a central role in EtMn's story of how he was able to make
it to college. His financial difficulties are simply the latest, and the nrost obvious,
example of the way his educational aspirations Mve been mediated by the availability of
resources. Despite his irubility to clearly articulate his career goals, Etlun never doubted
that he would attend college. And despite the interruptions that Mve delayed his plan, he
is on track to finish college and firlly expects to find a position as a teacher once he
graduates. In this sense, his story is not about overcoming seemingly overwhelming odds
to graduate fiom college. Rather, his experiences and his reflections on them highlight
for us at the most intinute level the ways in which Emily background, whether defined in
terms of class, culture, or the all-encompassing designation of socio-economic status,
affects one's ability to succeed in the educational system. As EtMn understands it, his
educational predicament Ms been shaped more by the lack of social and cultural
resources tMn by his financial situation.

Social classes are differentiated in part by the cultural dispositions tMt are formed
unconsciously as people observe the patterns of behavior of those around them

(Bourdieu, 1986). As we shall see, Ethan's social relationships Mve been sMped in large

89

part by his cultural disposition, which rendered him unable or unwilling to connect with
his peers in meaningfirl ways. In high school the resource discrepancy between him and
many of the other students, which he feels ultimately manifested in a disparity in
achievement, created an animosity for EtMn tMt prevented him fi'om joining the circle of
"good" students. Later, as a college student returning to his hometown, he found himself
working alongside mostly uneducated, unmotivated co-workers whose lifestyle did not
appeal to him on any level. Consequently, he was unable to form meaningful
relationships with his work peers as a young adult.

Ethan's experience illustrates the paradoxical nature of the relationship between
family background and educational achievement: the ability to obtain valuable cultural
capital in its institutionalized form (i.e., the college credential) is a function of the
embodied cultural cale (i.e., disposition) one possesses in the beginning. EtMn aptly
captures the essence of his predicament in his description of his educational experience as
"running a race with worn-out shoes." For Ethan, graduating fi‘om college will signify
tMt he Ms caught up with those whose positions at the outset of the race were far ahead
ofhis own. As he makes clear with his actions and his words, you can still finish a race

wearing worn out shoes. It just takes a little longer and is a little more painfiil.

90

I. The Elements of Family Life

Lifestyle and Aspirations

A lot of kids come home from school and there's no one home to watch after
them, so they just sit and watch TV all day. Because they must find ways to occupy their
time, many of these kids end up with no real direction in their lives, at least as far as their
educational plans are concerned. As a consequence, they end up Mnging out on the
street. And once on the street, they become bored because they really Mve nothing
worthwhile to do, which usually means that they end up getting into trouble. By contrast,
some kids come home from school and their mom has dinner ready for them, she helps
them with their homework, and maybe their dad checks over it to make sure tMt it has
been done correctly. These kids, because their parents are involved in their education,
probably spend their time very differently than those other kids. Rather tMn Mnging out
on the streets, they find ways to occupy their time more constructively. Maybe they are
involved with a church youth group; maybe they attend plays and other events at the local
school; or maybe they simply devote more time to their studies.

Ethan offers the two scenarios to illustrate wMt he understands to be the
relationship between class and education. If the two scenarios represent opposite ends of
a continuum, EtMn sees himself more toward the former. Indeed, much of his
description is autobiographical. He was one of those kids who came home after school
and watch television all afternoon. He did Mng out on the streets with his fiiends
instead of doing his homework. And he did get himself into trouble as a result, the most

serious being the time he and a friend were caught drinking beer in the park -- when they

91

were in the sixth grade. And Ethan does attribute his behavior to a general lack of
direction in his life.

Admittedly, the line that runs from lifestyle to educational outcomes is a
circuitous one. But for Etlun the complexity of the equation can be distilled down to a
few essential elements: "Whatever you do with your time," Ethan adds, "that's wMt you

think about as being important." He goes on:

"I don't know how to explain it, but I think there's a relationship between
theEmilies,theparentsandjobsthey Mveandthepeoplethatarearoundthem,
and the children, and then wMt Mppens to them in school. Money is definitely a
Ector too, but I think these are much more important.

"Some people are successful and a lot of it has to do with their Emily.
And a lot of people are not so successfirl in school and it Ms to do with Emilies.
A lot of it Ms to do with just what's talked about at the dinner table, tMt type of
thing. Or the parents might Mve friends who come over and talk and ask you
what you want to do, then you'll think about that. The company you keep.

"1 just think some of your lifestyle affects your relationships with people,

and then your relationship affects the choices you make."

Ethan never really though much about careers when he was growing up. "In
fact," he says, "I didn't know wMt I wanted to do for a career until my senior year when
colleges started asking me wMt I wanted to choose for a major." He attended church

frequently when he was younger, and so for a while he considered getting involved in

92

some aspect of religious life. He also knew a little about the work his father did, which
EtMn now describes simply as "blue-collar work," and he was aware of what some of the
other parents in his neighborhood did for a living. One guy drove a Coca-Cola truck,
Ethan recalls, and a few others worked in the pickle factory in town. Again, blue-collar
types of things. But beyond tMt EtMn knew little else about the world of work.

To make matters worse, Ethan did not know where to turn to look for help in
deciding what he might want to do with his life. Much to his dismay, Ethan received
little guidance from his parents. Not that they were indifferent to Ethan's educational and
career aspirations. To the contrary, his parents had always expressed confidence in
EtMn's ability to do well and to become successfirl in life. "When high school came
around I didn't do very well," recalls EtMn "And my dad's typical comment would be
'well, I'm proud of you no nutter wMt grades you get.'" These words of support were
common in Ethan's early educational years. "But," EtMn adds, "my parents didn't really
give me any direction, like you should really think about wMt you want to do. They
didn‘t give me options, really. They just said 'you're capable of doing wMt you want to
do.’ That's pretty much it."

The importance of a college education was understood by Etlun and his parents,
even though neither of them Md ever gone. So despite the vague expressions of support
offered by his parents, EtMn always knew tMt he would go to college. Despite the
wishes of his parents for him to be successful and the confidence they placed in his
abilities to succeed, Ethan feels tMt the general ethos that cMracterized his home life did
not support the words. The problem from EtMn's perspective is the incongruence

between the words of encouragement offered by his parents on the one Mnd, and the

93

intentionality of attitudes and beMviors tMt might Mve helped ensure his success on the
other. To put it another way, his lifestyle simply did not push him toward specific

college and career aspirations.

"I think my parents Md a goal for me. Ithink they had this idea that I
would do well in school. My parents didn't really teach me much as far as college
and careers go, they were always a loving Emily and tMt's important. So I felt
like I Md a place to be loved. TMt has a lot to do with it, I think.

"...I think my parents encouraged me to do well and I think they always
encouraged me to be successful and do wMt I want to do. My dad has always
said 'I'll support you, whatever you want to do.' But I don't think he had the

resources to tell me wMt to do. Maybe they didn't think it was important."

Critical Conversations: The High School Em‘ence

High school represents a critical crossroads in the pursuit of educational and
career aspirations. The choices made by students during these four years in many ways
determines whether they will go to college, which college or university they will attend,
and whether or not they will persist to graduation. A study of high school students in the
state of Indiaru (Orfield and Paul, 1993) found tMt the vast majority of ninth grade
students expressed a desire to go to college. But in later years nuny of the students with
expressed college aspirations were not taking the college prep courses required for

admission to four-year colleges and universities. The authors conclude that the low

94

college attendance rate in the state may be due less to lack of aspiration on the part of
students, and much more to the poor, uninformed choices students make in high school.

From a theoretical standpoint, much Ms been written about the disparity in
college attendance patterns. McDonough (1997) suggests that high schools contribute to
attendance patterns through the amount, type, and quality of college counseling offered
by the schooL all of which is intended to reflect the prevailing values of the Emilies
whose children attend the school As an example of this phenomenon, Karen (1988)
found that elite prep schools concentrate on gaining access to elite colleges and
universities for their students. My aim is not to reduce the complexity of these theoretical
positions for the sake of simple comparison. For my purposes the lesson drawn fiom this
body of work is this: while high school attendance is universal, it is meaningfirl to
consider the ways in which the high school experience influences college aspirations only
at the most local level.

Ethan’s high school experience was sMped by his inability to participate in
important conversations in the ways other students did. The term "conversation" refers
metaphorically to the various forms of dialogue, both in and out of the classroom, that are
part of the high school experience. His inability to participate in classroom discussions,
for example, made it difficult for him to project himselfas a "serious" student. Similarly,
his lack of focus and clarity about his career goals made it difficult for him to be taken
seriously as "college nuterial" by his teachers and counselors. EtMn shares with us his
experiences as a non-participant in these critical conversations, and the consequences for

him as he attempted to give form and substance to his vague aspirations.

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"Showing Signs of Being Capable "

EtMn noticed tMt many of the students in his classes seemed to be much more
engaged in the nuterial tMn he was. As a case in point, he recalls a biology course he
took, a course that EtMn found rather boring and uninformative. "We just went through
each section in the book and did fill in the blanks." But EtMn noticed one student in
particular who apparemly held a very different view of the class than he did. She seemed
to always engage in the classroom discussions, and her level of participation indicated to
Ethan that she was probably doing well in the class. Etlun approached her after class one
day and began sharing his complaints about the class: he found it boring, and he didn't
think the teacher was actually teaching the class much at all. The student, who Etlun

knew was planning to go to college, responded to Etlun in a most surprising way:

"She said ‘well, you just Mve to know how to ask the right questions.’
You Mve to know how to get things out of him, you Mve to ask him the questions
so he can teach you.’ And I thought about that, and tMt keeps coming back to me.
If you don't really Mve a general understanding of wMt the subject is or wMt
you're trying to ask, then you can't even ask the logical or intelligent question. I
never knew wMt questions to ask him. I didn't even really know wMt biology

was, what it really was, until after that class was over."

At the time Ethan concluded that the students who were participating in the

discussions in biology class were simply more interested in the material tMn he was. He

was even prepared to accept tMt they were "smarter." In retrospect, however, Ethan sees

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his relative inactivity in the classroom as an insidious by-product of his lifestyle. These
other Emilies, Etlun now believes, were more adept at utilizing their available resources
to the benefit of their children's education and, in many cases, they simply Md more
resources to deploy. Rather than a reflection of native ability, EtMn Ms concluded, the
discrepancy in classroom participation reflects a much larger discrepancy in the amount

of resources available to students in the home:

"I think her parents probably talked to her about biology. And I'm sure her
parents had biology in college, maybe Md conversations, and it kind of piqued
her interest and so she came in the biology class and asked the biology teacher
'well, wMt does this mean, I talked to my dad about this' and so she was able to
Mve a good discussion in class.

"It Mppens that way in truth, for example - this really bothers me.
Seventh grade, I think we took a math exam or test to determine whether we're
going to take algebra or not the next year. And I remember one kid telling me
that the day of the test, he said 'well, I think I'm going to do real great on this.

The lastcoupleweeks mydadandlsatdownandhetaughtmesome algebraand,
so, I'm going to do really well'. And he told me that if I do well, if I'm going to
get in the algebra class I'm going to get a jet ski this summer.’

"And I think about it now and that test just didn’t seem very fair to me. So
he's going to go on and take the algebra the next year, and it's going to be easier
for him to take the more advanced math in the firture. And the first time I ever

sawan'x'ora'y'wasonthattestandldidn't knowwhatitmeant. Andthekid

97

that sat next to me he Md his father, who knew what algebra was a little bit. It
was really elementary algebra that was on tMt test but if you knew anything about

it you, I think that you showed signs of being capable."

From Etlun's point of view, wMt he lacked in high school is tMt which the
students around him seemed to possess in abundance: the ability to participate firlly and
actively in the educational experience. Etlun noticed that some of his classmates seemed
to take a more active role in classroom discussions. They would ask questions and make
comrections between concepts tMt signaled to Etlun a comprehension of the material that
far exceeded his own. By comparison, Ethan simply did not feel comfortable or
confident enough about his abilities to engage the teachers or the other students in ways
that would perMps help him to refine his own thinking on issues. Nor did he feel secure
enough in his knowledge of specific subject nutter to contribute to the discussion in the
classroom.

Ethan's inability to ask the right kinds of questions in order to derive the most
benefit fi'om the educational experience rendered him a passive observer in most of his
classes. While he does not dismiss the relevance of native ability in determining
academic success, Ethan Ms come to believe tMt the primary cause of his own mediocre
academic perforrrunce lies not in his inability to master the subject matter, but rather in
his attitude toward school tMt led him to view himself as a passive recipient of education.
His approach was to try and learn as much as he could and let the meritocratic process
take care of the rest. It never occurred to EtMn tMt there might be ways to seek out a

competitive edge beyond the bounds of natural ability and work Mbits. In this sense,

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EtMn's inability to ask the right kinds of questions is merely an indication of a much
deeper deficiency on his part. Beyond not knowing wMt questions to ask, Ethan was not

predisposed to understand the importance of asking questions at all.

From the Dinner Table to the Classroom: The Relevance of Education

Ethan was excluded from firll participation in his educational experience because
ofthe sets of rules and assumptions under which he was operating. Knowing the
importance of "asking the right questions" in the classroom, for example; or further still,
recognizing that there are ways to work within the educational system to gain a
competitive advantage over the other students in earning markers of educational
achievement, Mve obvious implications for the way a student approaches their own
educational experience. Ethan's assumptions about education, by contrast, led him to
passively absorb that which the school Md deemed important and rendered him content
to compete "on his own,” confident that the meritocratic process would sort things out
accordingly. ’

While this aspect of the educational experience, understanding the rules of
engagement, may Mve contributed in part to the nature of Ethan's educational experience,
another more obvious form of exclusion was also taking place. "There is no doubt in my
mind," Ethan suggests, "that students were treated differently by teachers and by the
administration." The differences in treatment, according to Etlun, Mve to do with the
varying expectations that were placed on the students. What seemed to nuke the
difference was whether or not students Md demonstrated academic promise in the past,

and whether they were bound for college. If the student Md a need for wMt the teacher

99

could offer, Etlun believes, then the teachers though they were doing their job by paying
more attention to those students. But for the vo-tech students, who past performance and
career interests suggested tMt they might not be "college material," the expectations, and
thus the actual classroom experience, was very different. In essence, as Ethan puts it, the

teachers "took an interest in the kids who Md something to bring already:"

"Like in our government class, when NAFTA was a big deal a lot of
people were talking about it. I didn't know anything about it and a couple of kids
weretalkingabout it withourteacherandhe seemed to Mveareal interest in
talking to them about it but not an interest in telling us all what it really meant. I
Md no idea wMt it really was. But they were Mving an intelligent conversation
about it, I mean they were talking about it and obviously understood it. But it
would seem useless for other people and he didn't seem to want to talk to us about
it.

"Or om- stock project, for example. Maybe some kids knew wMt stocks
meant and wMt they are all about, but he didn‘t really describe them or wMt the
significance of them was and why they are important. So, we did this entire stock
project for the last month of our class and we were supposed to spend all this time
in it, but a lot of kids didn't really understand why they are important. And so the
teacher really spent time with the kids and talked about it with the students who

Md a general understanding of it."

100

It is easy to imagine a teacher feeling fi'ustrated over a classroom climate in which
students are not aware of current events such as NAFTA, or are not Emiliar with the
workings of the stock excMnge to a degree tMt would allow them to engage in
meaningful classroom discussion. In a scenario such as this one the impulse on the part
of the teacher to engage those students whose baseline of prior knowledge about the
subject at hand closely mirrors their own is understandable. And even if Ethan's teachers
did not intentionally engage the more knowledgeable students to the exclusion of the
others, it is reasonable to accept that they were acting on the assumption that everyone in
the classroom possessed roughly the same amount of prior knowledge. After all, anyone
who reads the newspaper and pays attention to important events should be aware of the
issues surrounding the introduction of NAFTA. Hence, some teachers might conclude
that the lack of participation must be a symptom of something more attitudinal than
substantive, revealing something about the low motivation level of the disengaged
students and the lack of seriousness with which they approach their education.

But EtMn’s version of his experience with these classroom discussions causes us
to consider an alternative interpretation of the participation scenario. When the
conversations in the classroom centered on middle class themes, like how to successfully
negotiate the stock excMnge; or when the ability to participate in discussions about
current events was heavily dependent on lifestyle Mbits like dinner discussions, Ethan
found himself once again on the outside. While we Mve an easy time imagining a
frustrated teacher in a classroom partially made up of seemingly uninterested and
disengaged students, it is just as easy to imagine a classroom in which some of the

students are simply disinterested in the subject of the discussions. In other words,

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EtMn’s experience brings to light the possibility tMt there may Mve been students in the
classroom, himself among them, who felt that neither the implications of NAFTA nor the
workings of the stock exchange were relevant to the lives they were living. To state it
another way, the conversation taking place in the classroom seemed to him to Mve no
direct bearing on Ethan's life and, consequently, was a conversation for which his own

life experience provided no vocabulary.

"What's a Kid Supposed to Say if He Doesn't Know What 's Out There? "

Ethan's experiences in his biology and government classes shed light on what it is
like for a student who is hindered fi'om full participation in classroom discussions. In the
cases of NAFTA discussion and the stock nurket project, EtMn was hindered by a
perceived lack of relevance of the subject matter to his own life. But there exists within
the high school a form of conversation tMt is both more pervasive and arguably much
more important in its implications for students who aspire to attend college. Unlike the
exchanges in the classroom, the conversation about college and career aspirations
requires tMt students be fluent in yet another language.

One area where Ethan felt he lagged far behind nuny of his high school
classmates was in his knowledge about various colleges and careers. By his own
admission, he had given little thought to his future while growing up and even as late as
his senior year in high school Md still not clarified his options for college and career. He
grew up believing tMt, in his words, ”wMtever would Mppen next would just Mppen."
Consequently, he never felt the need to think about it much nor was he encouraged to do

so by his parents. But despite the lack of clarity about his career goals, and his apparent

102

lack of concern about it, Etlun knew for sure that he wanted to attend college. He admits
tMt he and his parents had bought into the ideology that defines success as going to
college, getting a "good job," and "doing well" financially. Unfortunately for Etlun, he
approached this critical crossroad with little else other than his vague notion of wanting
to be successful.

Specifically, Ethan's lack of knowledge about college, both in terms of the
different types of institutions and the process for getting there, and his inability to talk
with clarity about his career goals afi‘ected his ability to present himself in a serious light.
The consequences of non-participation in this conversation, as Ethan would learn, could
be the difference between being thought of by teachers and counselors as a serious,
career-minded prospective college student or as someone whose aspirations outpace their

potential. Ethan shows us wMt it is like to be cast in the latter category:

"Some students knew wMt they wanted to be. Even people who wanted
to go to vo-tech, I think they knew wMt questions to ask. 'Well, I want to run this
mecMnics garage. Well, go to vo-tech.‘ That sort of thing.

"Ihadno ideawhatlreally wantedtodo. Thereweretimeswhenl
wanted to be a mechanic, times when] wanted to be a firefighter, times when I
wanted to be a pastor. I remember going out to vo-tech to visit one time. I
didn't know anything about it. Then] remember going to take the tutoring class
for people who were planning on being teachers. I Md no clue wMt I wanted to

be."

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"...I don't know how to explain it except tMt sometimes I feel like I didn't
know anything about any side of it. I was just kind of in between somewhere. I
don't think I really identified with any group. I mean I went to vo-tech and I was
interested in what that was all about. I took the honors English my senior year,
the composition class that everyone took who was planning to go to college. I
was interested in wMt tMt was like. I took the tutoring opportunities for people
who wanted to be teachers. I was interested in all of tMt, but I don't think I cared

too much or thought about wMt any of it would actually be like."

Once again, EtMn found himself excluded from a conversation fi'om which he
could Mve benefited had he been able to participate. What separated Ethan fi'om the
middle class students in the domain of aspirations was his inability to talk with clarity
and with focus about college and his career goals. In this instance the conversation was
dominated by students with lofty career goals and by a staff of teachers and counselors
who were more interested in working with amphibious, career-minded students. Lacking
this capacity Etlun was assumed to be lacking the ability and the desire tMt one need to

be taken seriously as a prospective college student:

"I remember talking to my high school counselor. In tenth grade we do
our schedules for our junior and senior year, and a lot of people chose vo-tech as
an option. And so I went out and visited a building trades class or something like
that and I just didn't like it. It was mostly the people, but I -- she just asked me

'well, wMt do you want to do?‘ Well, wMt's a kid supposed to say if he doesn't

104

really know what's out there? So, I just said 'well, I really don't know wMt I want
to do.' Maybe that sound like I just don't care, but maybe that means that I just
don't know wMt options were out there for me..] think the counselor interpreted
that as 'he doesn't care.’ She probably interpreted it as 'he really doesn't care.’

"So I was encouraged to go to vo-tech, to go see. So I went to vo-tech
with all the kids who were thinking about vo-tech. I didn‘t like it but that was
something I was encouraged to because I didn't like my math class. Just because I
didn't like my math class doesn't mean] couldn't Mve used it.

"...In my mind the counselor should be the person that is encouraging
people to think about all their options and wMt that means for them. But, instead
they seemed to just ask questions like "WMt do you want to do?" And if
someone doesn't really understand wMt it means to take these different routes

then] don‘t think that is just a stupid question."

Asking someone "what do you want to do" when they finish high school is to

assume a baseline of knowledge and awareness on the part of the person being asked.

First, the question assumes tMt the student Ms been exposed to enough of wMt's "out

there" to know where he or she nuy fit within the contours of the labor nurket. It also

assumes that the student understands the differences between the various types of

occupations, whether in terms of amount of education required, range of income, or

measures of status and prestige. Second, the question assumes that the student is aware

of the differences between types of postsecondary institutions. To simplify the point, the

student needs to understand the differences between the community college located

105

within his or her own neighborhood, the major research university located downtown,
and the private liberal arts college located in the next county. Each potentially affects the
student's life trajectory in different ways and he or she needs to understand which type is
most likely to get them where they want to be in the short term and in the long term. As
some of us find out after the Ect, it is not true simply tMt "college is college."

By his own admission Ethan’s thoughts about his future included everything fiom
youth pastor to English teacher to hornebuilder. When a high school guidance counselor
asks the question of someone who Ms not been encouraged to give it serious thought the
question takes on new significance. Though he Md aspirations to become successfuL he
was unable to pinpoint with any degree of specificity what becoming successful for him
entails. Did he mean he needed to make a lot of money? If not, then wMt type of
occupations best suited his interests and personality? And perMps most importantly,
what level of education does he ultimately aspire to? Add to his uncertainty in these
areas his lackluster academic record and it would seem entirely reasonable to conclude
that Ethan, despite his internal convictions to the contrary, that he was indeed more suited

for vo-tech.

Peer Conversations

As we will see later in this story, part of wMt Ethan most values about his time at
Central College is the opportunity to learn from those around him. Beyond the obvious
desire to become educated and earn a degree, Ethan is benefiting fiom being surrounded
by students who can expose him to points of view different from his own. One of the

greatest benefits for EtMn is tMt he is around people whose points of view include high

106

aspirations for themselves, as well as knowledge of the available resources to facilitate
their attainment. Consequently, Ethan's career goals Mve become more clear since he
arrived at Central, and he continues to chlenge himself to experience as much as he can
during his remaining years in college.

The students in EtMn's high school represented a wide range of abilities and
aspirations. Ethan would later learn from one of the counselors in the school that there
was about an even split between students from blue-collar Emilies and students fi'om
college educated, professional families. As such, Ethan found himself on a daily basis in
contact with students who exhibited the fill] range of educational and career aspirations:
students who aspired to go to selective colleges; students who were content to obtain job
training while in high school; and some, like himself, who were unable to talk about their
future plans with any degree of clarity and certainty. And yet, as EtMn describes it, he
never felt comfortable with a lot of the groups in high school. "I was really solitary,"
Ethan goes on to say. "I would sit with these people one day at lunch, and then the
football players the next day at lunch. I just didn't try to become close to people. I just
didn't want to become part of a group and then be influenced by them."

It is difficult to ascertain whether EtMn was completely free fi'om peer influence
in high school. It is safe to assume, however, that how Etlun chose to relate to his peers,
especially those who Md clearly defined educational and career goals, determined the
extent to which he would benefit fiom being around them. We can only speculate along
with Etlun as to why he was.not more firlly enculturated into one of the various peer
subgroups or, to use Ethan's words, why he "didn‘t want to be part of a group and then be

influenced." Had his grades been better perMps Ethan would Mve identified more with

107

the woman in his biology class; or maybe had he made the effort to learn more about
NAFTA, or Md be summoned the courage to ask the teacher for an explanation of it, his
perception of himself as an outsider in the classroom may Mve been altered.

Yet, rather tMn associating himself with those students in order to better himself
he responded to these students very differently. As it stands, we can only conclude along
with Ethan tMt unwillingness to try and form meaningfirl relationships with his college-
bound high school peers was sMped by his perception of gaps in the way they view the

world:

"I didn't like a lot of those other people. This one girl in my biology class
was so determined to get into the good colleges that she didn't care about learning
anything. When] suggested that we don't Mve the answer sheet before the test so
we could actually learn, she said 'no, I Mve to get good grades so I can get into
college.‘ And I said 'what? I didn't understand tMt. I didn't like some of those

people and I didn't like some of those attitudes."

The Elements of Family Life: Conclusion

EtMn recognizes the power of the mundane aspects of family existence, those
seemingly benign daily rituals, Mbits, and conversations that in the aggregate comprise a
way of life. For Ethan, it is these aspects of his life, the things tMt are often taken for
granted, that are most powerfirl. As he Ms reflected on the relationship between his

family's lifestyle and his experiences in high school, Ethan Ms come to recognize the

108

consequences of Mving to compete with students and families who were more able to
deploy social and cultural resources in order to gain an educational advantage. Lacking
the background and experience to help Ethan develop specific college and career goals
and concrete plans for getting there, his parents deEulted to the type of support they
could readily give: they simply wanted EtMn to be Mppy and to "do well." But
strategies for gaining a competitive advantage, including recognizing the importance of
class participation and extracurricular involvement, was not something about which his
parents were qualified to speak in concrete terms.

By contrast, nuny of the students in his class whose parents attended college were
at a distinct advantage because they understood how to play the educational game.
Further, nuny of these Emilies were able to deploy educational and social resources and
convert them into markers of academic achievement in ways tMt he was not able to. At
one level we heard Ethan talk about his inability to participate in certain classroom
discussions because he was unfamiliar with the subject matter, and because of he Md no
one at home to turn to for help. He also felt that he was handicapped by his inability to
talk with specificity about his career goals, which he feels led the counselors to not take
his stated colleges aspirations seriously.

But another important feature of knowing how to play the educational game is
revealed in the general orientation one Ms to their role as a participant in the process of
fornul schooling. While Mving the ability to deploy resources on bele of your children
can result in educational advantage, knowing the importance of such beMvior is often
less a question of available resources tMn of background and experience. Things like

encouraging students to participate in outside activities like student government, for

109

example, Mve the potential to fundamentally alter both the educational experience and
the outcome for an individual. Involvement in these activities gave his classmates
detectable advantages within the educational system, many related to the expectations for
firtureperformanceplacedonthembythestafi‘atthehighschoolbasedonpast
participation and achievements. So perMps of more significance tMn Ethan's inability to
actively participate was a lack of understanding of the inherent value of such
participation. As Etlun aptly summarizes the phenomenon, the teachers seemed to
respond more Evorably toward those students who brought middle class educational

histories and social backgrounds to the discussion.

110

II. A System of Trial and Error

Ethan cMracterizes his college experiences as a process of trial and error. To
illustrate the analogy he points to the Ect that he is now enrolled in college for the second
time, following a dismal performance during his first attempt. He did not attend Central
originally, Mving chosen instead to attend Atkins College, another small, private liberal
arts college. He spent only a semester there during which time he struggled academically
as well as financially, socially, and culturally. By his own admission, EtMn was not quite
prepared for what awaited him at college. As he discusses later in this section, he
continues to struggle now at Central, both in and out of the classroom, to keep pace with
the students whose social, cultrnal, and economic resources surpass his own. Still, his
experiences at CentraL the second trial in his program to attain a college degree, is much
improved over his first attempt.

As we shall also see, the significant influence of Ethan's community on his
college and career aspirations was felt later in his life and is directly tied to his Eiled
attempt to go to college. More specifically, it was in the period of time he spent back in
his hometown following his fast unsuccessful semester at Atkins when he truly felt his
aspirations begin sMped by the people with whom he interacted. As painfirl and
discouraging as it was at the time, EtMn now points to the experience of Mving to return
home and work in what he describes as a series of "low-level" jobs tMt turned his life
around. The lifestyle that awaited him in Utley City as a college drop out provided him
with the incentive and the motivation to undertake one more trial in the pursuit of a

college degree.

111

Thus, EtMn's story of going to college contains the elements that are central to
understanding his current predicament as a student at Central. His original decision not
to attend Central, his woefirl first semester and Atkins, and his unfulfilling time as an
hourly worker in Utley City all forestow wMt turns out to be the meaning of his

eventual return to college. The story begins with Ethan's first college choice experience.

"They have more things than I do "

Vague though they were, Ethan's college aspirations nevertheless persisted
through high school. His lackluster academic performance in high school, combined with
his inability to talk in specific terms about his educational and career goals, suggested to
his teachers and counselors tMt perMps he was reaching beyond his abilities.
Consequently, the guidance counselors in his high school led him toward postsecondary
options that seemed to be more on a level with his abilities and interests. Further, the
verbal encouragement he was receiving from his parents was devoid of the intentional,
concrete supportive activities tMt might Mve facilitated his transition to the next level of
his academic and career pursuits. Rather, the vague expressions of support expressed by
his parents simply kept alive within Ethan his own vague notions about the benefits of
college attendance.

Admittedly, Ethan and his parents thought of college as a monolith of institutions,
each separated only by geography and cost. In Ethan's words, "we just thought college is
college - you just go to college." Had he not chosen to attend Atkins he probably would
Mve ended up at the regional university where his brother attended briefly before

dropping out. He Md visited his brother a few times and "knew a few people there." To

112

Etlun, there was little else that was of any consequence in deciding where to go to
college. But experience has taught him much about education and opportunity and he
now fully recognizes the value of the type of education he is receiving at a residential,
liberal arts college. At the time, however, the characteristics that attracted him to Atkins

were far removed from the curriculum and the classroom:

"I would say that choosing a college wasn't purely an academic thing. In
high school I Md a Eirly good football team. I Mdn't thought a lot about college.
IthinkinourEmily itwasmoretMt myparentswantedustobesuccessfitl. I
think they just wanted us to Mve more of an opportunity than they did. TMt's my
general impression of wMt they felt. So I never really thought about college until
football came around. I think the coaches thought that I could play a little
Division III football. So some of my football coaches talked to a few schools, and
those coaches came to me first.

"My coaches didn't really talk to me about it, they just called the
Division III coaches and they sent me some information. I never really spoke
directly to my coaches about what it was like academically here or anything.

Purely football."

Despite the resource discrepancies tMt Mve plagued EtMn throughout his
educational life, he was forturute to possess a resource that would prove vital in his
college choice experience. To high school football coaches, the small, private liberal arts

college was seen not necessarily in terms of academic quality, but rather as a venue for

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division HI athletics. Once exposed to this environment, despite the original pretense of
athletic participation, Etlun's perceptions of the college experience evolved to the point
of full recognition and appreciation of the environment in which he found himself. In
EtMn's words, "I came for the football, but I stayed for the education."

EtMn did eventually enrolled at Central, but his initial decision was to attend
another snull, private liberal arts college. While football was the most important Ector
in identifying the snull group of division III schools from which he would choose, Etlun
was very selective in deciding which school to attend. To even arrive at the point of
considering Central required the pull of a feature on the periphery of the classroom
experience itself, in the form of athletic participation. In a similar Eshion, it was another

peripheral feature of Central tMt would serve to push him away:

"ThefirsttimelcametoCentralI stayedinafiaternityhouse. Itwas
interesting because everyone Md computers and I didn't Mve a computer. And
everyone Md Nintendo and these stereos. So my first impression was 'wow, these
are rich kids.’ I felt kind of uncomfortable.

"It was mostly their possessions. We didn't really talk about a lot of
academics. I was really impressed with the classroom thought when I visited an
education class and it was snull and there seemed to be a lot of interaction. But I
didn't really base my opinion on the classroom.

"So I didn't go to Central first, I went to Atkins then. I felt like I'd fit in

more at Atkins. I visited there and I just seemed to be able to connect more, I felt

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more comfortable. I felt strange with some of the people at the fraternity house, I
just felt like I couldn't connect.

"I don't know if it was just a matter of different personalities or if it was
just tMt I felt uncomfortable with the Ect'that they were rich, or that they Md

more money...Lifestyle. At Atkins it just felt more like me."

By his own admission, EtMn's decision not to attend Central Md nothing to do
with the academic program. Despite his desire to be in a setting tMt would support his
desired style of learning, the differences be perceived between himselfand the others was
too powerful to overcome. In a recurrence of his high school experience, the cultural gap
between himself and the rest of the student body, represented by those he met, would
prevent him from firlly connecting with the very students from whom he could benefit.
Etlun attributes these differences, as diflicult as they are to pinpoint beyond the
manifestations in the form of material possessions, to the general orientation that

develops out of the difl‘erences in lifestyles:

"At the time I didn‘t think about it other than, well they Mve more things
tMn]do-—theyseemedtojustbecarefiee,morecarefieethanlwas,and--I
don't know, I just felt uncomfortable with them...I know wMt I told my parents,
'well they're all rich, they Mve vcr's and computers and big stereos in their rooms.’
And they just seemed care free, or something -- I don‘t know.

"I used to Mve to think a lot more about what my career's going to be

eventually. I think a lot of those people know 'well I want to be an accountant, I

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want to go into business. I want to be a lawyer.’ They just knew. I think tlut's

the way they view life."

The First Trial: "1 Didn't Know How to be a Student "

The fact tMt Ethan was able to get to college at all is noteworthy. Considering
his lackluster high school academic record, the lack of tangible support fiom his parents,
and the Mphazard ruture of the selection process itself, it is easy to see why many
students in EtMn's circumstances do not nuke it to college at all. But as EtMn quickly

discovered, getting there was just the beginning:

"I went to Atkins for a semester and I wasn't focused at all. I found it
much more clullenging than] thought it would be. A lot more work tMn I ever
did. So I didn‘t do very well, and I thought tMt - oh, and my dad lost his job, so
it was kind of stressfirl and I thought I would go home and work for a while and
maybe take classes.

"...I think] would Mve done well at Atkins if I had -- I didn‘t even know
at that time what I needed to do to be a good student, if that nukes sense. I
dropped my first two classes because tMt was, well, I just didn't know how to
Mndle that much homework. So, I did terrible. And then it nude it worse
because I missed classes sometimes, and then my grade was affected. And so I
Mted college because I didn't do well."

"It was awful...There was a political science class, kind of ironic because

tMt's my major now. But I was lost, I did terrible. By the second test I knew I

116

was done. I was kind of intimidated because I Md no idea wMt language they
were speaking practically. They would use all these words I Md no idea wMt
they meant, all these concepts...He spoke in a lot of technical words and words
tMtwerejust used intMt discipline. AndIMdno ideawhathewas saying.
After the lecture I didn't know what to write down for notes because I didn't know

a lot of wMt he meant. I mean, it was an introductory course."

"The scholastic yield from educational action," Bourdieu (1986) writes, "depends
on the cultural cale previously invested by the Emily" (p.244). This relationship
between class, culture, and educational achievement serves as the foundation of a truism
tMt shapes the work of teachers from K-12 to graduate school: the social background and
educational history of the student find their way into the classroom is such a way as to
shape the very process of teaching and learning. Through EtMn's experience at Atkins
we see the ways in which this dynamic can play itself out in the course of everyday
experience. One powerful manifestation of EtMn's social and educatiorul history in the
college classroom are the "linguistic misunderstandings" (Bourdieu et al, 1965) tMt
occurred between him and his college professors. In general, these misunderstandings
occur because of the inability of the student to decipher the "codes of transmission used
to convey a particular body of knowledge" (p.5). In EtMn's case, the effectiveness of the
political science lectures, despite the expertise of the professor, was compromised due to
EtMn's lack of linguistic capital. The result this time mirrored his earlier experience in
high school: once again, Etlun found himself unable to firlly participate in the teaching

and learning process, despite his intense desire to become educated.

117

More than likely, Ethan was not alone in his inability to understand the language
of a given academic discipline. Indeed, it Ms been suggested that most college students
are ill prepared to cope with the scholastic demands made on their use of language
(Bourdieu et a1). But in EtMn's case, the linguistic limitations be encountered in his
political science class are only symptomatic of his larger educational predicament. In
many ways, EtMn epitomizes the plight of nuny nontraditional students who come to
college each year with no orientation toward, to use Ethan's words, "how to be a good
student."

Although the term "nontraditional" Ms lost much of its meaning due to the
cMnging demographics of the college student population (tMt is, the presence of adult
students, students from various racial and ethnic groups, low-achieving students, low-
income students, and Mndicapped students in larger numbers call into question the
meaning of what it actually means to be "traditional"), it is nevertheless applicable in
describing EtMn's experience as a college student. McGrath and Spears (1991) argue
tMt wMt distinguishes the experiences of many nontraditional students on the college
campus is not merely demographic characteristics, but rather their cultural orientation.
F fist-generation college students, they argue "come from backgrounds which Mve not
prepared them to identify with, or even to recognize the central values and practices of
academic life" (p. 24). The result is tMt EtMn was being asked to take on an identity
with which he was completely unEmiliar, both in terms of beMviors and attitudes. For
example, his is expected not simply to acquire effective study Mbits, but to develop a

commitment to learning; and to not just go to class regularly, but to engage in the

118

exchange of ideas. In other words, EtMn was asked to see the role of student not just in

terms of what you do, but rather as an expression of who you are.

The Return Home: "Ihis could be my life "

EtMn's Emily moved to Utley City when he was nine years old. He speaks of his
early years in Utley City with little sense of importance, except tMt he does recall how he
became involved with the "wrong crow " and once ended up in the police station for
drinking beer in the park. But the true significance of life in Utley City was felt at a
much later point in Ethan's life. Like so nuny other students who enter college without
adequate preparation, and with little knowledge of wMt it takes to succeed, Ethan quietly
withdrew from college after only one semester and returned home. He planned to live
with his parents and work in town, thinking tMt this would allow him to regroup and
prepare for his eventual return to college. In addition to working in order to save money
for college, he hoped to commute to the branch campus near his home in order to keep
pace academically. Unfortunately, this part of the plan fell through because he had no
steady means of transportation.

It was during this time, and for the first time in his life, tMt EtMn begin to think
seriously and deliberately about his career aspirations. In retrospect EtMn views this turn
of events, not being able to continue his education while in Utley City, as the key
moment in his educational life. Instead of holding on to the image of himself as a college
student working his way through school, he slowly began to Ece the possibility tMt he
was exactly wMt and where he was destined to be: a college Eilure, trying to construct a

meaningfiil life for himself in a town tMt Md little to offer:

119

"I don‘t like my hometown. I don‘t know how else to say it. People didn‘t
talk about the same things] was interested in. After I went to college for awhile I
was interested in becoming a teacher and nuybe graduate school, I was thinking.
Maybe politics. I thought ‘wow, there's a lot out there tMt I just did not know

about.‘ These people just didn‘t seem to Mve the same interests I Md."

WMt Ethan realized at that point in his life was tMt he needed to be in college.
Despite the fact that he was completely overwhelmed by the demands placed on him as a
college student at Atkins, the prospect of returning to wMt awaited him back in Utley

City was even more overwhelming:

"I didn‘t feel like these people - I Mve a hard time saying 'these people‘ --
the people at McDonald's, the people at the car dealership, the nuchanics there,
the people at the county park who worked there -- I didn't feel like they had any
goals to improve, or nuke more money, or Mve more responsibility, or anything.

"I worked in a quick oil cMnge for awhile. They just wanted to talk about
their car, or the girl they saw the day before, whereas -- I got in trouble for
picking up a newspaper and reading it...Sometimes between cMnging oil in the
cars -- well they would tell me to clean up or wMtever. I Mted tMt, so I'd go into
the fiont room and then I'd pick up the newspaper and get a cup of coffee and just
sittbereuntilacarcarne. Andtheownercarne inandhesaid ‘tMt‘sthe
customers' newspaper. You gonna Mve to put that down.‘ I said ‘well I just want

to read the fiont page, there's not a car here or anything yet. And he said ‘you

120

need to put that down right now.‘ And I just -- that's when I realized that man, no
teacher would tell me to put the newspaper down. So I didn't like tMt. It was a
bad experience.

"He didn‘t respect me. That‘s the conclusion] reached. It was more than
just him, it was everyone around me didn‘t respect me. People that came to get
their oil cMnged, you know, they looked at me differently. I was greasy, I was

dirty, I wore, you know, a blue collar. And people didn't respect me very much."

To hear Ethan speak now, you get the sense that he Ms become keenly aware of
the relationship between education, occupations, and status in his own life. He has a
deep, intuitive understanding of the subtle yet pervasive ways in which his own parents‘
education level and occupational status sMped their social relationships, and how this in
turn sMped his educational aspirations and experiences. But the implications of this
relationship for his own life became apparent to him only after it was almost too late. For
the first time in his life EtMn was beginning to see that his decision not to return to
college after the first semester was already sMping his social relationships and, much to
his dismay, was determining for him a fixture fi'om which he felt there might be no

escape:

"I saw this guy that was thirty years old washing cars over there for
minimum wage and] said 'well why is tMt guy over there washing cars? I mean,
why isn‘t he doing something else?‘ 'Well, he‘s just not -- he‘s just not good

enough. He‘s not very good at washing cars.‘ And I said ‘why can‘t he be good

121

enough washing cars?‘ And then I figured out he just likes it. He likes nuking
minimum wage and driving this beat up truck and living in this dumpy
apartment.

"I asked him, ‘well Mve you thought about getting a better job, or maybe
learning how to become a mecMnic or something like that? He said 'no, no I like
this job.’ ..It was baffling. I didn‘t understand. I didn't understand why he would
want to work for tMt little money. I was really baffled. I didn‘t understand why
he would want to do that.

"...I looked around at the people I was working with and the lifestyles they
Md. And I didn't do well at Atkins before. And I thought tMt's just who I was.
There might be a cMnce I can‘t go anywhere. This might be where I'm going to

be. I was trapped."

For EtMn, the view of Utley City as an adult proved to be the turning point in his
life. Up until that time Ethan had not thought much about his own future, other tMn to
assume things would just Ell into place. But following his dismal first attempt at going
to college, he had begun to think maybe his high school counselors and teachers were
right. Maybe he was not “college material." And maybe he was indeed fooling himself
by thinking tMt he Md the capability to become something other than the working class
kid tMt he was. His return to Utley City, coming on the heels of the disastrous
experience at Atkins, gave him the opportunity to sample his own firture by bringing him
face to face with the work environment, lifestyle, and social relationships tMt would

cMracterize his life as a college dropout.

122

Now, as a seventeen-year-old college drop out, Etlun was forced to give serious
thought to the role tMt work would play in his life. His experiences working at a fast
food restaurant, in the county park as part of a nuintenance crew, and as an oil changer in
the car dealership shed new light on the realities of unskilled blue-collar work Not tMt
he was unfamiliar with this kind of work. To the contrary, he had spent most of his
summers working in jobs like this. But this time it was difi‘erent. This time he noticed
that his co-workers were not just students like him, trying to make some pocket money.
This time he began to notice the people who were a few years older than be, trying to
work and raise a Emily. This time he began to understand wMt it would be like to build
a life around work like this. Realizing the long term implications of living through a
string of unrelated and unfulfilling jobs, EtMn was beginning to understand tMt he did
indeed want more than Utley City had to offer, and tMt despite his first trial and error

college experience, he did indeed belong in college:

"I realized tMt I could be working like this. This could be my life."

123

IH. "Running a Race with Worn Out Shoes"

Although EtMn understands tMt in some very important ways his aspirations for
college outpaced his resources, he Ms also come to accept that the distance between the
two represent not a barrier to aspirations, but merely a Mndicap to be overcome. And in
the process of trying to make sense of his educational predicament Etlun Ms come to
recognize the ironic nature of his own resource deficiency: tMt the people with whom he
Ms been unwilling to form meaningfirl relationships because of the social and cultural
distance between birnselfand them are the very people who can help him fulfill his own
educational and career aspirations. And it was about this time, after Mving the
opportunity to experience life on the blue-collar side of a deep social and cultural divide,
that Ethan decided that he Md to do something to improve his lot in life. "It was about
this time," Etlun recalls, "tMt I decided to apply again to Central."

Ethan's first thoughts were tMt he could still play football. "TMt‘s why Central
wanted me to come in the first place," EtMn reasoned. "I thought nuybe I would get in
shape, so I started running and lifting weights and just starting to feel better about myself
because tMt was part of my identity before." But EtMn's outlook would change, thanks
to an encounter with an individual whose own life story began with circumstances much

worse tMn Ethan's:
"There was this guy fiom Johns Hopkins University, the director of

pediatric neurosurgeory there. He's the youngest guy there. He came to speak at

Utley City that summer at the high school. He talked about how he came from a

124

single parent home and his mom was a cleaning lady and she washed toilets and
cleaned. And for a while he started Mnging with a crowd tMt tried to pull him
away item the direction his mom wanted him to go.

"And his mom always encouraged him to do well in school, be morally
upright and all of this. And he ended up doing well in high school and then he

went to Yale and then be finally went to medical school at Johns Hopkins."

EtMn was inspired by the man’s story, how he was able overcome the potentially
debilitating effects of his background to realize his dream of going to medical school.
For EtMn, the lesson was a simple one: not everyone starts fiom the same position in life.
But at the same time, EtMn began to realize, where one ends up does not Mve to be firlly
determined by one’s social and economic origins. The message caused EtMn to alter his
outlook on his educational predicament. Rather than spending time all of his time in the
gym getting in sMpe, EtMn split his time between the gym and the library. And the
more he read, he recalls, the more confident he became in recasting himself in the image
of a serious college student. And the more he thought about where he wanted to go in his
life, the more clear it became to him tMt Central College, despite the differences between

himself and the other students, was where he needed to be:

"I think I realized tMt I wanted tMt kind of environment. I wanted that

kind of environment, even thought it was so chlenging. I just don‘t think I was

focused enough the first time. So I felt like if I worked Mrd enough I could learn

125

a lot from the people around me. I could learn a lot, even if I don‘t get great
grades."

The Second Trial

Drawing on the lessons learned over the previous year, EtMn was now ready for
the second trial. Ethan has returned to college with a renewed sense of purpose and an
ironclad determination to succeed in spite of his resource Mndicap. His experience in
Utley City solidified his resolve to become more than his background and high school
achievements suggested that he might become. And the doubts he had about being able
to succeed in college Mve Eded, Mving been replaced by a commitment to work as Mrd
as it takes in order to keep pace with his more advantaged classmates. All in all, Etlun
believes that Central College is the best environment for him, and he knows tMt he will
emerge from the experience with a deep appreciation for his accomplishments because of
the effort it took just to persist. But despite his renewed sense of commitment, some of

the chlenges still exist:

"A lot of wMt Mppened last year when I first came to Central I struggled
a lot in my classes. I didn't do well at first. I was wonied tMt I was going to
Mve to just go back to Utley City again. And that was kind of scary because of
the experiences I Md. I didn‘t want to go back and be stuck somewhere.

"It's tough to deal with because every day in my classes I wonder 'well
wMt would it be like if I would have taken - wMt would it Mve been like if I

would‘ve Md different friends, if I would Mve been involved in different

126

activities, maybe I would Mve done this -- it's a lot of ‘wMt-ifs.‘ So it's tough
because I get fi'ustrated sometimes in my classes. Sometimes I don't work as
Mrd because I feel that it‘s just not worth it.

”...I think the worse thing about it is feeling like I‘m limited in what I can
do. That's the worst thing. I feel like, well I don‘t really have a choice to do wMt
I want. It's discouraging. Sometimes] felt like I was just being held down, I
didn't Mve any choice... Everything was going on without me. I felt like I was

runningaracewithwomoutshoes.”

Ethan knows tMt despite the feelings of discouragement tMt often over stow
his experience, his time at Central Ms been advantageous for him in some important
ways. Granted, the frustration and the "wMt-ifs" may always be with him. But he Ms
not let the advantages ofthe other students get in the way ofthe pursuit ofhis own
educational and career aspirations. In Ect, EtMn now realizes tMt it is the very students
who cause him to feel fi'ustrated and discouraged who Mve proved to be most

instrumental in helping give form to his own aspirations:

"I think part of it is just being a part of this environment to be honest with
you. Being around people who Mve high goals and career goals and things. I
think tMt this kind of encourages, motivates you. I think that it rubs off on you,
which is good for me. So this environment is really good. Being the small class
sizes you get to sMre that more. You get to see where people are coming fi'om. I

Mve learned a lot about a lot of different people and wMt their goals are.

127

"I think my expectations are higher for everything. Just being around
other people who Mve different views on life. I think like the expectations of
wMt they should Mve. I think tMt Ms kind of changed. I think that I Mve
always had high expectations I just didn't Mve the confidence. So for an
example, a couple of weeks ago I went home to look for a summer job. It is kind
ofhardtofindasummerjob. Mydadsaid ‘well, Ithinktbatyousbouldgo down
to SUBWAY and I think that they will hire you. Or you could go down to the
grocery store and stock on midnights. TMt is a good job.’ And I didn't want to. I
saidnowaylamnotdoingthat.

"SolwenttothebankandlMdmygirlfiiendtypeuparesumeandl
dressed up nicer and I went in and] introduced myself. I said I am fi'om Central
College and I am here for the summer and I am looking for a position. And gave
them my resume and three or four banks called me back and they offered me a

teller job for $7.50 an hour or something. Much better tMn $4.50 an hour."

After years of looking on from a distance, Ethan Ms taken the first step in
bridging the cMsm tMt Ms separated him from many ofthose around him. Whether we
consider the peer groups in his high school whose attitudes he found disdainful; or the
students in the fraternity house whose lifestyles appeared to be so different from his own,
the distance between himself and them was simply too great and, consequently, was
reinforced by Ethan's self-imposed barriers. However, Mving seen wMt life was like as

an adult on his side of the divide, Etlun Ms decided that he belongs on the other side.

128

And the key to his successful transition, he concludes, is to capitalize on those differences

andtousehistimeatCentraltohisownbestadvantage:

"...I think I might Mve taken advantage of the opportunities in high school
more if I would Mve been around these kinds of people. My girlfriend for
example, I met her doing opera scenes. I wouldn't Mve been in opera scenes in
high school. I don‘t know why] got involved in opera scenes. So, I think when I
came to Central I Md this attitude tMt I just wanted to explore everything and just

see everything that was out there."

Overall, EtMn's predicament Ms not changed that much. He is still trying to
catch up to his peers whose lifestyles provided them with a competitive advantage in the
educational system. He still experiences periodic episodes of frustration over
opportunities tMt he may Mve missed out on, and he sometimes must fight the urge to
just give up. And, as mentioned in the introduction to EtMn's story, he will probably end
up transferring fiom Central because he can no longer to afford his monthly loan
payments. Yet, despite his ongoing struggle to overcome the social and cultural elements
of his background, there is one very important aspect of Ethan‘s predicament tMt Ms
improved. WMt he once saw as forces against acting against him, EtMn Ms turned into

a source of motivation and a sense of purpose:

129

"Now I don‘t feel as overwhelmed. Life for a while I felt like I Md to run
really fast. And now] feel like I can slow down a little bit and not be so worried.
It's not as denunding or something. I think becoming more educated is liberating.
Learning tMt what I didn't know I didn't know. TMt's wMt Ms been liberating.
Just learning.

"There are some things I‘m never going to be able to help. I can‘t make up
for those experiences I Md in the past, things I Mven't been exposed to. But I‘m
just going to continue going through college. Then I'll feel much better when]
help other people because then I'll feel like well there‘s the cMnce tMt I didn‘t

Mve...l just want people to Mve more opportunities."

130

Epilogue

Ethan's experience at Central College didn‘t quite turn out as he Md hoped. He
came to Central hoping to enter the education program to earn his teaching certificate.
He Md decided to go into teaching because of his poor high school experience, which he
feelswasdueinpartto some oftheteacherswhotaughthim. Butattheendofhis
sophomore year EtMn received a letter of denial from the education program at CentraL
The reason, the letter stated, was that his grades were not high enough. In some ways it
was just as well. Just as he had anticipated, EtMn had to transfer fi'om Central College
for financial reasons following his sophomore year. He tried to find a way to nuke it
work, but the burden of working twenty hours per week just to stay even financially
became too much. With his parents unable to lend any additional support, EtMn would
Mve to take on additional loans, which was not appealing to him. The immediate
concern for EtMn was how he would be able to nuke the payments on the interest while
in school. Once again, EtMn‘s educational goals became victim to his lack of resources.

Nor did Ethan‘s plans for the summer turn out well. He was able to get a job at
the bank working as a teller, which was going Eirly well until the day his drawer was
short $300. As it turns out it was simply a matter of a missing piece of paper instead of
missing cash. But by that point it did not matter tMt the situation Md been resolved. The
experience was so unsettling to EtMn tMt gave his two week notice on the spot, and
actually ended up quitting his job at the bank that same day. EtMn was able to end the
summer on a high note, though After leaving the bank he was able to get a job leading

recreational activities at a day-care center. The center was Mppy to Mve him working

131

there, EtMn explains, and they trusted him to nuke his own decisions about the sports
camps he was running. But the experience at the bank still lingered in Ethan's memory,

causing him to "wrestle with those issues" about wMt his abilities are:

"I still think about the pictures in my mind over and over. Why did I miss
that? Why didn't I...because $300, really...‘your drawer is short $300...and I‘m
like, 'that's what it says, but that‘s probably not it.‘ I tried to explain it to them and
they would just get fi'ustrated. It was terrible. It was the worst thing that could

Mve Mppened to me that summer."

EtMn is now attending his third college, this one a regional state university. You
mightsaythebeisintbemidstofhisthirdtrial. Butunlikethefirsttwo,thistimethe
pieces of his college and career aspirations are Elling into place in ways EtMn would
never Mve anticipated. "As far as my career goals and things like tMt, it's kind of
interesting because they seem more reachle now," Etlun reports. Ironically, Etlun
attributes much of this to his time at Central. "I've gained a lot of confidence being at
Central," EtMn says. "I gained the ability to write better, I gained study Mbits. I learned
from other students around me." Part of the benefit of Etlun's time at Central was, in his
words, "being around students with lofty goals - people talking about internships, people
talking about going to law school and medical school." What struck EtMn about these
conversations with the students at Central was how they talked about their goals as if they
just expected tMt it would Mppen. Now, after years of fiustration and doubt, EtMn feels

himself moving along in the same manner:

132

"It started feeling really good. I realized I'm a senior now and I‘ll proMbly
be student teaching next fall, and then I'll graduate the following spring. It's like

these steps are now -- just the next obvious steps."

While Ethan's progress is measured in part by his ability to imagine himself
reaching his educational goals, he Ms also come a long way in coming to terms with his
educational predicament. To state it another way, Ethan is beginning to see the bigger
picture as it relates to class and educational outcomes. As a result, he is able to take the
anger and bitterness about his own situation and cMnnel it into his ambitions. Or, as
Etlun puts, "I just want to Mrness those feelings and move forward." One area in which
EtMn Ms come to terms with his situation is his high school experience. In researching a
paper for one of his classes at the university, EtMn came across some statistics on college
attendance patterns by socioeconomic status. He was Escinated by wMt he discovered.
Sensing tMt his own experience in trying to nuke it to college might Mve its origins in
theclass inequitiesheMdreadabout,bereturnedtohishometownandtalkedtohishigh
school guidance counselor.

Ethan‘s instincts were on target. As a blue-collar town, Etlun was told by the
counselor, you just Mve to expect that not everyone is going to want to go to college.
Nor, the cormselor was saying between the lines, should they want to go to college.
Suddenly, EtMn‘s high school experience -- the way he seemed to be shut out of some
classroom conversations because his background hadn‘t Emiliarized him with the subject
matter, and the way he was diverted into vo-tech by the counselor because of his inability

to clearly articulate his educational and career goals - was seen in a new light. WMt the

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counselor was saying to EtMn was tMt the career aspirations of the students in his school
were considered in light of the occupational status of their parents. "I'm looking at him
and he‘s just saying tMt‘s the way it should be," Ethan says in disbelief. Of course, Ethan
was one of those blue-collar kids fiom Utley City. "The counselors weren't there to
counsel," Ethan concludes, "they were there to direct you where they thought you should
go. I realized tMt my high school experience was basically hopeless."

Ethan nuy not like wMt he Ms learned about educational stratification, but at
least he is able to place his own predicament in a larger societal context. He no longer
gets angry at his parents for the choices they made. In fact, EtMn reports, his
relationship with his parents Ms gotten much better. Rather tMn blaming his Ether for
the lifestyle they lead, EtMn now nukes a deliberate effort to show an interest in his
father‘s activities and hobbies. "I‘ve just become more accepting after thinking about the
circumstances they endured," Ethan says. "I've become more aware and I‘ve nude more
progress. I feel like I Mve more of a grasp of it.” And perMps more importantly, Ethan
no longer blames himself for his predicament. There was a time, not so long ago, in Ect,
when Etlun felt that the difficulty he Eced in high school and in college was due to his
own lack of ability. "When I came to Central," Etlun recalls, "I thought that all you Mve
to do is work Mrd." While EtMn recognizes the value of Mrd work, be Ms also come to
realize that Mrd work can be a lot less grueling when you Mve good tools to work with.
Or, as Ethan might state it, running the race is a lot easier in new shoes.

Indeed, Ethan has come a long way toward reaching his educational goals. But he
also Md a lot of ground to make up. Only by his own determination and persistence was

be able to nuke it to college at all. Once he made it to college it took him three tries to

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finally be successfirl. But Ethan doesn't regret his experiences. In Ect, he feels that the

bumps in the road and the unexpected turns Mve made him a stronger competitor:

"In some ways] feel real good about the situation I'm in. I feel like I kind
of Mve an opportunity that some people don‘t Mve. Just going down tMt road, I

can see things somewMt differently. I feel almost advantaged in some ways."

Yet, EtMn does periodically think back in frustration at the difficulties he faced in
realizing his college aspirations. "Although I am Mppy and content in the position I am
in," he explains, "I'm still in a position that is different some people because my
beginnings were different." But unlike a few years ago, EtMn now feels like he now Ms
a better grasp on the origins of his predicament. For EtMn, then, the race continues. And
now, for the first time in his life, EtMn can actually begin to see the finish line. His feet
are hurting a little bit, he says metaphorically, but now at least be is able to wMt it is he

Ms been running toward all these years:

"It‘s just like running cross country when I was in the eighth grade. Half-
way through it really hurts, but then I know I Mve my coaches toward the end
saying, 'you‘ve got it...just a little bit farther...push it.‘ And all of a sudden you

Mve an extra burst of energy. "

So here he is, just a few yards short of the finish line: He Ms gotten accepted into

the education school at the university, he plans to student teach in the E11, and he will

135

graduate the following spring. As his cross-country coach might say to him at this point,
"just a little bit Erther." And just like in the eighth grade, Ethan responds with a burst of
energy:

"Sometimes I run a little Ester when I can see the finish line."

136

Chapter 4: Rhonda

”I'm just waiting to fail...1 guess I've seen failure so much that I'm just waiting for the
time when I'm going to do it. I 'm confident, but yet there 's always that feeling in my

stomach that this is going to be the time. "

Introduction

Rhonda is in her junior year at Central College and is preparing to travel to
Oxford, England to study next semester. Like most eighteen year-olds preparing to travel
abroad, Rhonda is looking forward to the experience. She speaks with great anticipation
of her impending journey to another country, an emotion that contains elements of both
excitement and apprehension. "Culture shock" is how Rhonda describes her upcoming
trip, "like when you fear something new, yet you're excited about it." This sense of
anxious anticipation aptly captures Rhonda's state of mind as she thinks about going fi'om
the Emiliarity tMt characterizes her life at home, to the unknown way of life tMt awaits
her in England. Rhonda fully understands tMt she is about to enter into unEmiliar
territory, and she is doing her best to prepare for wMt might await her there. "I know I‘m
going to experience all these new things," she says.

Little fi'om Rhonda‘s Emily background suggests tMt she would be where she is
today: at a private liberal arts college, where she is preparing herself to enter law school

following graduation. Rhonda spent most of her childhood years on welfare, living with

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her mother in a trailer park on the edge of Midtown, a prosperous town that is home to an
the international headquarters of a chemical manufacturing company. But the course of
Rhonda‘s life would cMnge dramatically. Following her sophomore year in high school,
on the heels of an alcohol-related incident that nearly cost her life, Rhonda was offered a
fresh start on life.

The Hamptons, a Emily whom Rhonda had known for some time, and whose way
of life was quite different from her own, invited her to move into their home on a
permanent basis. Life with the Hamptons held the promise of putting Rhonda on a
different path, one tMt would lead her toward college and ultimately toward a better life.
Butattlutpointinherlife Rhondasawnothingwrongwiththelife shewas living. She
Md a group of close and loyal friends to whom she could turn for support, even though
they themselves had little hope of moving beyond their current economic and social
conditions. In the final analysis, however, the ambivalence displayed by her mother
suggested to Rhonda that despite not knowing just what a better life would look like, she
was better off taking the leap of Eith tMt landed her squarely in the midst of life in the

middle class.

Rhonda's Story

Rhonda's story is one of elevated aspirations. The course of events in Rhonda‘s
life provides an up—close look into the effects of class background on the college choice
experience. In Rhonda‘s case the most immediate effect of the cMnge in her
circumstances was her decision to go to college at all. From there, as we lel see, she

would go on to attend Central College and eventually set her sights on law school. We

138

Mve come to expect such stories of "beating the odds" to unfold gradually. Levine‘s
(1996) book of the same title chronicles the plight of low-income high school students
who, with the aid of self-appointed mentors, are able to overcome the limitations of their
home environment and eventually make it to college. By contrast, the circumstances
surrounding Rhonda's life lend themselves to a story told in ahnost exaggerated form.

First, the nugnitude of the cMnge itself is extreme. The Hamptons’ way of life,
as a college-educated, dual career household, stands in stark contrast to the life of
deprivation Rhonda lived with her welfare-dependent, single mother. Second, the pace of
the cMnge was accelerated. Unlike the gradual pace of the more Emiliar mobility story,
Rhonda went Item the deprivation of life on welfare to the privileges and opportunities of
life with the Hamptons literally within a matter of weeks. Third, because of the speed
with which the move took place, Rhonda did not Mve the luxury of a gradual, steady
exposure to her new environment. Instead, she found herself completely immersed in an
unfamiliar way of life with little in the way of preparation for coping with the uncertainty
and conflict tMt accompanied the move. And perMps the most telling feature of
Rhonda‘s story is tMt the cMnges that took place in her life were devoid of intentionality
on the part of Rhonda. Stated simply, the move was not Rhonda's idea; in fact, Rhonda
had to be convinced tMt the move would matter in any meaningfirl way.

One conclusion reached from the extensive literature on college choice is tMt
class background does indeed matters in the experience of going to college. Who decides
to go to college, how Emilies go about selecting a college, and who ends where are all
closely linked to the educational, social, and occupational histories of the parents. The

timing of the move was such tMt the majority of the activity associated with Rhonda's

139

college choice experience took place with her new family. The influence of her new
environment was immediate and is manifested in the encouragement she received fiom
the Hamptons to raise her sights for college, as well as in the amount of involvement
displayed by her new family in guiding Rhonda toward Central College. Thus, we see
played out in dranutic form the immediate advantages of life in her new environment.
Indeed, culture shock may be the central metaphor in Rhonda's life. She knows
from experience tMt moving from one environment to another, fi'om a place where things
are Emiliar to one in which all that you Mve taken for granted during your life is called
into question, can be both exciting and fiightening. In this sense, the move into the
Hamptons’ household and her upcoming trip to England are more alike tMn different.
But there is one important distinction between the two that for Rhonda serves as a
reminder of the exceptional nature of her unfolding life dranu. Whereas her time in
England is temporary, the family who took her in did so not as an invitation to visit but as
the opporttmity to become someone and something different. Consequently, Rhonda is
immersed in the gradual and conflictive process of reforming her peer relationships,
adjusting to the new expectations tMt Mve been placed upon her, and, most significantly,

elevating her aspirations for the firture.

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I. The Gradual Awakening

“The Dirty Little Secret”

Rhonda grew up in Midtown, a town that is home to the international
headquarters of the Chemex Company. Chemex is the largest employer in Midtown and
many of the Emilies who live there are third generation Chemex employees. In addition
to employing many of the Midtown residents, several of the corporate executives from
Chemex live in Midtown, including the CEO. "It seemed tMt everyone in town worked
for Chemex and made a lot of money," Rhonda recalls. Everyone, it seemed, but
Rhonda's mother. Her parents divorced when she was four years old, and from that time
onsheMdvirtuallynocontact withherEther. "Mydadwasamaintenanceman,sohe
didn‘t nuke a lot of money," explains Rhonda. "And the court never ordered him to pay
child support." To make matters worse, her mother Md a difficult time finding and
holding a job. Consequently, Rhonda and her mother would spend the next twelve years
in the trailer they sMred on the outskirts of town, living off welfare and trying to sustain
some semblance of a nomul life.

Looking back, Rhonda is able to recognize the differences between the life she
lived with her mother in the trailer park and the lifestyles of the more affluent residents of
Midtown. Rhonda describes the differences in straightforward terms: she was lower class
and they were upper class. But it‘s more than just the money tMt made them upper class,
Rhonda says. "They also act difl‘erently." Rhonda's conclusion about the people in
Midtown acting differemly is one tMt developed from observing the Mbits and beMviors

of other Emilies. In Ect, nuny of the working class Emilies with whom she has

141

interacted during her short time in the town of Central help her to see the differences even
more. As an example, Rhonda talks about a recent Friday evening, when she and a few
other students decided to attend a local high school football game. "The bleachers were
half empty," she remembers. This is in sharp contrast to the games at Midtown High
School, where nuny of the home football games sell out. Some Midtown parents, in fact,
attend games whether or not they Mve a son on the team.

Rhonda attributes the show of support for high school athletics in Midtown to
more tMn simply the love of the game. Rather, it shows the deep commitment on the
part of these upper class parents to the educational lives of their children. And on this
level, her mother was very difi‘erent from other Midtown parents. Her mother did not
support the high school by attending home football games. In fact, she hardly showed
support for her own daughter‘s education at all. Granted, there are measures of support
more reliable than attending football games on a Friday night. And, to her credit,
Rhonda's mother did attend parent-teacher conferences in grade school. But, says

Rhonda, she wasn‘t involved in any other way:

"I'd bring my homework home and show it to her and put it away, but it
didn‘t really matter. She always figured that when I got my report card if it was
lower tMn normal she would say something. But anything above a "c" was

adequate to her. So it didn't nutter how well I did as long as] did tMt well."

Although Rhonda now recognizes the differences between the lifestyle she lived

with her mother and the more affluent residents of Midtown, for a time she saw no

142

differences at all. As far as Rhonda knew, the lifestyle she was experiencing with her
mom was completely normal. Because she had never known anything else, Rhonda
assumed that everybody was like her mom. "I didn't know that everybody went to work,"
she recalls. "I didn't know tMt everybody wasn't on welfare like my mom." That is, she
didn't realize that other people in Midtown were living differently until one day when she
was in the sixth grade. The circumstances surrounding that day are rather unspectacular.
As best as Rhonda can remember, she and a friend were playing hopscotch in the
driveway after school. In this respect, the day was like most other days spent with her
fiiends from the trailer park. But what Mppened tMt day forever changed Rhonda‘s

perspective on wMt constituted a nomul way of life:

"My friend told me her parents were on welEre, too. She said 'don‘t tell
anybody.‘ And I was like ‘why? Doesn't everybody do that?‘ And she said ‘no,

most people go to work. We're just different}

The fi'iend who filled Rhonda in on the "dirty little secret" about welfare altered
Rhonda‘s view of the world such tMt she could never return to her former state of naivete
and innocence about the kind of life her mother was leading. She now knew the truth
about welEre, tMt indeed the type of life she was experiencing with her mother was not
the way most people in Midtown lived. Although she and her friend never talked about it

again, the conversation stuck in Rhonda's mind:

143

 

“After my fi'iend told me that, I think I became a lot more private about
my home life. If the other kids asked questions I wouldn't tell them anything that

I felt would invade my little wall. If anybody asked I just nude up a story."

While the short-term effect of the episode may Mve been a tinge of
embarrassment and ste, the experience would stay with Rhonda and later would be
understood by her as part of a general, cumulative awakening tMt would firndamentally
alter feelings about her mother. A year later Rhonda would Mve another such
experience, this time precipitated by a physical move that took her out of Midtown and
into much larger environment. But as in the welfare episode, the result of this move was

an even clearer view of the truth about her mother:

"When I was in the seventh grade mom and I moved to Bay City to be
near my grandma. I saw tMt a lot ofpeople had realjobs. My uncle is a
machinist, my aunt bags groceries, but there were other people...There was a
nurse, things like that. Well, then, too, my mom was still on welfare. I tried to
show her tMt, you know, this is not what you're supposed to do, you're supposed
to work like everybody else. Everybody else is working, why aren‘t you working?

But, she didn‘t work either. I mean, she just didn't work“
At one level these episodes are part of a natural widening of Rhonda‘s perspective

on the ways of the world. That is to say, most of us can point to times in our lives when

we begin to see our parents in a different light, times when we were able to step outside

144

the limits of our own environment and look at om'selves and our Emilies as others see
them Likewise, Rhonda offers these two recollections to illustrate the "loss of
innocence" tMt characterizes those years of her life. But the effect of these episodes
would prove to be much more profound and durable. These small "awakenings," the
gradual realizations of the differences between the home life she took for granted and the
way other people lived, predisposed her to recognize the rare opportunity to live a
different kind of life. Ironically, it would take an event that almost cost her life to find the

opporttmity to improve her life chances.

The Critical Event

Eventually, Rhonda and her mother would move back to Midtown in time for
Rhonda to attend junior high and high school there. While in Midtown Rhonda became
acquainted with the Hamptons, a middle class Emily for whom Rhonda had been baby-
sitting fi‘om the time she was in the eighth grade. Sue and Rod Hampton were both
college educated and were well established in their respective careers. Rod was a
successfirl CPA, Mving owned his own business at one time. Sue was involved in the
culinary arts, most recemly working as a chef at the local country club. Over the years
Rhonda Md became very close to the Hampton Emily, especially their three children.
The relationship between Rhonda and the Hamptons grew so strong tMt she would often
be invited to accompany them on family vacations. Over time Rhonda Md come to know
the Hampton Emily very well and, perMps more importantly, they Md come to know

her.

145

When Rhonda was sixteen years old, she and her best friend went roller skating
one Friday evening. The two of them left the skating rink tMt evening with a male
acquaintance, and later the three of them began drinking vodka together. Rhonda Md
never experimented with alcohol before tMt evening and she became, in her words,
"trashed." She ended up unconscious and in the emergency room of the hospital where
she was treated for alcohol poisoning. Shortly after the incident Rhonda was Mving
dinner in a restaurant with the Hamptons, as she would often do on weekends. But this
dinner was different. Despite her hope to the contrary, the. Hamptons had found out
about the alcohol poisoning incident. Rhonda felt embarrassed and asme tMt she Md
disappointed the Hamptons. However, the Hamptons‘ reason for bringing up the subject
was not to embarrass Rhonda or to ste her into cMnging her ways. Rather, the
Hamptons saw this as the opportunity they Md been waiting for -- to offer Rhonda the

cMnce to turn her life around:

"Sue took me aside and said, 'you know, I talked with the rest of the
family and we think that you should move in with us. It would help you out a lot,
we could help you get a good start on college, just nuke your life a little easier.‘

"They felt tMt my life tMt they saw for me wasn't going in the direction
tMt it should, I guess they were trying to first take me out of a harmful situation

and to lead me in the right direction, and then head me toward college."

Despite the mutual Emiliarity between Rhonda and the Hamptons, Rhonda

originally balked at their offer. Given how she felt firings were going in her life, she was

146

not convinced of the need to move in with them. After all, she says, she was doing
relatively well in high school. "And I Md lots of friends nearby," she recalls, "and
personally, I always thought my mom could help me with college." The members of her
extended family were not excited about the possibility of losing Rhonda to another
family. And her friends thought it was a bad idea, too. From Rhonda‘s own point of
view, the worse tMt might Mppen if she chose to stay with her mother is that she might
end up with a high school diplonu and not a college degree. Even then, Rhonda felt tMt
she would still be able to do okay. To state it simply, Rhonda didn‘t think that the
Hamptons could do anything for her tMt her mother couldn‘t do. The benefits of moving
in with the Hamptons, according to her calculations, were negligible compared to the
irreparable damage it would cause to the relationships with her family and fi'iends. "I
didn‘t think tMt it was really important for me to leave my mother's borne," Rhonda
remembers. "I thought I was Mving a Mppy life."

The Hamptons had offered Rhonda a once in a lifetime opportunity to make a new
beginning on life. Obviously, the Hamptons believed that her present circumstances
would do nothing more than debilitate any cMnce Rhonda Md to succeed. But as a
sixteen-year-old, who Md only glimpses of life outside of her home environment,
Rhonda's enthusiasm over the prospect of moving out of her present living conditions did
not match that of the Hamptons. In Ect, Rhonda recalls that at the time the offer was
made she Md no idea of the magnitude of the cMnge she was about to undergo. "It
would be like visiting my grandmother's house," is how Rhonda remembers thinking
about it. But wMt the Hamptons Md in mind was much more encompassing tMn simply

moving in as a visitor:

147

"They said part of me moving in with them was going to be for me to
cMnge. I would grow away fiom my fiiends and that‘s what they wanted for me.

But if I wasn‘t willing to start the cMnge then they didn't want me to live there."

In the end the decision to leave her mother's home to move in with the Hamptons
was the only one to nuke. This is not to suggest tMt it was an easy decision. To the
contrary, Rhonda had to nunage an onslaught of conflicting emotions that were visited
upon her as she began the transition into her new way of life. One of the strongest pulls
away fiorn the Hamptons was the concern Rhonda was feeling over her mother's well
being. In Ect, Rhonda at first decided not to move because of the concern tMt doing so
would hurt her mother‘s feelings. But Rhonda‘s concern for her mother went unrequited.
Her mother‘s ambivalence toward Rhonda's predicament removed any doubt tMt moving

out wasthe bestthing for Rhonda to do:

" When I talked to her about it, and she said, you know, it doesn't matter.
Do whatever you want. To me it seemed like, you know, she didn‘t care. I could
do anything in the world and it wouldn't Mve an effect on her life, and I guess I
didn't find myself wanting to be raised by somebody like that. She actually said
‘if you leave I won‘t be able to live, I won‘t Mve any money so I want you to stay.
But I really don't care if you go.‘ And so I thought this is not the environment I

want to live in, so I left."

148

In the end the decision to leave her mother and move in with a new Emily would
drastically alter the course of her life for the better. But the transition into her new
environment was difficult and at times painfirl for Rhonda. While she was sure tMt she
no longerwantedtoliveinahomewithamotherwhocaredlittlewhethershe stayedor
left, she at least was Emiliar with her previous surroundings and could count on her
friends to be there for her. Now she found herself in a new situation with new sets of
expectations, and without the comfort of Emiliar relationships to provide the emotional
moorings for her life. It would be awhile before she became completely comfortable in

her new environment:

"...At this moment I was also trying to deal with my mom. She was
always worried that I was going to stop loving her -- so I was Mving to deal with
this and my extended Emily because they didn‘t like tMt I was moving out. And
my friends, and then] was trying to fit in with the Hampton Emily, their extended
family, and my new friends. So I don't know how to isolate those emotions fiom
all the other things that were Mppening.

"Then I would always feel guilty because I'd Mve to talk to my other
family so they wouldn't think I stopped caring about them. And I'm still dealing
with the fact that my extended Emily if I call the Hamptons ‘mom and dad' they
just go crazy. But they don‘t realize all they‘ve done for me.

"It was just overwhelming. I was scared le the time and I was excited
the other le the time. There was so nuny emotions tMt I was going

through...They didn't try to isolate me from my friends but at this point I seemed

149

different from my fiiends so I isolated myself fi'om my friends. I felt really

alone.

Despite the pain of separation, Rhonda new that in the long run living with the
Hamptons was better for her tMn Md she chosen to stay where she was. In addition to
the confusion and isolation tMt accompanied the transition to her new home and her new
environment, Rhonda was feeling the added pressure to live up to a new set of

expectations:

“I wanted to work hard to show that the Hamptons, tMt they weren‘t
disappointed, tMt they made the right choice. I was getting ready to go to college
in a year. 80 leaving my mom, moving in with a new Emily, fiiends, trying to fit

in both situations - life was scary."

150

[1. Heading Toward College

Elevated Aspirations

Although the Hamptons are largely responsible for Rhonda being where she is
today, the idea of going to college was in Rhonda's mind well before she moved in with
them. On all measures, she Md established herself early in her educational career as one
of the bright students in her class. She was in the highest reading and nuth groups in
grade school, Md always managed to complete projects at home and turn them in on
time, and she scored well on standardized tests. However, she does recall going through
a period of boredom in the eighth grade, which led her and her group of friends to engage
in the typical types of rebellious beMvior: not completing homework assignments,
causing disruptions during class, and, whenever possible, skipping school altogether.
This beMvior was abruptly Mited for Rhonda after a conversation with her eighth grade
counselor. The counselor's message to Rhonda was simple and straightforward: if
Rhonda Md any hope wMtsoever of going to college, the time was now to establish the
work Mbits and the academic record tMt would allow her to keep tMt door open.
Rhonda took the admonition to heart.

By the time Rhonda started high school she Md established an impressive record
of academic achievement. The good grades continued into high school and, realizing that
she would soon be Eced with important decisions about her firture, Rhonda began to
think more seriously about wMt kind of life she eventually hoped to Mve. Rhonda Md
always enjoyed close relationships with members of her extended family, nuny of whom

had themselves attended college. They were aware tMt Rhonda's academic abilities

151

would allow her to be successful in college. But they also knew tMt Rhonda stood little
cMnce of actually making it to college if she had to rely on the support fi'om her mother
to nuke it Mppen. Not wanting to see Rhonda's potential smothered under her mother's
cloak of ambivalence, they began to encourage Rhonda to begin thinking more seriously
about college. "They expected me to go to college," Rhonda says of her extended family.
”They expected me to do something with the rest of my life. They didn't want me to be --
like my mom."

Urged on by members of her extended Emily, and guided along the way by her
grade school counselors and teachers, Rhonda would eventually come to believe that she
was "college material." But at tMt point in her life, Rhonda admits, going to college was
not the basis of the plans she was considering. Rather, the decision about whether or not
to go to college at all, and if so, where she would go would be determined only after other

considerations were taken into account:

"The college idea, it's always been in my head but it was never a bright
light, it was always just a little thought back there. My mom didn‘t really ever
assume anything. If] wanted to live there as long I Md to, then I could. So I
knew I was going to college, but I didn‘t really think much about it. I Md wanted
to be an astroruut for a while so I was thinking about going into the Air Force. 1
had a boyfiiend and we were talking about getting married. I was only 16. But I
told him that we could never get married until I go to college. And he was like

'but you can‘t leave.' And I said, well I can go to the community college."

152

The Hamptons reasons for inviting Rhonda to move in with them was, in
Rhonda's words, to cMnge the direction of her life and to point her toward college. Not
coincidentally, the timing of the move into the Hampton household was such tMt there
was still time for the Hamptons to Mve an strong influence on all aspects of Rhonda's
college-going experience. First and foremost, the Hamptons Md to begin to chip away at
the ambivalence toward college tMt Rhonda carried away from her home environment.
"I think tMt the second or wMtever I decided to move in with the Hamptons it was
assumed that I was going to go to college," Rhonda recalls. ”I don't think it was assumed
by me. It was more assumed by them." That assumption on the part of the Hamptons

very quickly found its way into their day to day conversations:

"When I was a junior in high school we were talking about wMt I was
going to do with the rest of my life. And I said ‘I don't know.’ I Md only lived
with the Hamptons for two months at that point. I was trying to get good grades
in high school, maybe not so I could go to college but if I left high school] could
possibly find a job. So we got into a big heated argument. They were like ‘we
know tMt you can do whatever you want. You just Mve to decide.’ And I guess
tMt would be the turning point that nude me decide tMt I'm definitely going to

go to college.”

The Hamptons' offer of a better life required Rhonda to leave behind everything
fi'om her past. By this time Rhonda Md already decided tMt she was not ready to get

married, which led her to break off the engagement with her boyfi‘iend. Gone, too, was

153

the relationship Rhonda shared with her mother. Any doubt tMt nuy Mve lingered in
Rhonda's mind about the move was removed during tMt painfirl conversation in which
her mother‘s ambivalence toward Rhonda was revealed. And now, after only two
months, the Hamptons were indeed able to rid Rhonda of her own ambivalence toward
college. Indeed, they had begun to cMnge the direction of Rhonda's life by pointing her
toward college. Now tMt Rhonda‘s aspirations for college were elevated and were
becoming crystallized in her own mind, the Hanrptons moved on to other matters related
to Rhonda‘s aspirations. Rhonda was not surprised that the transition to her new
environment would mean tMt she would have to reexamine nuny of the assumptions that
guided her former life. WMt Rhonda did not anticipate, however, was that one aspect of
her former life she would need to reexamine was the relationships with the peers who Md

been loyal to Rhonda throughout her adolescent years:

“Sue would say that the new group of friends were better for me, but I
thought that she was just trying to keep me in a cage so I wouldn‘t do anything, so
she could watch every move I nude. Once I started to move away fi'om my old
friends and saw the things they did I realized tMt it's just stupid. And my new
friends they didn't do things like that. And once I grew to trust her more tMt I
realizedthat sheMdmybestinterestatheart. Iguessl figuredtMthasgoing
through all these other cMnges, why do I Mve to leave all my friends. I didn‘t
realize tMt leaving my fiiends was going to be part of the changes.

"I kind of felt like torn because I didn‘t want to leave my old friends. They

Md always been there, but I knew tMt my new fi'iends they would be, you know,

154

they were better for me. And so I kind of felt torn because I didn't want to leave
them either. I did want to go all the way there, but I didn‘t want to leave them, so
I kind of felt isolated. I think the ties to my old life were holding me back. I
thinkalsolfigrnedtiutlwasgoingtochangetoomuch Ilikedmyselfbut]

knew] needed to change."

New Peer Relationships

Students take into account in the development of postsecondary educational plans
the expectations of peers (Hossler et al, 1989). While the attitudes of parents are most
influential in sMping students attitudes toward higher education, peers "may at least Mve
a reinforcing effect upon each other in the choice process" (Hossler and Gallagher, 1987,
p. 211). As we might expect, relationships with college-going peers increase the
likelihood tMt a student will attend college (Hossler et al, 1998). Peers also influence a
student's choice of which college to attend. The influence of fiiends and family on the
selection of a college operates in three ways: 1) sMping expectations for wMt a particular
college is like; 2) direct advice on where a student should attend; and 3) where close
fiiends themselves go may influence the student's decision (CMpman, 1981, p. 494).
However, wMt the Hamptons were looking for fiom Rhonda's new peers was the
reinforcement of her college aspirations tMt would come fi'om being around students
with similar aims and goals.

One sign of the influence of the new peer culture to which Rhonda was introduced

by the Hamptons is that she now Ms a different perspective from which to view both

155

sides of the class divide. The students she once thought of as "preppy and snobby" she
now respects for their Mrd work in the classroom. On the other side of the coin, she
recognizes that the self-defeating beMviors displayed her old group of friends, while they
resulted in poor grades and low ambition, were merely manifestations of the feelings of
inferiority tMt result fi'om the conditions of their lives. The most notable condition,
according to Rhonda, is the absence of support tMt accompanies life with a "good
Emily." While these observations Mve helped Rhonda to firlly appreciated the
advantages of her new environment, the most telling nurker of the effects of her new
conditions is the psychological distance she must travel in order to return to her home
environment. For Rhonda, her cMnging peer relationships are the indelible mark of her
new position, a position tMt renders her a visitor to the social territory tMt was once her

home:

"It‘s a little bit -- well, it‘s a lot different I guess. We'll talk about wMt we
did in high school and if I tell them something really awesome that's Mppened
here, they get all quiet because they don‘t Mve any stories to compare. So I try to
focus on wMt we did then to make them feel more comfortable, so they won‘t not
consider me a fi'iend anymore. Not tMt I'm worried about tMt, it‘s just that
they've been friends for such a longtime -- time does grow people apart, but they
are still my friends...

"They just Mve nothing to look forward to, so I try not to nuke them see
the benefits I‘ve Md so they don't feel bad about themselves. I'm Mppy to do it

for them so they won‘t feel uncomfortable around me. I want my old friends to

156

feel comfortable. I don‘t want them to be unMppy in their life. If they enjoy their
environment and the situation that they‘re in then] don't want them to see my life
-- I don't want them to try to cMnge too much so that they are unMppy in their

current situation. So if I Mve to put up a fiont for them then I'll do it."

PerMps there is no more telling measure of how we think of ourselves tMn by
considering those others with whom we identify or choose to associate. Likewise,
Rhonda uses her peer relationships as the gauge with which she measures the
psychological distance she has traveled fiom the home environment in which she grew
up, to the new conditions of her middle class way of life. Rhonda now considers herself
more a member of her new fi'iends tMn of her old friends, based on the differences she
perceives from her new vantage point. "When I talk to them now, my old class of fi'iends
talk about the past," Rhonda says. "My new fiiends talk about the firture." Although at
the time the difficulty of separating from her old group of friends was just one more
aspect of a transition fiaught with conflict and uncertainty, Rhonda Ms now come to
understand at the most profound level the effect that the Hamptons Mve Md on the

course of her life:

"I think my old class of fiiends think tMt their high school years are --
because they're not going to college and they're kind of where there parents were,
they‘re going to be in a slump. And so they consider high school years the best
years of their life. And I think we consider the future as, you know, this is only a

stepping stone to wMt we Mve to look forward to."

157

Preparing for College

To abandon the life that Rhonda Md come to know in favor of a life tMt promised
nothing more than the vague promise of a "better life“ required a leap of faith on
Rhonda‘s part. True to the word, the Hamptons had indeed altered the course of Rhonda's
life. Encouraged by the Hamptons' confidence in her potential to succeed Rhonda came
to believe, as the Hamptons themselves believed, that the only obstacle between herself
and a successful life was deciding that she wanted it. Whether or not the belief in herself
was unequivocal, Rhonda respected the Hanrptons enough to at least take them at their
word. Having overcome this obstacle, the next step was to take concrete steps to make
sure tlut her new dreams would no go unfulfilled. In the short term, that meant nuking
sure tMt Rhonda would be in a position to compete for admission to the selective
colleges and universities. Once again, the benefits of life in a household with college

educated parents was nude apparent to Rhonda immediately and in very concrete terms:

"I took itthe ACT myjunior yearandwbenthe scorescame backthey
were a little low. So I got an English tutor who came and helped me. Well, I
didn‘t really decide. It was Sue. She was like ‘you should do this, but it's your
decision.‘ And I kind of felt tMt it was - I always felt tMt I was pretty smart and
tMt this was something I didn't need. But then] started looking at college
brochures. I'd go down to the career development oflice tMt we had and I noticed
that colleges had a higher level request than I Md gotten. And even on the ACT
form the three college tMt I put down they said I would be in like the top 50%

and I didn‘t want to be there.“

158

The strategy paid off, as Rhonda's subscore on the English section of the test went
item a 19 to a 24, which raised her composite score to a 27 from the 24 she received the
first time. Still, Rhonda was not ready to completely abandon the dream she developed
for herself out of her original home environment in Evor of the one being offered to her
by the Hamptons. She Md always wanted to beconre an astronaut, she recalls, a goal tMt
came about as a direct result of the explosion of the Challenger when she was in the
fourth grade. During one of their many conversations with the Hamptons about college

and careers, Rhonda mentioned tMt she was still considering joining the Air Force:

"Sue was like 'you don‘t want to do that.‘ So we started touring colleges."

One conclusion tMt can be drawn fiom educational and social science literature is
that class matters when it comes to college choice. We know, for example, tMt parents'
education level Ms a direct impact on the likelihood tMt parents will engage in pre-
college planning activities, such as starting savings accounts and engaging in discussions
with their children about college (Stage and Hossler, 1989). As we might expect, these
types of activities Mve a direct affect on the likelihood tMt an individual growing up in
tMt environment will choose to go to college. CMpman (1981) notes the role of the
family educational history in setting in the student‘s a general expectation for the college
experience as well as the benefits to be derived fi'om it. Others Mve noted the effects of
socioeconomic status on a student's general predisposition toward college (Hossler et a1,

1989)

159

Clearly, class background exerts a profound influence over the likelihood that a
student will choose to attend college. But the effects of class background extend beyond
the question of whether of not a high school student chooses to attend college. For
instance, it Ms been shown tMt college-educated parents instill in their children more
wide-ranging educational aspirations (Zemski and Oedel, 1983), meaning tMt upper class
students tend to consider a wider range of institutions and are less bound by geography
and proximity than are students fiom the lower classes. Likewise, Gilmour (1981) found
that compared to students whose parents did not attend college, students who came fiom
Emilies where the parents did attend college were more likely to engage in an informed
and systematic college search process. Students fiom college educated Emilies enjoy
higher levels of parental involvement, they are more likely to consult with guidance
counselors and write to colleges for information, and they tend to apply earlier and to
more institutions.

And, as we might expect, the results of these class-based differences in the
development and nurturance of college aspirations and in the beMviors related to the
selection of a college lead to attendance patterns which are themselves differentiated by
class background. Students whose parents did not attend college Mve become
increasingly likely to attend community colleges rather tMn four-year colleges
(Alexander et al, 1987; Karen, 1991). The same pattern holds true when we compare
attendance rates for working class students at elite and non-elite universities and colleges
(Karen, 1991), in tMt working class students are far more likely to attend non-elite

universities tMn they are to attend elite ones.

160

Further, the evidence suggests tMt the effects of class position on college
destinations may be such tMt it can offset academic abilities. Grubb (1995) concludes
that students are more likely to attend selective colleges and universities if they come
fi'om upper income and higher status Emilies, and if they had high achievement during
high school (p. 487). Conversely, Heam (1991) found that students with less educated
parents were especially likely to attend lower-selectivity institution even if their academic
ability and achievements were high (italics added). So, as Karen concludes, "it may be
the case that the relationship between being flour a low socio-economic background and
being located lower in the hing education hierarchy Ms become stronger" (p. 218).

TMnks to the influence of the Hamptons Rhonda ended up at a selective, private
liberal arts college, where she is now preparing to travel abroad. The story tMt is told
through Rhonda's reflections is of the relationship between the conditions of life tMt
result from one's social class position, and the experience of going college. On the one
Mnd, we see how Rhonda's new class position immediately influenced her college-going
experience by elevating her aspirations, preparing her for admission to "better“ colleges,
and guiding her toward Central. In and of itself this story is not spectacular. Class
differences in college aspirations, college preparations, and college attendance is well
documented. In Ect, the differences are understood intuitively by anyone who works in
education, whether it be at the K-12, postsecondary, or graduate level. WMt nukes
Rhonda‘s story valuable is tMt it allows us to vicariously experience the differences tMt
the conditions of life associated with class position nuke in everyday life.

As Rhonda succinctly pointed out during one of her conversations, “we are all

products of our environment." Stated in more common language, you only know what

161

you know, and you nuke choices based on your limited view of the world. Out of the
milieu of her home environment came the conclusion tMt getting married and attending
the local community college was Rhonda's most viable option for going to college. The
environment in which Rhonda spent the first sixteen years of her life perMps produced
within her a desire for a way of life that was safely within her realm of experience and
comfort. But as Rhonda would quickly discover, a home environment in which parents
are themselves college-educated produces a different set of expectations for college. As
Rhonda‘s experience illustrates, and as supported by the literature on college choice,
perhaps nothing signifies social position more tMn the answers to questions of how, why,
and where one "goes to college."

For Rhonda, these differences are felt most profoundly as she compares her
current situation to wMt might Mve been. Despite the conditions of her former life
Rhonda managed to emerge fiom it with an image of a future constructed from the
fiagments of the lifestyle she knew best. But getting nurried at 16, starting a Emily, and
attending the local community college conjures up images of a lifestyle far removed from
the traditional results many of us Mve come to expect from the decision to attend college.
For most of the upper class residents of Midtown, going to college ensures the
perpetuation of the lifestyle they inherited fiom their parents. For Rhonda, she fears, the
course she considered choosing would Mve done the same. It is this realization tMt for
Rhonda best captures how the move into the Hamptons’ household altered the course of

her life:

162

"Now, I picture myself Mving a life like my mom. Being married, Mving
kids, if I'm working, not a lot because I Mve to take care of these kids. This guy
tMt I would Mve married wouldn't Mve gone to college because -- he just
wouldn't Mve gone to college. And he would be working -- I don‘t know, he
would be working at McDonald's or something. And so we wouldn‘t -- it

wouldn‘t Mve been a good household."

But Rhonda Ms also become aware of how this relationship can go in the other
direction, how the different paths to college can lead to different social outcomes.
Fortunately, the move to the Hamptons occurred at a time when their influence would be
felt immediately and concretely. Rather tMn ending up living the scenario she
envisioned above, she Ms her sights set on a career as a tax attorney. If marriage is to
come, itwillcome atatirnesoasto nottointerferewiththepursuit ofhercareer
aspirations.

While the nugnitude of cMnge between her former and present conditions of life
is staggering, it is nevertheless difficult for Rhonda or anyone else to untangle the web of
influence that leads one to develop college and career aspirations. Even with the change
all but complete, Rhonda continues to sort through her past from the perspective of her
new position, trying all the while to nuke sense of wMt Ms Mppened to her. One thing
she Ms come to realize is tMt wMt often separates her life in the lower classes from life
in the middle class is wMt is taken for granted about the firture. Her experience with the
Hamptons Ms introduced her to an entirely new set of expectations tMt governed her

thoughts about college, and tMt continue to firel her career aspirations. For Rhonda, the

163

differences between the two environments, those conditions of life tMt really matter
when it comes to aspirations for college and career, can be distilled down to those simple,

routine aspects of daily life that determine wMt we come to take for granted:

"1 just never had these kinds of conversations with my biological parents.
My extended family would say college is a good thing, but my parents in general
didn‘t really care. I don‘t think when I lived with my biological parents I thought
about the firture and what I was going to do.

“I feel a lot more comfortable with myself. I Mve a lot more confidence.

I would Mve never gone to England before and now it's coming true."

164

III. "Waiting to F ail“

Social class is a major source of identity in the US. (Jacknun and Jackman, 1983;
Vanneman and Cannon, 1987). Class membership influences our daily subjective
experience by sMping our views on our prospects for mobility, our views on the Eirness
of class inequities, and our "general awareness of class differences, as well as one's own
position with the class structure" (Heaton, p. 612). While it is difficult to tmtangle the
interplay of objective and subjective dimensions of class in determining one‘s class
position, there is general agreement that individuals place themselves in class categories
based on both objective and subjective aspects of their environment. Ultimately,
however, "it is the subjective interpretation of the relevant criteria for group membership
tMt lends social significance" (Jackman and Jackman, p. 5).

For Rhonda, the move from her mother's home into the Hamptons' household was
not just a physical one. Rather, it symbolizes the process of moving from the lower to the
middle class, and the shift in perspective that accompanies her new environment. Her
ascension into the middle class was confirmed by both her objective and subjective
reality. On the one Mnd, the move was marked by the occupational status and income
level of the Hamptons who, unlike her biological parents, were both college-educated
professionals whose standard of living was well above that to which Rhonda was
accustomed. Likewise, her new environment constituted differences in the way Rhonda's
experienced life on a daily basis. These qualitative differences in her subjective
experience expressed themselves in everything fiom learning how to use chopsticks, to

discussing the day’s events over dinner, to learning to be more self-confident. It is

165

abundantly clear to Rhonda that she is not the same person who left her mother‘s trailer

three years ago:

"I think since I've lived withthe Hamptons for such a long time that I don't
really view myself as being in the lower class anymore. I don‘t Mve much
contact with my biological parents anymore and I call Sue and Rod ‘mom and

dad.’ They consider me a member of the Emily."

The advantages of middle class life were apparent to Rhonda right from the start.
"Life is easier in the upper classes," Rhonda concludes. "When I lived with my mom I
didn‘t Mve Mrdly anything." But the advantages extend well beyond, in Rhonda's words,

"the ability to get things:"

"It‘s not only money, you Mve a Mppier lifestyle. I didn‘t feel like my
mom cared about me nor did I feel that my dad cared about me. But once I
moved into the Hamptons there was just so much more caring and love tMt's
visible tMt wasn't visible then. It nude my life easier because I didn't feel so

uncomfortable with myself anymore."

Rhonda's college choice experience with the Hamptons, compared to the plan she
Md developed living with her mother, effectively illustrates how, in the words of one
researcher, "the patterns of college choice are stitched deeply into the social and

economic fabric of the nation" (Zemski and Oedel, p. 44). In dramatic Eshion we Mve

166

seen how the conditions of Rhonda's new life with the Hamptons caused her to re-
evaluate her ambivalence toward college, and in turn how the support and guidance she
received from the Hanrptons guided her toward a more focused and intentional college
choice experience. One result of this cMnge in environment is clear: in place of the
community college that Rhonda once perceived as her most realistic option, she finds
herself in her junior year at a private liberal arts college preparing to travel abroad. But
Rhonda‘s college choice is but one nunifestation of a much larger, more profound change
in her outlook on life. PerMps the most significant aspect of her new environment are
the intangible benefits of life with the Hamptons, the way that life in the middle class Ms

shaped what Rhonda now takes for granted:

"1 think the whole transition from my mom to the Hamptons was the
ability to look forward to something. The Hamptons helped, but it took time for
me to get comfortable with my new self and my new goals. Until I got
comfortable with that I couldn't really look forward to anything. But over time,

when I started feeling more comfortable, the filture just deve10ped."

"Where a nun comes from," Centers wrote in 1949," is of some importance, but
where he is now is a more significant index to his present states of mind and beMvior,
beyond a doubt" (in Jackman and Jackman, 1983, p. 158). Embedded in this statement
are two fimdamental assumptions that undergird our understanding of the relationship
between class and identity. First, it takes into account our ability to overcome the

influence of our social and cultural backgrounds in the pursuit of economic and social

167

 

mobility. Second, Centers' observation makes explicit our intuitive acceptance tMt, in
Rhonda‘s words, "we are products of our environment.“ Indeed, our beliefs, our values,
and our aspirations are sMped by the "cultural signals" (Lamont and Lareau, 1988) tMt
bombard us as we make our way through the various cultural and social settings that
comprise our daily existence. As we move fi'om familiar to unEmiliar cultural and social
settings, and as wMt we Mve come to believe about ourselves and the world around us is
called into question in light of our new experiences and understandings, we find
ourselves crafting new systems of meaning to accommodate these new realities. Taken
together, these two assumptions lead us to Centers‘ implicit conclusions about the
relationship between class and identity: tMt the conditions of our lives are indeed
malleable, and, as the conditions of our lives change so, too, does the sense we make of
ourselves and the world around us.

Rhonda was given an opportunity tMt few people will ever Mve: to experience
life from both sides of a clear and distinct social divide. What makes her life story so
interesting and informative is tMt the events in her life were so sudden and dranutic,
compared to the routine, ahnost mundane nature of most of our lives. One consequence
of the sudden cMnge in Rhonda‘s life is tMt we are presented within an insider's view of
class mobility, a view tMt itself takes us from life in the lower class to life in the middle
class in accelerated Eshion. Rhonda's story illustrates the interplay of objective and
subjective Ectors in considering one's class position. On the one Mnd, her experience
reinforces the belief tMt the social and cultural boundaries separating the classes are
indwd permeable (Lamont and Lareau, 1987). This belief in the possibility of upward

mobility is the cornerstone on which our meritocratic system of education is founded.

168

But at the same time, Rhonda's story illustrates just how distinct the day to day lives can
be for people of different social classes, despite the permeability of the boundary between
them.

Rhonda characterizes her move into the Hamptons' household as an elevation in
her class standing. In specific terms, she feels as though she left the lower class
environment of her mother's home in excMnge for the upper class lifestyle of the
Hamptons' home environment. As we Mve seen, the move to the upper class sMped her
peer relationships, solidified her aspiration to attend college, and influenced the nature
and form of her college choice experience. But Rhonda's new class position shows its
influence most profoundly in the way she now thinks about herself and her prospects for
the future. Having moved fi'om one environment to the other, Rhonda now has the ability
to look back and reflect on her life as seen through the lens provided by her new life.
Who she is, how she has cMnged, and wMt she hopes to become are all given their
meaning in the way Rhonda organizes and nukes sense of the events in her life.

Rhonda's heightened sense of self-confidence has served her well. Just a few
years ago she was on the verge of succumbing to the limitations of her life conditions.
But due to a now Emiliar series of renurkable events Rhonda Ms developed the courage
to travel abroad in the spring, something she never imagined sitting in the trailer with her
mother. Rhonda‘s confidence Ms continued to build in momentum to the point where she
is now ready to apply it to other areas of her life. Recently, she developed the courage to

critically examine some of those basic understandings about the life fi'om which she

managed to escape:

169

"I think I grew out of some of the innocence I Md then. You know, you're
a product of your environment and] didn't see my mom as being so different from
the Hamptons until I moved in and got used to it there...I guess up to this point I
always figured everybody was really similar and then when I moved there, it was
like, so profound. There were a lot of political things I stopped believing in....I
don‘t know how to explain - it was just gone.

"The Hamptons are a very conservative Emily and I never saw the welfare
issue likeIseeitnowuntilI livedwiththem foralittleandrealizedthat some
families are capable of working, but just don‘t in order to stay on welfare and not
Mving to work. And the Hamptons Mve tons and tons of work ethic. They

believe you shouldn't Mve anything unless you really work for it."

It Ms been suggested tMt class is more keenly felt by those who experience its
deprivations tMn by those who enjoy its privileges. (Jackman and Jackman, p. 69). From
the time of her parents‘ divorce when she was four years old until she moved out of her
mothers' trailer at age sixteen, Rhonda was all too Emiliar with the deprivations of life in
the lower class. But tMt same sensitivity to its deprivations perMps predisposed Rhonda
to become fully aware of the privilege tMt awaited her in the upper class. What became
most apparent to Rhonda, once she became comfortable in her new home environment,
was tMt the people with whom she now associated Md different assumptions about their
lives tMn wMt she Md been exposed to before. With support and guidance from the

Hamptons Rhonda would soon come to claim these values as her own.

170

Having Md the opportunity to experience life from both sides of a class divide she
now Ms placed the expectation on herself to never return to a life cMracterized by
deprivation. But despite her heightened self-confidence, her elevated aspirations, and her
desire for success in life, Rhonda is Munted by doubt. She Ms benefited from the
privilege of class in numerous tangible ways since her move in with the Hamptons. As
she sat in her mother‘s trailer five years ago and began to plot out the trajectory of her
life, she never dreamed tMt she would be at Central College preparing to travel to

England. In tMt respect, she is far removed fi'om those days of her adolescence:

"Maybe the innocence is the only thing I really miss. Other than tMt I
don't miss anything about my former life. I see life as it is now. I think it was the
environment I lived in. It was so small. Then I got into a bigger environment and

it was easier to see.“

But Rhonda cannot help but wonder if the distance she Ms managed to put
between herself and her past life is permanent. On the one Mnd, she lives in a middle
class home environment, she is attending a private, selective liberal arts college in
preparation for entry into law school, and she is preparing to travel to England for a
semester of study. Suddenly, Rhonda is able to envision aspects of her life tMt before

she could not even imagine:

"I just know as I accomplish more of my goals I'll have more. So I‘m not

sure if I‘ll ever view myself as completely successful because I'll always Mve

171

something else I will want to do. One thing Rod always told me was that once
you realize tMt there are other things you want to do, you're too set in your ways
to do anything about them. I don‘t ever want to be set in my ways. I want to be

willing to cMnge, to adapt."

As it stands now, things are going well for Rhonda. She is enjoying her time at
Central College; she continues to do well academically, and she Ms no doubt that she
will graduate from law school. Yet, despite these outward assurances of her new class
position the transfornution is incomplete. While Rhonda will most certainly obtain the
credential tMt will allow her to secure her place in the middle class, her state of mind has
yet to catch up with her aspirations. Remnants of the ambiguity and conflict that
accompanied Rhonda‘s move to her new environment continue to interrningle with her
optimism. Maybe over time, Rhonda wonders, her background will catch up to her to
remind her where she came from. Maybe the family she has grown to love and the
environment she Ms come to claim as her own will, in the final analysis, prove to be but
one snull interlude in a much larger tragic story. Maybe, Rhonda wonders, her lower

class roots are so deep as to resist the pull of her middle class aspirations:

"I'm just waiting to fail. It's just seeing tMt my mom wasn‘t doing
anything after I realized that she was supposed to be. And my cousins going to
college. They‘d gone to college and they were really smart in high school but

when they came to college they failed out. My mom and dad weren't intelligent,

172

neither were my closest aunts and uncles and I've just seen all this stuff -- you
know, nobody succeeding in life. They weren‘t Mppy.

"I think I'm doing well enough at Central to know I‘m going to make it but
I'm afraid tMt I‘m not going to get into law school. And I'm going to Oxford
next semester and I'm really nervous tMt this is going to be the time when I'm
going to Eil. I guess that I‘ve seen failure so much that I'm just waiting for the
time when I‘m going to do it. I‘m confident, but yet there's always that feeling in

my stonuch tMt this is going to be the time."

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Epilogue

When] spoke with Rhonda eighteen months later, much had cMnged in her life.
Her trip to England, about which she first introduced the idea of culture shock, Md been a
success. Once she got accustomed to the strange accents, Rhonda recalls, life in England
got much better. And time at Oxford University was deeply emiching. She particularly
liked the tutorial method of instruction, which allowed her to meet one on one with an
instructor over a six-week period. The reading load was heavier compared to wMt she
MdgoflenusedtoatCentmLRhondastatesandflrefinalgradewasdetermined bythe
onepaperthatwasdueattheendoftheterm. Thestressofthe coursewasnunageable,
though, in part because the social life tMt inevitably forms on such trips. All in all,
Rhonda says, "it was just awesome. I never imagined it would be as different as it was."

A week prior to the interview Rhonda experienced an event that, even five or six
years earlier, she might never Mve imagined: she graduated from college. Even now,
Rhonda is trying to digest all that Ms Mppened to her. To Rhonda, graduating fi'om
college represents the close of another chter in the brief yet dramatic story of her life.
Indeed, so much Md Mppened to her in such a short amount of time. And, because of
the course of those events, there was much wrapped up in tMt brief walk across the stage
to pick up her diploma. Even as she was nuking her way through the commencement
ceremony, the reality tMt she actually accomplished such a worthy goal was difficult to

grasp. She recalls those brief moments:

174

“They took your picture as you walk across the stage. And I can just

imagine. I Md this total look of terror as I was shaking the president‘s Mud.”

But the story of Rhonda's elevated aspirations does not end there. Rhonda
recently learned that she had been accepted into three law schools, including one Ivy
League school. Her two other choices are a regional law school located in Ohio and a
somewhat less prestigious one in Michigan. Rhonda is not sure which law school she
will attend, but she is fairly certain tMt it will come down to affordability. Law school
can be expensive, she Ms discovered, and she nuy need to find a compromise between
the prestige she desires and the amount of prestige she can afford. Nevertheless, she is
pleased to Mve been accepted into law school at all and is looking forward to pursuing a
career as a tax attorney.

As far as her life circumstances, Rhonda Ms settled into the middle class way of
life. She Ms traveled abroad, she has earned a college degree, and she is headed for law
school. But there are other aspects of Rhonda‘s transition tMt are less concrete and
tangible. The remainder of the epilogue to Rhonda's story brings us up to date on the
emotional aspects of the transition to the middle class: Where does she see herself in
relation to her biological family? How does she view her current situation? And, given

all that Ms Mppened to her over the past fifteen months, is she still waiting to Eil?

175

Negotiating the Transition

At the time of the initial interviews Rhonda and I talked at length about the
various aspects of her transition into her new home environment. Her conversations with
her old peers were strained, Rhonda said at the time, and she was still trying to negotiate
the difference between the expectations placed on her by the Hamptons and the
resentment from her extended family over her decision to leave her mother in the first
pLace. Where, I asked Rhonda, is that transition now, given all that Ms happened over

the past fifteen months?

"I think it's done...I really think a lot of things Mve settled. The other
segment of my life is like a very long ago memory. I think I've cMnged into two

totally different people"

There are telltale signs tMt the transition fi'om Rhonda‘s former life into her new
one nuy indeed be complete. For one, the few threads of relationships tMt kept Rhonda
connected to her former peers Mve now all been severed. She did work to maintain a
relationship with one of the fiiends fi'om her former life for a while, but as time wore on
even tlut one fell victim to the cMnge in Rhonda‘s life. The cMnge in Rhonda's life was
too dramatic to sustain old relationships. "We never, ever talk any more," Rhonda says
about her former friend. "And the rest of them, we‘ve all just gone different directions."

Rhonda's relationship with her biological family, strained at best during the
months immediately following her move to the Hamptons, fell victim to the same fate.

Rhonda never sees the members of her biological Emily anymore, she reports. She

176

Mdn't seen her mother for a year and a le, and the same is true ofher dad. They did
come to her graduation but, as Rhonda recalls, they stayed for about five minutes
afterward, then left. The distance between herself and her Emily, in Rhonda‘s words, has

grown over time.

"It's like they are not even a part of my actual Emily anymore. I talked to
mydadthedayl camehome fromcollegeand itwas like]wastalkingtoafiiend
tMt I Mdn‘t talked to in a long time. But we didn't Mve much to say to each
other. It was like he wasn't even my father.

"And my mom came to my room after graduation and she stood there.
She was like 'how are you doing, are you going to come and visit me.‘ And Ijust
said, 'I kind of want to go home and move everything.’ So she just turned around

and left the room. She didn't hug me or anything. She just left.”

The value of relationships is one of the things that Rhonda has learned since
moving out of her mother's home. The relationship she cherishes most is the one she
shares with Ms. Hampton, who she now refers to as "mom." At the time of the move
Rhonda was barely able to grasp the nugnitude of the cMnge in her life, much less put in
into words. WMt she did notice first about her new life were the little things about the
way the Hamptons conducted their everyday lives. They ate meals together, something
Rhonda rarely did with her biological mother. They took vacations together, they ate out
at restaurants, and they would talk to each other about wMt was going on in their lives.

To Rhonda, this was unEmiliar behavior in the context of living out one's daily life.

177

And, naturally, Rhonda did notice the difference tMt money makes. With the Hamptons,
she was able to buy things she needed, to go places she needed and wanted to go.

Back then, Rhonda attributed these cMnges in her life to the differences between
the lower class and the upper class. "It‘s easier to get things in the upper class" is how
she sumnurized her circumstances at the time. But with the passing of time Rhonda has
reached a different conclusion about the source of her new way of life. True, the move in
with the Hamptons did take her from life below the poverty line to a comfortable, middle
class existence with two college-educated, professional adults as heads of the household.
But the essence of the change in her life, the one aspect of her middle class environment
that matters most is not the income or the travel. Rather, says Rhonda, "I think a lot of it
now was just the difference in relationships." Rhonda's life with the Hamptons is
characterized by the respect and trust between her and the Hamptons, elements tMt in
their fullest consequences pushed Rhonda to succeed beyond her own wildest irnaginings.

It is the respect, above all else, tMt seems to Mve mattered most:

"I think I'm willing to work harder now tMn I was then. I think it's just a
matter of respect. It‘s like my [biological] mom didn‘t respect me then and doesn‘t
respect me now. I never Md a problem with tMt with the Hamptons. They
always thought I could do wMtever I wanted to do.

"Even I was surprised when I graduated from college. Like, gee, I never

thought tMt it was going to Mppen. The Hamptons never Md a question.”

178

Rhonda‘s relationship with the Hamptons Ms given her a new sense of
appreciation for the value of a supportive, loving, and caring Emily. And since the death
of Mr. Hampton two years ago Rhonda‘s loyalty to her new Emily Ms only grown
stronger. Once she completes her law degree Rhonda expects tMt she will Mve many
opportunities to experience life in a different parts of the country. Initially, her plan was
to finish law school and to move out of her home state completely, to "get as far away
from here as possible," she remembers. But now, Rhonda is not quite so sure. For the
first time in her life, Rhonda knows the nurturing, supportive side of Emily life. Her first
Mnd experience Ms left an indelible impression of wMt family life can be like when the
relationships between parents and children are based on love, respect, and trust. “I Mve a
biological family," Rhonda states, "but they were never were really family." Now, she
says, "I Mve a real one and I don‘t know if I am ready to leave that."

And perhaps the most enduring effect of Rhonda's relationship with the Hamptons
is how it Ms sMped her views ofthe relationship she hopes to Mve with her own
children someday. "There's a saying tMt you always end up like your mom," Rhonda
says hesitatingly. "And tMt kind of scares me. I hope that I‘ll end up treating my

children more like Sue treats me."

Lingering Doubts: Remnants of a F ormer Life

Rhonda's trip to England during her junior year at Central represented much of
what Ms cMnged in her life. Just a few years ago the thought of even going to college
was, to paraphrase Rhonda, a dim light somewhere in the back of her mind. Even still,

while the idea may Mve been there, the fact tMt it might actually Mppen unimaginable

179

for Rhonda And now, only a few years after moving out of her mother‘s home, she was
planning to visit England. What made the trip possible for Rhonda was the momentum of
self-confidence tlut began with the move itself. "I just slowly accomplished different
things,” Rhonda recalls, "and as I accomplished more things I gained more confidence."
The trip to England, while in itself an accomplishment, accelerated the pace of Rhonda's
growing self-confidence even more.

Rhonda‘s heightened level of self-confidence, her ability to actually see herself
accomplishing things that before she was not able to even imagine, is perMps the aspect
that epitomizes the difference between her former life and life with the Hamptons. "I
think that one of the things that Mppened was the longer I lived with them the more goals
I set for myself," Rhonda recalls. At first, Rhonda had to be convinced to even go to
college at all. But over time, she says, "It wasn't enough to graduate fiom Central. I
wanted to graduate «with honors. And I don't want to just go to any law school. I wanted
to get accepted at Penn." In short, in Rhonda's words, she just has more goals for herself
than she used to.

While she grows in her self-confidence and her dreams for her own fixture are
starting to take sMpe, there remains an tmresolved aspect of Rhonda‘s story. Despite the
elevated self-confidence; despite Rhonda's plans to attend law school, which were
injected with enthusiasm with her acceptance into Penn; and despite her restored Eith in
the possibility of a loving and caring Emily life for herself in the fixture, the chains of
Rhonda‘s former life, the self-doubt caused by a life time of watching others

unsuccessfully try and change their positions in life, Mve not yet been cast off:

180

“Whenl was at Central this last semester, which was before I Md heard
from law schools, I Md to go see a counselor because I was just freaking out. I
thought tMt I was never going to get accepted, or tMt something would Mppen
and not let me graduate. I Md to go see this counselor once a week just to calm

my fears.“

Rhonda‘s life experience Ms placed her firmly on two sides of a class divide. Her
elevated career aspirations, the supportive relationship she enjoys with Sue Hampton, and
the new sense of self tMt is rooted in her heightened self-confidence, stand in stark
contrast to the life she remembers with her biological mom. The opportunity to begin a
new life with a new family is something that most of us Mve never experienced and
never will. Yet, the circumstances surrounding Rhonda's life led to a change in lifestyle
tMt was both swift and dramatic. This alone suggests the exceptional nature of her story.
Yet, Rhonda does remain on the margin of two cultures. While her conditions Mve
improved in a nuterial sense; and while she is nuking choices and engaging in the
beMviors tMt will secure her life in the middle class, emotionally she finds herself still
trying to straddle the chasm between the old life and the new. As her story unfolds the
central feature of the plot continues to center around the lingering doubts about the

security of the footing on which her dreams of a middle class life rest:

"I'm afraid tMt when I go to law school I‘m going to fail, or once I get out

of law school tMt I will never find a job, or - there's just too nuny 'wMt ifs' in

my fixture."

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Chapter 5: Discussion

1. Class and the Fulfillment of College Aspirations

The three students featured in this study were invited to tell the story of how they
came to attend Central College and what Ms Mppened to them since their arrival. The
narratives were written to reflect the way the students themselves organize and make
sense of the events, experiences, and relationships that sMped the development and
fixlfillment of their college aspirations. Consequently, each narrative is different in terms
of empMsis, premise, and voice. The variety tlut cMracterizes the three stories is
indicative of the highly personalized nature of the college choice experience. For the
reader, these stories present an alternative interpretation of college choice, one that is
built around the significance tMt each student attaches to their desire to go to college.
Only in light of all the larger life predicaments in which the students see themselves - the
history that each brings with them to college, as well as their hopes for wMt life will be
like when they leave - can we more fully understand the college aspirations of Hanruh,
EtMn, and Rhonda.

Rhonda’s story, for example, centers on the dramatic turn of events in her life and
how the change in her life circumstances served to elevate her college and career
aspirations. On the one hand, going to college is an expression of Rhonda’s shifting class
identity, one rooted in the new expectations that were placed upon with her acceptance of
the offer from the Hamptons. Yet, even though Rhonda Ms adopted many of the

beMviors and attitudes associated with her middle class position, she cannot completely

182

distance herself from the reality that governed her previous life - the Ect that no one else
in her immediate Emily ever succeeded. For Hannah, her college aspirations find their
meaning in her quest for survival, which for her includes financial security as well as her
desire for a strong personal and Emily identity. Having watched her mother struggle to
connect with the world outside of the town of Central, Hannah has vowed to use her time
in college to expose herself to everything tiut’s “out there” so tMt she will be able to
create an environment in which she and her own children can participate in the shared
construction of a common set of values.

And for EtMn, college is about “catching up.” His story is told in inductive
fashion, in that the events that make up his college choice experience are presented as
examples of the ways in which access to social and cultural resources sMped his
educational experience. While he knows that he will eventually finish “the race,” Ethan
Ms come to accept that he will simply Mve to work harder than the socially and
culturally advantaged students to reach the sanxe destination. Even then, Etlun realizes
tlut in some areas he nuy never fixlly catch up. Yet, the more Etlun Ms reflected on his
circumstances, the more he Ms come to recognize the social and cultural roots of his
disadvantaged position in the credentials race. As a result the anger and bitterness that
once cMracterized his outlook on his predicament Ms been converted into a new sense of
focus and determination.

The primary focus of the study, however, is the relationship between class
background and college choice. More specifically, I explored how being working class
shaped the ability of three students to fixlfill their college aspirations. With the use of life

history, we are able to see wMt the process looks and feels like from the point of view of

183

those involved in it. Consequently, aspects of the experience not accounted for in the
traditional representation of college choice are nude visible: the subtle influence of peers
and significant others in sMping college aspirations: the varying degrees of specificity
and clarity with which the students are able to give form to their aspirations; and the
unevenness with which various contexts such as the high school shape the experiences of
individual students. Most importantly, these three stories contain illustrations of the
obstacles that working class often need to negotiate in the fixlfilhnent of their college
aspirations. The lessons drawn from these experiences is of interest to anyone interested
in addressing the disparity in educational attainment tMt separates the middle class way

of life fi'om those who aspire to it.

Educational Resources

The most valuable resource in making sure that students who express aspirations
to go to college actually make it to college is the education history of the parents.
Rhonda's life with her new Emily illustrates the advantages of Mving college-educated
parents when it comes to getting to college. First and foremost, the Hamptons were
instrumental in elevating her aspirations for college. At the time she moved in with the
Hamptons, Rhonda was still ambivalent toward the idea of going to college. She held out
hope that she might still follow through with her plans to join the Air Force, an idea
Rhonda Md carried around with her fi'om the time she was in grade school. Once the
Hamptons had redirected her aspirations away hour the Air Force and toward college,

they set about to ensure that she would be able to compete for admission to the more

184

selective colleges. This included persuading Rhonda to enlist the aid of a tutor in
preparation for the ACT.

The Hamptons‘ support of Rhonda's college aspirations continued into the fornul
college selection process. To begin, they worked with Rhonda to narrow her list of
college options to a small number of small, private, liberal arts colleges. From there they
accompanied Rhonda on visits to each of the colleges in her choice set and, on the visit to
CentraL made it a point to spend time in town to assess the quality of life there. And in
preparation for the final selection, the Hamptons helped Rhonda sort through the relevant
considerations to ensure tMt she would select a college tMt would be best for her.

Hannahalsohadthefixll support fi'omhermother,butitwasinaverydifferent
form of support tMn wMt Rhonda received fi'om the Hamptons. Hannah’s mother had
always shown an interest in Hannah's education, beginning in the earliest years of grade
school. Despite the fact that her mother worked in a Ectory on an home wage, Hannah
recalls, she always took time from work in order to attend awards ceremonies at school.
The support continued as Hanruh began to make decisions about college. However, her
mother was unable to take an active role in Hannah‘s college selection due to her lack of
familiarity with how the process worked. Feeling at a loss over how to intervene in a
substantive way, her mother would continually defer to Hannah as the expert in such
matters.

Ethan recalls similar expressions of support from his mother. As EtMn points
out, his parents wanted him to be successfixl and expressed full confidence in his ability
to do so. If being successfixl meant tlut Etlun would go to college, his parents would be

in fixll support. But by the same token if he chose not to go to college tMt was okay, too.

185

What was most important to his parents, Ethan recalls, was that he does wMt nukes him
Mppy. In Ethan's words, his parents would support him "no matter what he decided to
do." For EtMn, this Mnds off approach to his educational experience manifested itself in
his inability to present himself as "college material" in high school. Understanding the
importance of classroom participation in order to be labeled as a high achiever, for
example, or knowing whom to talk to for guidance on graduate school preparation and
selection provide those who are endowed with the predisposition a tremendous advantage
in the competition for credentials.

At the end of the project Etiun was attending his third college. Having found the
courage to return to college after his first dismal attempt, Ethan would soon encounter yet
another obstacle in his path. At the end of his second year at Central Etiun’s parents
informed him that they could no longer provide any financial support for college. Ethan
Md been working to twenty hours per week during the school year just to keep his head
abovewaterfinancially. Butintheendbewasunabletokeepupwiththepacerequired
of him if he were to renuin at Central College. Despite the earlier delay and the more
recent cMnge of course, Etlun is on track to graduate seven years from the time be first
entered college.

Whereas Etlun’s journey toward the fixlfilhnent of his college aspirations Ms
resumed after the unexpected turn of events, the status of Hannah’s aspirations at the end
of the project were are on hold due to financial necessity. Hamuh was forced to withdraw
from Central in the spring of her junior because of frnancial hardship. Ironically, the
source of her financial difficulties is the need to work two jobs to be able to go to college

at all. The demands of her workload on top of a full load of courses became too much for

186

Hannah, and she dropped a course in the spring semester of her junior year. This put her
below the minimum number of hours required to retain her eligibility for federal financial
aid. Even if Hannah does return to college it will not be to Central, Mving chosen to
abandonthcdreamthathadsustainedhereducationally fromthetime shewasinthe
seventh grade.

Of the three students, Rhonda is the only one of who was able to complete college
in four years. And just as planned, Rhonda is now deciding where she will attend law
school in the Eli. Indeed, Rhonda’s story provides a sharp contrast to the journeys taken
by Hannah and Etiun in the fixlfilhnent of their college aspirations. Unlike Hannah and
Ethan, Rhonda did not Mve to work while in college because of the financial support of
the Hamptons. Not only did Rhonda not Mve to worry about working, she was able to
study abroad for a semester. But EtMn and Hannah, even though they were some how
able to nuke it to Central College, did not Mve the cushions in place to keep them from
straying off course. In fact, the material conditions of their working class backgrounds
meant that it did not take much at all to disrupt their college experience.

Indeed, the role of nuterial conditions in determining the ability of students to
fulfill their college aspirations is not to be underestimated. But as Machd (1987)
states, “individuals make of [their] objective conditions what they will in forging their
identities” (p. 248). Ethan’s story illustrates how the subjective conditions of working
class life can sMpe the educational experience: his feeling of not liking “those other
students” in his high school, those students whose orientation to their education led them
to participate in the classroom experience in a much more active manner than Ethan felt

himself capable of; his inability to participate in what Suskind (1998) calls the “success

187

discourse,” and how this suggested to the guidance counselors in his high school that
perMps he was not college material. For Hannah, the subjective aspect of her working
class background was expressed most forcefixlly during those first few critical days at
Holy Cross High School, the fears tMt accompany a working class kid fiom a single
parent home who finds herself sitting in a “snotty,” middle class high school.

But what Mppens to working class students once they make it to college and find
themselves in daily contact with people whose beMviors, attitudes, and values differ
from his own. Particularly usefixl in this regard is the work of Howard London (1992).
London Ms interviewed students from various minority categories, including
membership in racial and ethnic groups, as well as white working class students. "If
there is a common element in their poignant stories, he writes, "it is that these students
live on the margin of two cultures" (p. 6). The very act of going to college indicates an
interest in attaining a white-collar, middle class position not previously attained by a
family member. This, London states, nuy take the student into uncharted cultural
territory (P. 10).

McGrath and Spear (1991) argue that demographic characteristics Eil to capture
the essence of wMt makes working class and other nontraditional students different from
those students with a Emily history of college attendance. These students, they argue
"come fi'om backgrounds which Mve not prepared them to identify with, or even to
recognize the central values and practices of academic life" (p. 24). This idea was
expressed by a working class Eculty member who recalls of her own experience as an

undergraduate, "I never felt that I knew the academic mics, especially the unwritten ones,

188

well enough to participate as an equal with my supposed peers" (Dewes and Law, p.
216).

Thus, fixll participation in the culture of higher education, London writes, requires
working class students to abandon nuny of the values and norms of the culture of origin.
But more importantly for the survival of their aspirations, working class students must
quickly adapt to the expectations placed upon them by virtue of their participation in a
new cultural environment. Among the tasks these students must negotiate is to learn the
language, social conventions, patterns of economic consumption, understandings
regarding outsiders, relations with outsiders, and matters of taste associated with
membership in a status group (p. 7). This is not to suggest tMt other, more concrete
explanations for EtMn’s dismal performance are not viable. PerMps he lacked the type
of high school preparation he needed to succeed in such a rigorous academic
environment. Maybe it is attributable to his lack of motivation to succeed, or his lack of
interest in the subject nutter itself. But wMt lies beneath all of this for Ethan is
something more fixndamental. The cultural challenges facing working class students once
they arrive on the college campus is epitomized in Ethan’s explarution for why he

struggled in his first attempt: “I didn’t know how to be a college student,” he said.

The Success Entitlement

Negotiating the culture of higher education is the first chlenge awaiting working
class students when they arrive on the college campus. But by no means do the threats to
the fixlfillment of one’s college aspirations end once the student Ms arrived at a place of

cultural equilibrium. When EtMn left college the first time, he Md planned to take

189

 

classes at the branch campus of the state university in order to stay on track with his
academic progress. Unfortunately, this did not work out due to lack of transportation.
Nevertheless, at least at that point Ethan Md not given up on the idea that he would
eventually graduate fi'om college. His parents, on the other hand, interpreted Ethan’s
return home quite differently. Fully aware of the difficulties Etlun Eced in college, his
parents assumed that he was home for good. In other words, Ethan Md given college a
try but, to state it simply, it just didn’t work out. Naturally, their response was to tell him
get a job so he could start paying rent, given that his identity as a college student Md
been replaced in the eyes of his parents by the reality of his working class fiiture. .

Hannahrenuinsupintheair,thoughsheisfirminherconvictionthatshewill
eventually return to college. Not only did Hannah not Mve the financial cushions in
place to keep her on track, she is faced with the resentment from other members of her
extended family over her decision to go to college. Their resentment is expressed in the
questions that are openly asked, or that are implicit in the way they nuke sense of
Hannah's desire to go to college: Why is she wasting all that money? Why isn‘t she
working? And wMt‘s wrong with the way we live, anyway. Her decision to leave
Central simply reinforced their expectations for Eilure that Md plagued Hannah fi'om the
beginning, the belief tMt people like them simply do not belong at a place like Central
College.

In contrast to the how the Emilies of Etlun and Hannah make sense of the
disruptions in the fulfillment of their college aspirations, the Hamptons from the outset
approach the pursuit of Rhonda’s college aspirations very differently. Rather than

viewing college as a roll of the dice, with the outcome dependent on external Ectors such

190

 

as luck and circumstance, the Hamptons looked at Rhonda’s prospects for the future with
a sense of entitlement. Not only were the expectations for success present, the Hanrptons
did everything they could to ensure a desirable outcome. Based on their own educational
history, the Hamptons viewed the economic and social rewards of a college education as
“there for the taking,” given tMt the right choices are made and the available resources
are deployed at the right time.

But as these stories nukes clear, the deciding Ector in whether or not a student is
able to fixlfill his or her college aspirations is the amount of control tMt the Emily
perceives itself to Mve over the outcome. Sadly enough, good intentions are simply not
enough to ensure a successfixl outcome. If asked, all parents would say they want the best
for their children. Rather, wMt often nukes the difference in educational outcomes is the
amount of active, intentional action aimed at enacting the parent’s support of a child's
college aspirations. To state it another way, the difference between the verbal
encouragement received by Hannah and Etlun, and the active support shown by the
Hamptons toward Rhonda's college aspirations, can be thought of as the difference
between words and deeds.

It is one thing to want the "best" for your children, however vaguely-defined those
wishes may be. As Etiun and Hannah's stories suggest, their college aspirations were
fueled by their parents' desire for them to be successfixl. But neither benefited fi'om the
investments of time, money, energy, and expertise tMt might Mve made the pursuit of
the college aspirations less burdensome, or that might Mve made the outcome less prone
to cMnce. Neither Hannah nor EtMn questions the depth or the sincerity of the

expressions of encouragement offered by their parents. However, in considering the

191

support received by Hannah, Rhonda, and Ethan it is clear how actions such as visiting
college campuses and hiring a tutor for the ACT can provide substance to the hollow ring
of verbal encouragement.

Thus, not only did Rhonda Mve the advantage of being able to navigate a course
with the aid of critical social and educational resources, there was every assurance nude
tMt she would stay on course until she reached her destination. This orientation to
college success stands in stark contrast to the lack of control exhibited by Hannah and
Ethan, especially when Ece with unplanned disruptions. Rhonda may Mve felt at times
during her time at Central that she didn’t belong there, and there may Mve been times
when she Md doubts about her ability to succeed. But the Hamptons, given their
orientation to college success, would never Mve said to her ‘you gave it your best shot”

or, worse yet, “we knew you would Eil.”

192

II. Implications for Practice

Endowing Families with Educational Resources

For high school counselors, college admissions personnel, and others who work
with college-bound students, these insights are useful in designing interventions to ofi‘set
the adverse effects of class background as other working class students try and make their
way to college. The implications of these findings are rather straightforward in principle.
If parents are sincere in their support of their children‘s college aspirations, they can be
taught how to eruct tMt support in direct and concrete ways. First, we can work to
ensure that parents are involved in key educational decisions at the high school level so
that Emilies do not inadvertently limit their opportunities for a college education. A
recent study of the college aspirations of Indiana high school students (Orfield and Paul,
1993) revealed a gap between students desire to go to college on the one band, and the
level of pmparation during high school on the other. Students and Emilies, the study
points out, make choices in high school about curriculum, course selection, and college
preparation and planning activities that greatly decrease the odds tMt they will actually
make it to college. The cause of the poor choices is often a lack of information on the
part of high school students and their parents as to wMt will adequately prepare students
to enter and be successfixl in college. The conclusion drawn by the authors is disturbing:
the problem is not that parents are nuking bad decisions at critical crossroads; rather, the
problem is that no one is telling them that the crossroads even exist.

Second, we can capitalize on the ability of parents, regardless of their own

educational level, to increase the likelihood tMt their children will attend college. Recent

193

research on the college-going beMviors of high school students highlights the importance
of pre-college planning activities in increasing the likelihood of college attendance
(Hossler et al, 1998). For example, starting a college savings account, irrespective of the
amount of money actually put in it, increases the likelihood tMt a student will attend
college because it captures in material form the level of importance placed on a college
education by the parents. In other words, wMt nutters is not how much money is saved,
but how the effort to save sends a message about the importance of college by providing
a way for parents to show support for their children‘s aspirations in a tangible way.
Similarly, we now recognize the importance of "triggering events," such as taking the
PSAT, in increasing the likelihood of college attendance. And in the more routine
aspects of college preparation, the importance of being around college-bound peers and
engaging in conversations about college with parents are now well understood in their
capacity to help students to crystallize their aspirations for college.

Once students reach the college selection process there is much to be done to
ensure tMt students and parents nuke good choices. Research on the experiences of
first-generation students reveals some irnportant distinctions between students based on
the education level of their parents. Students whose parents did not attend college, for
example, often perceive less family support for their college aspirations than do students
from college-educated Emilies (York-Anderson, and Bownun, 1991). Further, students
who perceive less support from their parents often Mve less Ectual information about
college. Once these Emilies reach the campus, admissions personnel need to be sensitive
to the varying degrees of "college knowledge" that Emilies bring with them Things as

simple as providing parents with a tirneline of college application activities, for example,

194

 

will not only keep Emilies on track as this critical time, but it nuy give them some sense
of control over a process tMt is complete unfamiliar, and consequently may seem
overwhelming and intimidating. Or, if parents and students Mve no reference point for
sorting out the complex mix of colleges and universities, then our ability to communicate
with them in a language that is meaningful to them may remove an additional barrier to a
good decision.

Despite their ability to nuke it to Central College, Hannah and Ethan both fell
victim to the harsh reality tMt going to college can impose a severe financial burden on
students and Emilies. Despite the academic and social sacrifices they made just to keep
their heads above water, in the end it simply was not enough to allow them to continue at
Central College. For institutional policy makers, the lesson drawn fi'om these
experiences is clear: students of modest financial means are vulnerable to the slightest
change in financial circumstances. Granted, abrupt changes in financial circumstances are
beyond the control of Central College, or any other college or university for tMt matter.
And on the face of it, Hannah Eiled to nuet a clearly stated and well-grounded
requirement related to her eligibility for financial aid. In terms of financial aid policy, it
is not an eflicient use of scarce resources to continually support students who are not
making reasonable progress toward degree completion. However, in Hannah’s case a
surEce reading of her predicament misses its essential element. Hannah was not careless
or irresponsible in making progress toward her degree. To the contrary, it was her
willingness to do wMtever it takes to complete her degree - including working three jobs

— which ultimately led to the disruption in her college experience.

195

Further, as Colleges like Central tout the benefits of the residential, liberal arts
experience, we must ask to wMt extend the need to work twenty hours per week while
enrolled in college robbed Hannah and Ethan of those espoused benefits. While Rhonda
traveled abroad to study, Hannah and EtMn were fortunate to find a weekend to spend
with Emily. While other students enjoyed the social and educational benefits of co-
curricular life, Hannah and Ethan filled their daytime hours between classes with work
hours. In short, while the other students at Central were taking advantage of all that
Central College had to offer, Hannah’s and Etlun’s experiences at Central were

cMracterized by their struggle to make financial and academic ends meet.

Values and Orientation: The “Invisible Ha ” in Educational Attainment

"While working class culture is not by any means uniform and monolithic," writes
one working class Eculty member, "it socializes its participants to see the world with
different beliefs, hopes, and expectations fiom those held by middle class people" (Dews
and Law, 1995). Indeed, there is a consistent and meaningful relationship between
people's social class position and the values and general orientation tMt direct their
beMviors and actions (Kohn, 1977). To state it another way, we act upon wMt we think
is important; what we consider important is sMped by observing the beMviors and
actions of those around us; and the people with whom we come in contact in our
neighborhoods and in our schools tend to come from families of similar social standing.
The development of a class orientation is akin to Bourdieu‘s (1986) notion of the
development of habitus, a term used to describe the unconscious process by which

individuals internalize the beMvior and attitudes of those in their immediate

196

 

environments. This framework of values and orientation in turn directs fixture actions by
serving as a filter through which options are considered to determine their fit with wMt is
deemed important and relevant to one's life.

Examples of the relationship between orientation and beMviors are seen in how a
Emily spends discretionary time and money, as well as in matters of taste. Why, for
example, do tractor pulls appeal to some while others prefer the symphony? Or what
differentiates a listener of National Public Radio fiom one who prefers AM talk radio?
This is not to suggest that as individuals we become locked into a closed circle of class
experience because of the educational and occupational choices of our parents. To the
contrary, one of the defining characteristics of the class system in America relative to
European societies is the permeability of class boundaries (Lamont and Lareau, 1988).
Still, the Emily socialization process is a powerful one and sMpes such aspects of
everyday life as the use of leisure time, the use of discretionary money, and the people
with whom we choose to build social relationships.

One way to characterize the ways in which values and general orientation sMpe
college aspirations is to say that they determine the extent to which parents are inclined to
place importance on those types of activities and beMviors that predispose their children
to the value of a college education. While this includes the obvious things like explicitly
encouraging children to go to college, values and orientation are nunifest in ways at a
much more mundane level. Choosing to spend discretionary time and money to visit
colleges, for examme; or participating in your children's high school experience to make

sure that the right choices are being made at critical times; or simply making it a point to

197

talk about current events, careers, and colleges at the dinner table all emanate from the
values of the parents.

Explanations of the differences between the middle class and working class
orientation are varied. The "culture of poverty" thesis states that working class culture
has distinct values and forms of social organization tMt work against them in the formal
educational system (Lareau, 1987, p. 73). One manifestation of this, the thesis suggests,
is that lower and working class families do not value education as highly as middle class
families. Thus, children may grow up in a home environment in which their education is
simply not the focus of attention on a day to day basis. Similarly, based on short-term
arulysis of costs and benefits, working class families may decide tMt entering the work
force immediately after high school is more economically advantageous tMn forgoing
potential earnings for four years by going to college. Or, parents may verbally express
their support of their children’s college aspirations by may decide that other priorities
prevent them fiom paying for college.

One proposed solution to the growing economic gap between the working and
middle classes is to elevate the college aspirations of lower and working class students.
Hannah, Ethan, and Rhonda, because they knew fi'om the time they entered high school
tMt they would attend college, stand as exceptions to this approach Nevertheless, the
implied logic in the proposals aimed at elevating aspirations is tMt students need to be
led to understand the long-term economic advantages of going to college. If working
class students and parents just Md access to better information about the relationship
between education level and earning potential, the thinking goes, more of them would

aspire to go to college. But despite our enthusiasm for intervening in the lives of students

198

 

 

to elevate their aspirations for college, we need to resist the assumption that the
disparities in college attendance rates would lessen if we simply provided more and better
infomution to working class families.

Put simply, the economic argument for college attendance does not always hold
up in light of local economic and demographic data. In my home state, for example, high
school graduates can still get good paying jobs without a college degree. In fact,
manufacturing jobs sector represents the largest employment sector in the state and
continues to grow at a rate that exceeds the grth rate of any other state. Conversely,
the state economy is near the bottom in terms of professional and service jobs created.
The result is tMt based on economic considerations of the value of the college degree in
my home state, the employment infrastructure serves as disincentive for high school
graduates to attend college. On wMt grounds, then, do you nuke the case for college
attendance?

As a college administrator, I spend a lot of time selling the benefits of a college
education to working class Emilies. Particularly given that I am situated on the campus
of a liberal arts campus, I find myself selling families on the softer benefits of college
attendance: civic participation, lifelong learning, appreciation for diversity, etc. And as a
working class student, I understand how my life is qualitatively better because I went to
college. However, it is difficult to engage in these types of conversations with Emilies
without eventually bumping into a core set of values, beliefs, and expectations that
undergird the very lifestyle tMt gives rise to one's predisposition toward college. Stated
another way, we, as college graduates whose own professional lives take place on a

college campus, need to recognize tMt in arguing the benefits of high education as we

199

 

Mve come to understand them, we are espousing a set values based on our own
educational and occupational status.

Thus, in trying to help working class students make it to and eventually graduate
fi'om college, we need to find a way to talk to Emilies that takes into account their own
work values and their own system of meaning. Certainly, we need to educate parents
about the "rules of the game" when it comes to getting to college. But at the same time
we need to move away fiom simply trying sell the benefits of a college education using
an argument laden with middle class values. Instead of just focusing on how students will
be cMnged by the college experience, for example, we need to validate for them what
they bring to the educational experience. And rather tiun simply holding out promise
that going to college can help them gain distance from their working class roots, we need
to emphasize the role of education in helping them come to tmderstand and appreciate

how their family's social and work history has sMped who they are.

Making Education Relevant: The Narrative Principle

College orientation courses began showing up in college catalogs about ten years
ago as a way of helping first-year students, regardless of social and educational
background, nuke the adjustment fiom high school to college. At colleges like Central,
particularly those tMt are enrolling larger numbers of working class students, special
attention needs to be paid to the cultural challenges facing these students. First, working
class students can be led to understand how their Emily history has sMped their
educational experience. It is in this forum that nuny of the chlenges faced by EtMn -

the language barrier between himself and his professors, the perceived differences in

200

preparation between him and his middle class classmates - can be brought to the surEce
sotlutthesestudentscanat least understandtheconditionstlut areworking against them
in their desire to fixlfill their aspirations.

Second, the courses should help students understand the values, practices, and
assumptions that lie beneath the surEce of the classroom material emanating fi'om the
various academic disciplines. Jerome Bruner (1996) writes tMt one of the aims of liberal
education in a democratic society is to help students make sense of their own daily lives
in the context of the formal theory. Stated another way, education becomes more
meaningfixl and relevant to students when what they “bring with them” is seen as a
legitimate framework for making sense of wMt is being presented in the classroom This
is not to suggest tMt learning be reduced to the validation of purely subjective points of
view. Nor does it require gutting traditional courses of their academic content. I am
suggesting, however, tMt instructors of first-year students, whether in orientation courses
or first-year seminars, make explicit the assumptions that guide inquiry in the formal
disciplines. For example, students need to recognize tMt implicit in the teaching of
history is an argument for the importance of a historical framework for nuking sense of
contemporary events that impinge on our daily lives. Similarly, rather tiun teaching
sociology through the presentation of esoteric theory, students can be encouraged to
reflect on how their own class position Ms sMped their social relationships, their political
views, even their educational and career aspirations.

As a conceptual fiamework, the narrative principle accounts for the fact that
human beings think, perceive, imagine, and nuke choices according to narrative

structures (Sarbin, 1986, p. 8). Said another way, we organize and nuke sense of the

201

 

 

events in our lives in storied form The participants’ experience in this project supports
the narrative reflects this principle. By carving out time and space for Hannah, Etlun,
and Rhonda to nuke explicit the private stories they employ to organize the events in
their lives, we begin to understand the roots of the educational and career aspirations. In
his autobiography, RicMrd Rodriguez (1982) describes his education took away the
option of remaining who he was prior to going to college. For him, the value of a college
education was felt as he gradually came to embrace his working class background, to
understand and appreciate how the hopes, beliefs, and expectations of his Emily sMped
his own sense of self.

Similarly, Hannah, Ethan, and Rhonda are in the midst of an ongoing process of
redefining who they are in light of their college aspirations. As Hannah and Ethan
continue on in pursuit of their career aspirations, and as Rhonda continues on into law
schooL several questions linger: WMt does it mean to be middle class, beyond the
procurement of the college degree? How will the students understand their predicaments
once they Mve gotten their first professional job? What aspects of their working class
backgrounds will they Mve left behind? What aspects will continue to sMpe who they
are? Are they destined to live out their lives feeling "nowhere at home" (Dewes and Law,
1995), knowing that they Mve chosen to leave behind much of their past way of life, but
also knowing tMt they can never completely shed their working class skins?

Rhonda, for example, harbors fear tMt eventually her past will catch up to her and
that, just like everyone else in her family, she too will fail. Will there come a time in
Rhonda's life when the fears will dissipate? And will Hannah be able to resist the

possibility of self-Elfilling the expectations for Eilure placed on her by her aunts and

202

 

cousins? At what point will she feel like she Ms attained the status as a "professional
wonun?" Will she then feel like she is surviving? And although Ethan is well on his
way toward completing his degree, he still feels unable to participate in certain
conversations with his wife‘s Emily. But how important is that in how he views his class
standing? Does it, in his mind, make him less middle class? If so, how can he learn to be
more middle class? Or is being middle class rooted somewhere more deeply than in
learned beMviors? In short, only time will tell whether Hannah, Ethan, and Rhonda ever
come to fixlly embrace their new identities as middle class, or if they continue to see

themselves as "working class kids" trying to learn, think, and act, like middle class adults.

203

 

Conclusion: Reflections of a Working Class Academic

As should be apparent to the reader, this study brings together streams of interests
that enunate fi‘om the professional and personal realms of my life. To begin, I share with
the participants in this study my working class origins. Despite the fact that I Mve a
graduate degree and now occupy a position as a professional educator; and likewise,
despite the fact tMt the participants in this study Mve taken the first step toward the
professional middle class by choosing to attend college, the way we view our
relationships, indeed our very understanding of the world and our place in it, was formed
largely out of our experiences in our working class neighborhoods and within our
working class homes.

WMt first drew me to these particular students was a curiosity about their college
choice experience. As a working class student and the first of seven children in my
family to go to college, I wondered how it was tMt these students ended up at a private
liberal arts college. That I would actually attend college was never in doubt. I
experienced a high degree of academic success throughout my primary and secondary
schooling. But despite a successfixl high school experience, my ACT scores rendered me
just another above-average graduate in the class of 1979. Thus, I didn‘t receive attention
from a large number of colleges, particularly those that are considered selective and, by
consequence, prestigious. The Ect of the nutter is that with my test scores I probably
would Mve ended up on the waitlist of any college that considered itself to be selective.

But the point is tMt I never considered applying to "those types" of colleges.

204

 

Without a clear sense of the characteristics tMt differentiate colleges, I set out to
gain entrance into the university located in my hometown. For me, two-year colleges,
liberal arts colleges, regional universities, branch campuses, and major research
universities were all part of the monolith called "college." The only real differences
between colleges, as far as I was concerned, were distance from home and affordability.
While my college selection differed fi'om theirs, there is one fixndamental aspect of our
background tMt binds us together: by definition, our decision to go to college requires
that we leave behind some aspect of our working class backgrounds. First, the odds are
high tMt we will obtain better, more prestigious jobs than our parents ever Md.
However, considering only the occupational dimension of going to college misses the
question of how our private and public lives will be sMped by our educational and
occupational status.

Second, going to college requires that we devote four years of our lives to
developing the "life of the mind." The relationship of education to occupational prestige
is apparent and needs to be taken into account. TMt is, part of the reason we choose to
devote four years of our lives to college is to get a better job. But beyond the desire to
obtain training for a job, we are introduced to a new framework for making sense of the
world. Going to college requires tlut we develop the ability to be reflective, tMt we learn
to think critically about much of what we Mve been told all our lives, and tMt we
develop the ability to form defensible positions in light of the multiplicity of opinions tMt
swirl around us. All of this, of course, is to be accomplished in an environment where we
find ourselves interacting on a daily basis with peers whose educational and social

histories may be quite different from our own.

205

 

All of this is to say tMt going to college for working class students takes on added
significance because it is about cMnging who we are and how we think about ourselves.
Two of the students profiled of this study spoke about the difficulty they Eced in trying
to adjust to the middle class ethos tMt dominated their high school and college
environments. While the transition to a new culture is an important aspect of the college
experience for working class students, that is not the primary focus of this study. (This
phenomenon is well documented. See, for example, Billson and Terry, 1982; London,
1989; McGrath and Spear, 1991; London, 1992; Dewes and Law, 1995). What is of
interest to rrre about the college-going experiences of working class students is wMt
going to college means for how we develop our sense of identity.

Maybe as college graduates we will define ourselves by occupational prestige
alone, or nuybe we will measure how far we Mve come the way we interpret and nuke
sense of the world compared to the way we did prior to coming to college. Either way, or
perMps in some combination of both, college for us is about redefining who we are. It is
my fascination with this aspect of going to college, the relationship between going to
college and our cMnging sense of self —- where we see ourselves going, who we want to
become -- that is the impetus for this study.

Where this all leads is back to the predicament Ecing Jason, to whom the reader
was introduced in the opening paragraphs of this study. Although the final destination in
Jason’s educational journey is yet to be determined, several questions emerge fiom this
study: What can I draw from the experiences of Hannah, Ethan, and Rhonda to help
prepare Jason for wMt lies ahead should he decide to go to college? What can I do, as a

significant other in Jason’s life, to ensure that if he does decide to go to college that be

206

 

will succeed? How can I instill in him the sense tMt he does Mve some control over the
outcome?

It is of little value to go back and question what might Mve Mppened differently
in Jason’s life that might Mve improved his current circumstances. The fact is that Jason
and his parents, like many other Emilies acting with the best of intentions, made
decisions regarding Jason’s education without fixll recognition of the long-term effects of
those choices. Why didn’t they talk more deliberately about going to college while Jason
was in grade school? Why didn’t Jason take college prep classes as a high school
freshman, a time when he would Mve been susceptible to positive peer influence that
would Mve been every bit as strong as the negative influence that seenxed to take hold?
Why did Jason not take the PSAT as a sophomore? And dropping out of high school, of
course, introduces obstacles in Jason’s path tMt are far more difficult tMn the ones other
students on the way to college. Thus, there is little question tMt Jason’s current
predicament istlxedirectresultofthe choicesheandhisparentsnude.

But there is also little question as to the role of the material conditions of his
working class background in sMping the earlier choices made by Jason and his Emily.
What if his parents Md been able to send him to a private high school, like Hannah’s
parents did for her? What if they had been able to start a savings account? WMt if early
on, when Jason’s grades began to slip, if they Md been able to afford to hire a private
tutor to get Jason over the hump? What if his parents Md chosen to live in a middle class
neighborhood, where from an early age Jason would Mve been exposed to a different set

of peers and probably a more rigorous middle and high school curriculum?

207

The life histories presented here on the surEce chronicle the journeys of three
students as they try to get to and eventually graduate fiom college. Embedded within
their stories are insights tMt begin to address the questions posed above. We see the
benefits of Mving college-educated parents who know how to seek out advantage for
their children and who Mve the means to deploy to nuke it Mppen. But beneath the
surEce lies the stories about a parallel journey, a journey of the self. A deeper reading of
the events that make up these life histories suggests that, indeed, when a working class
student decides to go to college a process is set in motion whereby the experience
cMnges who they are. The effects of a college education on the identity of a working
class student, as Richard Rodriguez’s educational journey reminds us, are often felt long
after a career takes hold.

Thus, I will do wMt I can to help Jason decide what he wants to do with his life.
If he decides to go to college he will probably need help with the federal financial aid
form; he will need to visit with admissions counselors to talk about his educational and
career plans; and he nuy even need to take part in an admission interview because of his
marginal high school academic record. If this is indeed the case I will deploy all the
resources at my disposal on his bele. However, the most valuable resource at my
disposal may be my own experience in grappling with the subjective aspects of one’s
class identity tMt need to be renegotiated when working class roots take hold on the
college campus. Hopefixlly, as a reader of his own life history Jason can begin to
interpret his past, to understand how his aspirations, aims, and goals Mve been sMped by
the events and experiences in his life. But more importantly, Jason may eventually gain

the confidence to author the next chter in his unfolding life story.

208

 

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