Class, Cultural Capital and the Elite University: A Look at Academic and Social Adjustment and Relations with Authority

The most trusted mechanism of upward social mobility is education. One of the surest paths to success is an elite education. Studying class at an elite university is important because of our dependence on this site as a justification of social stratification. Based on non-participant observation and in-depth interviews with forty-three students at a highly selective, private university, this dissertation addresses how class, race and gender matter for adjustment to an elite university. Specifically, this research employs non-cognitive assessors to show how class, race and gender matter for academic adjustment, social adjustment and how students interact with authority at an elite university. Policy implications of this work suggest that normative policy makers should not only be paying attention to the experiences of lower-income and minority students, but should also beware of the disadvantages unique to middle-income students at the university level.