Student Affairs and Higher Education
Indiana State University
Terre Haute, IN 47809
willbarratt@indstate.edu
Click here for the handout. PDF Document
Program PowerPoint:
Contact me. Using Macromedia Breeze technology I can present this material in your conference room if you have an Internet connection, a projector, and speakers. A webcam on your end allows us to have a videoconference.
If you would like a staff development program on social class on campus please contact me about coming to your campus.
SES is an important factor in student identity, involvement, and success, especially for first generation students. Students’ SES, commonly measured as parental education and occupation, can match or mismatch campus characteristics, and a mismatch will impact students’ learning, development, and retention. Participants will explore their own SES identity, share SES experiences, learn about SES on campus, develop skills in identifying SES issues and campus SES bias, and learn techniques for building more inclusive campus communities.
The Socio Economic Status diverse campus is inherently inequitable! Student, staff, and faculty SES directly affects student access, inclusion, equity, persistence, and success. Students with insufficient economic capital for college are widely recognized as "at risk", but student involvement depends on more than economic capital. Adding the concepts of cultural and social capital (Boudieu, 1986) as "risk factors" gives a more accurate representation of the inequity faced by low SES students.
Because of their families' educational attainment first generation students have a lower SES than second generation students, lower than every campus student affairs professional's, and lower than every faculty member's. SES is most often measured as a combination of and individual's occupational prestige and educational attainment (Deonandan, et. al. 2000). Because college students have neither a full-time occupation nor have completed their educational attainment their SES is best described as their parents SES (Hollingshead, 1975). Lower SES translates into insufficient economic, cultural and social capital that inhibits students from becoming fully involved on campus.
One role for student affairs professionals is to help students acquire the knowledge and skills that lead to enhanced cultural and social capital. Cultural capital can best be seen as knowledge and skills common to the prestige upper-middle class group on campus. Cultural capital includes attitudes, manners, social norms, and etiquette in addition to knowledge about art and culture. Social capital is a social network, connections, friends, and acquaintances, especially with those who have access to resources and who are members of the prestige social class. Students who have social skills, often learned at home, can easily build social capital with peers, student affairs professionals, and faculty. Students without skills will be unable to increase their social capital and will be at a disadvantage in crossing the SES barrier between themselves and student affairs staff and faculty.
Social class is an important source of students’ identity. First generation students will graduate with more education and will enter higher prestige occupations than family members. As first generation students acquire increased cultural and social capital along with their educational attainment they rise to a higher SES than their families of origin, causing stress in their family boundaries. Helping students learn to live in a multi-social class family and community is an important need for student learning.
The main learning outcomes of this presentation will be awareness of SES as an important campus multicultural issue, knowledge and skills to be used for identifying SES issues on campus, skills for designing appropriate support systems for low SES students, and skills for developing more SES inclusive communities. Through presentations, self exploration, illustrations, discussions, and examples, learning experiences will enhance participant knowledge and skills in identifying SES issues, and acquiring techniques for managing SES differences. There will be ample opportunities for discussion and questions.
The presenter has been teaching about multiculturalism for over 10 years and has conducted several presentations on SES and student affairs. Participants will evaluate every aspect of the program.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1986). The Forms of Capital. In John Richardson, Ed. Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. New York: Greenwood Press, pp. 241-258.
Deonandan, R., Campbell, K., Ostbye, T., Tummon, I., & Robertson, J. (2000). A Comparison of Methods for Measuring Socio-economic Status by Occupation or Postal Area, Chronic Diseases in Canada, V21, N3, 114-118
Hollingshead, A. B. (1975). Four Factor Index of Social Status. New Haven, CT: Yale University.