Research Blog 10: Final Abstract, Bibliography, Paper Link

Paper Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17NxNrQ-mQWEDzLA9MUeq2Q3SeNXxY31Br-R_dkicLnI/edit

Abstract:  Currently, there is an incredible unevenness in the wealth distribution within the United States.  The upper class hold a disproportionate amount of the wealth as compared to the diminishing middle class and this inequality is growing; as a result, the middle class have turned to college as a means of social mobility.  However, due to pre-existing inequalities in college affordability, the college selection process, and career opportunities the wealthy hold an advantage at every level creating a compounding effect in an uneven playing field.  Consequently, rather than breaking down class boundaries, college actually reinforces them.

Works Cited

Armstrong, Elizabeth A., and Laura T. Hamilton. Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2013. Print.

Braun, Henry, Frank Jenkins, and Wendy Grigg. "Comparing Private Schools and Public Schools Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling." National Center for Education Statistics (2006): 0-53. NCES. Web.

Collins, Randall. The Credential Society: An Historical Sociology of Education and Stratification. New York: Academic, 1979. Print.

Collins, Randall. "Functional and Conflict Theories of Educational Stratification." American Sociological Review 36.6 (1971): 1002-019. Web.

Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. New York: Little, Brown and, 2008. Print.

The Holy Bible: New International Version. Colorado Springs, CO: International Bible Society, 1984. Print.

Levine, Arthur. "Privatization in Higher Education." National Governors Association (2013): n. pag. Web.

Lillis, Michael P., and Robert G. Tian. "The Impact of Cost on College Choice: Beyond the Means of the Economically Disadvantaged." Journal of College Admission (2008): 5-14. Print.

Metcalfe, J. Stanley. "University and Business Relations: Connecting the Knowledge Economy." Minerva 48.1 (2010): 5-33. Web.

Stevens, Mitchell L. Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2007. Print.

Stiglitz, Joseph E. The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2012. Print.

Literature Review 5: Functional and Conflict Theories of Educational Stratification

2) MLA Citation: 

Collins, Randall. "Functional and Conflict Theories of Educational Stratification." American Sociological Review 36.6 (1971): 1002-019. Web.

3) Summary:

Within this text, sociologist Randall Collins, outlays two types of theories, both functionalist and conflict, as a means of explaining educational stratification.  Educational stratification deals with the classification of people into separate categories based on socioeconomic conditions within the realm of education. 

4) Author:

Randall Collins is an American sociologist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania as well as a member of the Advisory Editors Council of the Social Evolution & History journal.

5) Key Terms:
Conflict Theory of educational stratification: "that employment requirements reflect the efforts of
competing status groups to monopolize or dominate jobs by imposing their cultural
standards on the selection process"

Technical Function Theory of educational stratification: "stating that educational
requirements reflect the demands for greater skills on the job due to technological change"

6) Quotes:

“employment requirements reflect the efforts of competing status groups to monopolize or dominate jobs by imposing their cultural standards on the selection process” (Collins, 1002). 

 “in general, the organization elite selects its new members and key assistants from its own status group and makes an effort to secure lower-level employees who are at least indoctrinated to respect the cultural superiority of their status culture”(Collins, 1010)

“Business school training is similarly regarded, less as evidence of necessary training (as employers have been widely skeptical of the utility of this curriculum for most positions) than as an indication that the college graduate is committed to business attitudes”(Collins, 1012)

7) Value:
 This poses interesting arguments about credentialism and the validity of credentials as a measure of actual ability.  Within my paper, this will be my third main section.  It will be used as a means of explaining how the job selection process is not an even playing field but merely a social construct dominated by elite culture.  Those below the upper class must show respect to their overlords to gain lower level positions.  Obviously, my paper will focus mainly on the conflict theories.

Research Blog #9: Argument and Counter-Argument

Briefly, within my paper I argue that because of pre-existing class inequalities, the middle class has turned to college as a means of social mobility.  However, college does not act as a lubricant between classes, but rather expedites inequality due to the compounding effect of advantages for the rich at each stage of the process.

 Rather than countering one of my individual sources, which there is obvious room to but I personally do not agree with much of, I will counter my own compounding theme from within the paper.  One might argue that these advantages may exist, but are not insurmountable, and rather than being compounding factors, they are simply small advantages that can be easily dodged at each stage.

To counter the counter-argument, I will provide the example of Canadian hockey players from within Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. Within this he explains how a cutoff date creates a small advantage for slightly older children within the system to start.  However, when they make the traveling team, this small advantage snowballs into a great one as they receive the benefits of better coaching, better competition, and more practice that the other kids do not enjoy.  This is analogous to the system that portray in my paper.

Literature Blog #4: Creating A Class - Mitchell Stevens

2) MLA Citation: 

Stevens, Mitchell L. Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites. Cambridge,       MA: Harvard UP, 2007. Print.

3) Summary:

Author Mitchell Stevens visited an exclusive private institution in the Northeast United States in an attempt to understand the college admissions process.  He notes that this university, while not being an Ivy League school, is of strong academic standing.  His belief that his findings at this one college represents a microcosm of the college admissions process as a whole, and that other institutions of similar nature have incredibly similar, if not identical, processes for student acceptance.  Largely, the book discusses how the acceptance process, and college itself, is a kind of dance merely made to ensure affluent, white upper middle class families are able to bequeath their money and power to their offspring.  According to Stevens, "this book is largely about privileged families and the impressive organizational machinery they have developed to pass their comfortable social positions on to their children."  This is confirmed by two theories, which in the eyes of Stevens are one in the same: the reproduction theory and the transaction theory.  These will both be defined in the "Key Terms" Section of this blog post.

4) Author:

Mitchell Stevens is an associate professor of sociology and associate professor of organizational behavior in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.  

5) Key Terms:
Reproduction Theory: "Often called the reproduction thesis, holds that variation in educational attainment essentially is a coating for pre-existing class inequalities.  The reproduction thesis was built from Karl Marx’s insights about how powerful groups inevitably create social and cultural systems that legitimate their own class advantage.  From this perspective college degrees, and the classroom time and schoolwork they represent, provide palatable justification for the tendency of privileged families to hand privilege down to their children."


Transaction Theory:  "makes different sense of the very same correlation between family privilege and educational attainment.  This thesis argues that the replacement of traditional social hierarchies with educational ones is a definitive chapter in every society's progress toward modernity... as societies modernized, inequalities of family, caste, and tribe gradually give way to hierarchies predicated on individual achievement."

Credential Inflation: "the diminution of the value of college degrees in a labor market that was being flooded with them."

6) Quotes:

"College educations are now crucial components of our national class structure.  Most people presume that a college degree is a prerequisite for a financially comfortable adulthood, and a large corpus of sociological research on the relationship between educational attainment and life chances largely confirms the conventional wisdom" - page 10

 "Even if parents are wise to the system on the day their children are born, their knowledge is of little consequence if it is not matched by the resources required to put it into practice: the means to live in a community with excellent schools, expert college guidance, and student culture with a forward orientation toward college; the time and cash to invest in after-school sports leagues, summer music camps, private tutors, and horizon expanding travel." - page 21

"Keenly aware of the terms of elite college admission, privileged parents do everything in their power to make their children into ideal applicants.  They pay for academically excellent high schools.  They shower their children with books and field trips and lots of adult attention.  They nurture athletic talent through myriad youth sports programs." - page 15

7) Value:
This books poses excellent theories that can be explored via other peer reviewed articles and qualities sources to prove my overall case including the reproduction theory, transaction theory, credential based society, credential inflation, and more.  Additionally, it proves an unlimited resource on the college admissions process.  I expect a major part of my essay to include the tactics practiced by universities to maximize the amount of wealthy students and to provide capable pathways for them to succeed. Moreover, Stevens' writing acts as excellent sound bites providing quotes that will flawlessly fit into my own paper with little additional explanation necessary. 

Research Blog #7: Your Case

Briefly, my "case" is that the structures within the American college system have been set up to ensure those with money come out on top, and those who do not aren't as lucky.  This has been described in multiple texts as the social reproduction theory.  This theory was first proposed by French philosopher Pierre Bourdieu and was touched on in required class reading Paying for the Party as well as a few other of my sources including Creating a Class.  A chief of example of this is described by Mitchell Stevens in Creating a Class, "Even if parents are wise to the system on the day their children are born, their knowledge is of little consequence if it is not matched by the resources required to put it into practice: the means to live in a community with excellent schools, expert college guidance, and student culture with a forward orientation toward college; the time and cash to invest in after-school sports leagues, summer music camps, private tutors, and horizon expanding travel."  The United States "credential" based thinking allows necessary endorsements simply be bought putting the rich at a strong advantage in both the college admissions process and the ensuing job search afterwards.