Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Transition to College Experience of Low-Income Students

这项研究调查了低收入美国人上大学的经历，找出了他们中这么多人辍学的原因。大多数低收入的美国人现在都上了大学，但只有11%的人在六年内获得学士学位。该项目记录了低收入大学生面临的许多挑战，并观察了他们如何应对这些挑战。这项研究将为社会学提供新的见解，解释为什么美国梦如此难以捉摸。它还将确定高中、大学和联邦资助的财政援助项目如何更好地支持低收入学生。研究人员花了两年的时间和一小群来自新奥尔良的学生在一起，跟踪他们从高中四年级到大学一年级。作为一种试图向上流动的民族志，它关注的是生命历程中向上流动轨迹最常偏离轨道的时期，本研究将记录低收入美国人阶级再生产的最直接原因。该研究提出了两个问题：首先，在向大学过渡的过程中，低收入家庭的学生在学校和校外都面临哪些挑战，这些挑战会影响他们的学业进步？其次，学生如何应对这些挑战并理解它们？这些问题的答案将对贫困、高等教育和阶级再生产的社会学研究产生重要影响。以前关于美国贫困的人种学研究主要关注低收入人群如何在贫困中生存并在贫困中创造意义，所以这次新的关注试图摆脱贫困的经历，可以解释为什么成功的人如此之少。此外，到目前为止，关于低收入大学生经历的定性社会学研究几乎完全集中在这些学生中就读于名牌住宿学院的一小部分人身上。通过研究住在家里就读社区大学和较低档次的公立四年制大学的学生的经历，这项研究将提供一个必要的一瞥，了解向上流动最常受到阻碍的背景。

This study examines the experiences of low-income Americans who enroll in college, identifying reasons so many of them drop out. Most low-income Americans now enroll in college, but only 11% earn a bachelor's degree within six years. The project documents the many challenges low-income college students face and observes how they deal with these challenges. This research will provide new insights for sociology on why the American Dream can be so elusive. It will also identify ways that high schools, colleges, and federally funded financial aid programs can better support low-income students.The researcher is spending two years with a small group of students from New Orleans, following them through their senior year of high school and their freshman year of college. As an ethnography of attempted upward mobility focused on the period of the life course when upwardly mobile trajectories are most often derailed, this study will document the most proximate causes of class reproduction for low-income Americans. The study asks two questions: First, what challenges do low-income students face during the transition to college, both in school and out of school, that affect their academic progress? Second, how do students cope with these challenges and make sense of them? Answers to these questions will have important implications for the sociological study of poverty, higher education, and class reproduction. Previous ethnographic work on poverty in America focuses primarily on how low-income people survive poverty and make meaning within it, so this new focus on the experience of trying to escape poverty could shed light on why so few succeed. Moreover, qualitative sociology research to date on the experiences of low-income college students has focused almost exclusively on the small portion of these students who attend selective residential colleges. By studying the experiences of students who live at home while attending community colleges and lower-tier public four-year colleges, this study will provide a needed glimpse of the contexts in which upward mobility most often falters.