Class, Race, and Postsecondary Destinations in New Global Circumstances
Class, Race, and Postsecondary Destinations in New Global Circumstances
Here we take up three interrelated theoretical and empirical points, as follows: 1) Class formation in 21st century U.S., with specific focus on the power and complexities of race/ethnicity/national origin as linked to class, in what will arguably become a “new upper middle class” of the 21st century, one that is specifically linked to intensified struggle over particular kinds of postsecondary destinations; 2) The extent to which women's surge into highly valued postsecondary destinations within this class fraction portends altered roles and responsibilities for men and women of the new upper-middle class; and 3) The ways and extent to which this ties to the workings of the postsecondary sector of the future, particularly as linked to segmented pathways in a sector that itself is riddled by deepening stratification, linked inequalities, and division. We examine these points with specific focus on the extent to which student location at each stage in the structure of educational opportunities limits their possible locations at the next stage (Kerckhoff, 1995; 2001). We pay particular attention to the possible implications of this statement for both class structure, the fracturing of the middle class, and the workings of the postsecondary sector more broadly.
Keywords: upper-middle class, consolidation of class advantage, segmentation of postsecondary structure, fracturing the middle class, global economy and academic positioning, mobilization of class resources, helicopter parents, massification of higher education
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