Capital Conversion and Accumulation: A Social Portrait of Legacies at an Elite University

Abstract

Legacies, or students with a family member who graduated from the same college or university, have been the source of much debate. We add to the existing literature by providing a detailed empirical portrait of legacies at a private, selective university across the college years. We examine how legacies are distinctive in their admissions profiles, within-college achievement and post-graduation plans, using data from a panel study of students attending Duke University. We find that legacies enter college with an abundance of economic, cultural and social capital, but also have lower levels of human capital compared to other students with college graduate parents. Due to this human capital deficit, legacies have lower grades in the first college year, but show little academic underperformance in subsequent semesters. Additionally, legacies are less likely to plan to be a medical doctor or engineer and have somewhat lower degree aspirations than other students.

Sorority Affiliation and Sexual Assault Victimization

“…Income facilitates Greek affiliation but parental social class may not directly precede respondent self-control. Similarly, some women may join sororities because their mothers were members and so sorority affiliation operates like legacy admissions for Ivy League schools (N. D. Martin & Spenner, 2009). In addition, self-control did not directly predict sexual assault.…”

Přestupy žáků na druhém stupni základní školy: srovnání dvou případů

“…Přináší ale také řadu otázek a pochybností. První a nejzávažnější je, zde je možné propojit modely C a B. V literatuře nacházíme jak faktické spojování konceptů obou teorií (Martin & Spenner, 2009) a snahu o sjednocující teorii (Rogošić & Baranović, 2016), tak i kritiku těchto snah pro epistemologickou odlišnost obou teorií (Pusztai, 2014). Možnost integrace je zatížena nejednoznačnostmi v použití základních termínů zejména Bourdieuovy teorie.…”

Table of Contents

“…The difference is that cultural capital is placed in the full theory of social reproduction, so it is often clearer how one form of cultural capital may be valued over another. Cultural capital, as part of a Bourdieuian framework, has been used in educational research to investigate such topics as family involvement in schooling or college enrollment (Lareau, 2000(Lareau, , 2003Lareau and Horvat, 1999;Lee and Bowen, 2006;Perna and Titus, 2005); the way that marginalized students negotiate schooling (Monkman, Ronald, and Délimon Théramène, 2005); college access and college choice decision-making (Horvat, 1997;Martin and Spenner, 2009;McDonough, 1997;Walpole et al, 2005;Perna, 2000); educational outcomes such as social mobility (Zweigenhaft, 1993); and student activities in college (Salisbury, Umbach, Paulsen, and Pascarella, 2009). Scholars typically attempt to map cultural capital onto the full theory in two ways: along with social capital, and in conjunction with the concepts of field (the social setting or context, the "market" where cultural capital is given its value) and habitus (a series of dispositions or the range of options one sees as available).…”

“…Privileged social origins can bestow a cumulative advantage to students over their educational career (Martin and Spenner, 2009;Salisbury et al, 2009;Zweigenhaft, 1993). For instance, everything from parenting styles (Lareau, 2003) to the way that teachers interpret family involvement in schools (Lareau, 1987(Lareau, , 2000Lareau and Horvat, 1999) may influence students' educational outcomes.…”