Parenting, Uncertainty, and Expert Advice: How Privileged American Families Work with Private Counselors in Their Children's College Race

Sun, Ken Chih‐Yan; Smith, Jill M.

doi:10.1002/symb.258

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 25 publications

(20 reference statements)

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“…Family income provides a significant boost to children's likelihood of using “shadow education,” expensive private courses or tutoring for Scholastic Aptitude Test preparation, which raise test scores more than other, cheaper kinds of preparation (Buchmann, Condron, & Roscigno, ). Some elite parents employ independent education consultants to manage their children's college application process, at rates from $600 to $7,500 per child (J. M. Smith & Sun, ), engaging in what Sun and Smith () dubbed “collaborative cultivation” to elicit their children's “vulnerable and unique selves.” Others rewrite college essays (Weis, Cipollone, & Jenkins, ).…”

Section: Family Life Amidst Growing Inequality and Insecuritymentioning

confidence: 99%

Families Across the Income Spectrum: A Decade in Review

Cooper

Pugh

2020

J of Marriage and Family

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During the past decade, scholars continued to focus on how larger economic trends impacted families across the income spectrum. From income and wealth inequality to economic insecurity, the gaps between the haves and the have nots remained, and some widened during this period. The authors' comprehensive review found the following three major takeaways: first, the biggest economic divides run through families with children; second, low‐income families face concentrated disadvantage marked by insecurity and precarity; and third, inequality and insecurity shaped the “dynamism” of family life, including how families respond culturally and emotionally to economic changes, and how these responses unfold over time. They examine active areas of research, including parenting trends and the transition to adulthood. They also document a new scholarly emphasis on uncertainty and instability along with the forces that exacerbate or mitigate them, such as job quality, economic volatility, wealth, and incarceration. Research during the past decade focused on the experience and consequences of dynamism, reflecting not only the reality that families evolve but also that they face continual change in their economic, social, and political contexts. The authors highlight research investigating how families “do dynamism,” work that looks over time or offers in‐depth examinations of how families adapt to and cope with dynamism every day. This research reveals that inequality and insecurity are not only matters of levels and gaps but also ongoing matters of meaning‐making, identity, and feeling. The authors conclude by highlighting some strengths and weaknesses of these research streams and pointing out new avenues for future scholarship.

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Section: Family Life Amidst Growing Inequality and Insecuritymentioning

confidence: 99%

Families Across the Income Spectrum: A Decade in Review

Cooper

Pugh

2020

J of Marriage and Family

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“… According to the Independent Educational Consultants Association, the use of independent educational consultants (IECs) doubled in number between 2003 and 2008 (Bick ). Parents hired IECs with the purpose of helping to manage the intense stress of the college application process (Sun and Smith : 14; also Demerath : ch. 2). …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

From ‘having’ to ‘being’: self‐worth and the current crisis of American society

Lamont

2019

British Journal of Sociology

150

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With growing inequality, the American dream is becoming less effective as a collective myth. With its focus on material success, competition and self‐reliance, the intensified diffusion of neoliberal scripts of the self is leading the upper‐middle class toward a mental health crisis while the working class and low‐income groups do not have the resources needed to live the dream. African Americans, Latinos and undocumented immigrants, who are presumed to lack self‐reliance, face more rigid boundaries. One possible way forward is broadening cultural membership by promoting new narratives of hope centered on a plurality of criteria of worth, ‘ordinary universalism’ and destigmatizing stigmatized groups.

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“…Some IECs are also involved in other college-going strategies, such as helping clients obtain internships and advising on course enrollment and extracurriculars (Gardner 2001; Kirp 2004). Families also seek IECs’ assistance with organization and discipline, managing expectations, alleviating stress, and mediating between parents and children (McDonough 1994; McDonough et al 1997; Smith 2014; Smith and Sun 2016; Sun and Smith 2017).…”

Section: Navigating College Admissions Amid a “Shifting Meritocracy”mentioning

confidence: 99%

Translating Authentic Selves into Authentic Applications: Private College Consulting and Selective College Admissions

Huang

2023

Sociol Educ

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Stratification in selective college admissions persists even as colleges’ criteria for evaluating merit have multiplied in efforts to increase socioeconomic and racial diversity. Middle-class and affluent families increasingly turn to privatized services, such as private college consulting, to navigate what they perceive to be a complicated and opaque application process. How independent educational consultants (IECs) advise students can thus serve as a lens for understanding how the rules of college admissions are interpreted and taught to students. Through 50 in-depth interviews with IECs, I find that IECs encourage students to be authentic by being true to themselves but that demonstrating authenticity requires attention to how one’s authentic self will be perceived. Translating an authentic self into an authentic application also involves class-based and racialized considerations, particularly for Asian American students who are susceptible to being stereotyped as inauthentic. These findings suggest that efforts to improve diversity must be carefully implemented, or they risk reproducing inequality.

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Parenting, Uncertainty, and Expert Advice: How Privileged American Families Work with Private Counselors in Their Children's College Race

Cited by 7 publications

References 25 publications

Families Across the Income Spectrum: A Decade in Review

Families Across the Income Spectrum: A Decade in Review

From ‘having’ to ‘being’: self‐worth and the current crisis of American society

Translating Authentic Selves into Authentic Applications: Private College Consulting and Selective College Admissions

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