Inclusion and Intersecting Inequality: First Generation Students at - - PDF document

¡ 1 ¡ Inclusion and Intersecting Inequality: First Generation Students at Elite Colleges Janel Benson Colgate University Elizabeth Lee Ohio University

¡ 2 ¡ ABSTRACT Although sociologists have long shown that some forms of college socioeconomic mobility or reproduction come through cultural and social learning, we still lack nuanced examinations of how students’ racialized, gendered, and classed backgrounds co- influence their social experiences on campuses. We also lack data on how institutional processes shape students’ experiences. We examine both points by asking two specific questions: First, how do differently-situated first generation students negotiate the social contexts of elite predominantly white college campuses? Second, through what processes and pathways do these students develop a sense of belonging and do these strategies vary by race and gender? We utilize a multi-method approach that pairs 40 first generation college student interviews at an elite northeastern university with survey data from the National Longitudinal Study of Freshman. We find pathways to inclusion differ by race and gender among fgen students and institutionally supported pathways, such as athletics and summer bridge programs, play a powerful role in shaping these differences. Due largely to athletic participation, white men and to a lesser extent non-white men are more likely to be pulled into mainstream social life compared to their female counterparts, giving them more opportunities for cross-class interaction. Participation in summer bridge programs facilitates inclusion for non-white women, but it connects these women to peers from similar rather than different backgrounds. Fgen students without institutionally supported access points, however, struggle the most with inclusion.

INTRODUCTION First-generation college students (fgens) have increasingly become understood as a disadvantaged population relative to continuing generation peers. As a group, they

• btain lower outcomes on average than continuing generation peers during college across

multiple measures: they are less academically prepared, less likely to graduate within four years, less likely to participate in extracurricular programming, and less likely to be satisfied with college experiences (Hoxby & Avery 2013; Pike & Kuh 2005). Recognizing these vulnerabilities, elite colleges have taken great strides to recruit and support fgen students by offering strong financial aid and investing in student support services, making them ideal locations for fgen students to obtain socioeconomic mobility: they boast higher fgen graduation rates—nearly on par with advantaged peers--and provide a stronger launch into professional careers than less selective colleges (Bowen et

• al. 2005; Carnevale & Rose 2004). Despite these investments and strong graduate
• utcomes, fgen students nonetheless continue to reap lower returns to their elite

educations compared to their more advantaged continuing generation peers, obtaining fewer post-graduate degrees and lower earnings (Bowen et al. 2005) for reasons that are not understood. To understand this puzzle, we look within the black box of higher education to examine inclusion pathways within the experiential core --with whom and in what contexts students spend their time--as critical sites of social mobility and reproduction that offer valued symbolic resources and social networks. Although scholars have become more attentive to students’ social lives, we still don’t have a fully realized understanding

• f how stratification processes unfold in these areas. How, precisely, are some students

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better able to negotiate social venues or relationships than others? Broader higher education literature suggests two areas, in particular, that may contribute to understanding fgen students’ experiences with greater precision. First, although sociologists have for decades examined the ways that racialized position and gender shape students’ access to educational opportunities, such examinations are not fully taken up within the literature

• n low-SES students—scholars largely focus on fgen students as a cohesive group rather

than considering key sources of variation within this growing population. In particular, examinations in which gender takes an important analytical focus (e.g. Hamilton 2014; Holland and Eisenhart 1990) do not typically compare across gender groups, focusing on discussions of the shared experiences of students within gendered categories (e.g. Lee 2016; Armstrong & Hamilton 2013). Second, scholars have largely left aside examinations of the institutional-level processes that support or constrain fgen students. Although patterns of fgen vs. continuing generation usage of institutional resources, ranging from study abroad and internships to personal conversations with faculty members, have been clearly documented (Stuber 2009, 2011, 2015; Martin 2009, 2012; Aronson 2008; Walpole 2003), we have fewer examinations of how fgen students actually negotiate college structures and, conversely, of the way that elite colleges are structured in ways that are more negotiable by students who come from more affluent backgrounds. Most research

• f fgen students focuses on individual-level deficits without considering how macro-level

institutional structures and practices shape opportunities for inclusion (Armstrong & Hamilton 2013; Khan 2011; Lee 2016). 2

In this paper, we take up both sets of questions utilizing both quantitative data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen (NLSF) and qualitative data gathered from interviews with 40 students at Hilltop College (HC, a pseudonym), an elite campus in the Northeast. We make two primary contributions. First, we elaborate differences in social inclusion pathways among first-generation students by race and gender, allowing a much more finely-textured and comprehensive analysis than currently

• exists. Second, we analyze the institutional pathways through which students locate

social inclusion: how did students make friends and other social connections, and to what extent did these pathways vary by race and gender? In so doing, we focus not only on the student’s status but the question of the social structure within which they locate a niche: in other words, we examine not only integration but with whom, treating these social locations as key venues for learning and advantage (Hamilton 2014). LITERATURE REVIEW Elite colleges as venues for social acclimation Elite colleges play important roles as disrupters of cross-generational disadvantage: graduates from these institutions obtain strong outcomes in terms of lifetime earnings and occupational status (Bowen et al. 2005), but in order for students to benefit from such a membership, they must be able to form ties with peers, both friendships and broader social networks. Friendships and a feeling of “belonging” on campus (Ostrove & Long 2007; Pittman & Richmond 2008) are also crucially related to students’ more immediate outcomes, predicting likelihood of pro-academic behavior and graduation alike. Such findings suggest the strong importance of the social world and acclimation with peers. However, as critics have pointed out, models of campus 3

integration are most applicable to White male middle-class students, suggesting that the meaning and process of acclimation into an institution functions differently for students depending on multiple aspects of background and institutional context (Guiffrida 2006). What does this mean for fgen students on elite campuses, spaces in which most of their peers are from middle- or upper-SES households (Carnevale & Rose 2004), and how might this vary with intersectional gendered and racialized identities? First-generation students on campus A small but growing number of works on low-socioeconomic students—including fgens—attending four-year colleges and universities show the ways these students manage interactions within predominantly-middle or upper-class settings. Armstrong and Hamilton (2013), for example, focus on class differences among women living in a so- called party dorm at a public university. Their findings illustrate the way that these young women’s backgrounds shape their abilities to participate in the social life of their peers, to get advice about career and academic choices, and after college in their social connections that support access to jobs. Stuber (2011) takes up a similar question, examining the ways students both conceptualize and participate in extracurricular activities, such as clubs, internships, or study abroad. Here again, we see that a student’s socioeconomic background shapes pathways through college and beyond in substantial

• ways. Lee (2016) and Hurst (2010) each examine the ways low-SES students manage the

experiences of class inequality on campus, Lee focusing on cross-class friendships and Hurst on students’ class identities relative to their families and natal class positions. Each shows how students must locate strategic approaches for dealing with day-to-day life on campus, including the emotional complications raised by class mobility. 4

While these works demonstrate the ways that class background shape students’ campus lives and post-college outcomes, none examines variation within low-SES

• students. Lee and Armstrong & Hamilton focus on women, limiting their analyses by
• gender. Stuber, Armstrong & Hamilton, and Hurst each examine White students only.

Analogously, literature on race in higher education tends to exclude variation by class and gender: Feagin, Imani, & Vera (1996), Willie (2003), and Winkle-Wagner (2010) all find that Black students’ experiences on predominantly White campuses are rife with large- and micro-scale aggressions, communicating to Black students that they “just…weren’t wanted [there],” as one student told interviewers (Feagin, Vera, & Imani, 1996: 41), but comparisons between male and female students or lower- and upper-SES students are not focused upon. Winkle-Wagner is a partial exception here: her discussion of Black women includes a specific examination of fgens within her interview population. However, she does not compare across gendered experiences. Finally, examinations of gendered roles

• n campus and the ways that gender functions as a source of social stratification focus on

a single gender experience (e.g. Armstrong & Hamilton 2013; Holland & Eisenhart 1990) rather than comparing men’s and women’s experiences to examine how gender-related social processes may function differently for male and female students. Intersectional shifts A small number of recent articles focused on low-SES students and students of color have begun to advance this area of research, highlighting the ways that differences within designated institutional categories are both overlooked and formative and the co- importance of race, class, and gender identities. For example, Jack (2015) examined low- income African American college students, comparing those who attended private 5

preparatory programs and those who attended public high schools. He shows the ways that those he terms “the Privileged Poor” are able to transition into college more smoothly, taking better advantaged of opportunities and with less sense of culture shock

• r alienation, than those he calls “the Doubly Disadvantaged.” Wilkins (2014) examined

differences between first-generation White men and continuing-generation African- American men, showing the ways that White working-class men manage the transition to college by being “regular,” a social identity honed during high school and still available at their predominantly White campuses. African American men, despite arguably being better prepared by virtue of having college-educated parents, have a more difficult transition because they are no longer able to occupy the social role the held in high school, that of an academic star—instead, they are pushed into available stereotypical roles that their White peers allocate to African American men. Similarly, Holland (2012) examined gender variation in African American high school students’ experiences at two predominantly White high schools, showing that male students had an easier time making friends and maintaining a social life because of similar stereotypical understandings of race and gender. These same types of stereotypes diminished the socially-approved roles available to young African American female students. We see in these findings the way that within ‘group’ variation matters. Gender is especially lacking here. While the Source of the River series (e.g. Massey et al. 2003; Charles et al. 2009) includes gender as a demographic variable, the focus is squarely on race variation. Wilkins’s (2014) work is again a partial exception: she develops concurrent arguments about men’s and women’s experiences on campus as shaped by gender identities; Holland (2012) makes more direct comparisons at the high 6

school level. (Other work comparing men’s and women’s experiences more directly focuses on academic choices, especially around STEM majors, and in relation to the “hooking up” phenomena.) Given the substantial differences in post-college earnings and

• ther markers of socioeconomic mobility between men and women, as well as the very

difference in men’s and women’s enrollment as fgen students, this is a large gap in the literature on fgen students. Moreover, as Hamilton (2014) deftly shows, gender roles on campus are not only variously attainable depending on students’ socioeconomic backgrounds, but also variously sanctioned or received by the existing social and institutional structures of the campus. A multi-level approach is therefore needed to discern both types of influence and to examine intersectional gender performances and pressures. Institutional contexts Finally, Hamilton’s, Wilkins’s and Holland’s arguments also make clear that the institutional context matters—students are not entering or developing relationships within neutral space. Rather, the campus itself maintains a distinctive set of formal and informal expectations, procedures, and self-understandings—in short, an institutional habitus (see also Khan 2011 and Lee 2016 on this point). Stuber’s (2015) comparison of extracurricular participation on a larger public and smaller private college campuses highlights the importance of both institutional practices and demographic composition for low-income student income. Low-SES students at small elite campuses are both more likely to become involved in extracurricular activities and more likely to feel alienated by class differences than low-SES students at large public campuses, who are both less likely to become involved (a loss in terms of post-college job market processes) and less 7

likely to feel discomfort on campus as a result of interpersonal comparison (see also Aries & Seider 2005). Moreover, recent work shows that institutional processes are important for social formation along specifically racialized and gendered lines: For example, studies of elite college and universities consistently find that students of color occupy different social niches compared to their white counterparts (Aries 2008; McCabe 2015; Massey et al. 2003; Espanshade & Radford 2005), while others document the ways that low-SES students rarely occupy the same social niches as wealthier peers (Armstrong & Hamilton 2013). While some sorting happens through homophilous peer preferences (see McPherson, Smith-Lovin, & Cook 2001 and Stearns, Buchmann, & Bonneau 2009), institutional processes play key roles by (for example) sorting students into dorms by gender and, often (depending of fees structures) socioeconomic status. A more cross- cutting example are Greek Letter Organizations (GLOs), which tend to be stratified by gender, race, and class and to wield high levels of influence on both members’ and non- members’ social lives. Predominantly white affluent GLOs are typically the only GLOs that have housing where partying is permitted, giving wealthy white men control over social scene and peer hierarchy, an secondary control to white women (Armstrong, Hamilton, & Sweeney 2006; Hamilton & Armstrong 2013; Ray & Best 2015). Thus, as Hamilton (2014) stresses, we must be attentive to both individual-level and institutional- level processes of gender, race, and class stratification. From these collective examinations, we ask two specific questions. First, how do differently-situated first generation students negotiate the social spaces of elite predominantly white college campuses? Second, through what processes and pathways 8

do these students develop a sense of belonging and do these strategies vary by race and gender? By asking these questions, we shift from a discussion social integration— whether a student integrates to campus—to a model of social geographies, asking with whom and where a student integrates. This focuses attention more squarely on what students are gaining from friendships, as well as taking a more nuanced view of the institution as a space with multiple types of social spaces co-occurring in which students might locate friendships and senses of belonging, and recognizing that these spaces may have different types of returns in the post-college market. DATA AND METHODS We employed a multi-method approach, pairing 40 fgen student interviews at an elite northeastern university with survey data from the NLSF. Working with both interview and survey data allowed us to examine our research questions more effectively than relying only on either qualitative or quantitative data alone: The NLSF allows us to examine broad patterns in inclusion using a representative national, cross-institutional

• sample. In turn, the interviews allow us to understand how students conceptualize their

social choices and the linkages between student identities and campus practices. The NLSF, a probability sample of approximately 4,000 students who entered 28 selective U.S colleges and universities in the fall of 1999, is well suited to examine our questions because it offers measures of several dimensions of inclusion, and it over- sampled students from racial-ethnic minority groups, allowing us to examine within- group differences. We use data from Waves 3 (spring sophomore year) and 5 (spring senior year, and restrict the survey sample fgen students (n=8871), conceptualized as 1 Currently, missing data are handled with listwise deletion, but will be replaced using multiple imputation

in the next draft

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those coming from families in which neither parental figure graduated from a four-year college, from non-Asian backgrounds. Table 1 describes sample characteristics our three measures of social inclusion:

• verall social satisfaction, campus involvement, and friendship pathways. We measure

social satisfaction based on satisfaction with friends in Wave 5 (0 to10) and overall satisfaction in Wave 3 (0 to 5), with higher scores on both measures indicating greater

• satisfaction. To tap into campus involvement, we measure Wave 3 participation in Greek-

Letter Organizations, athletics, and social justice oriented groups (social service outreach, religious group, race/ethnic, sex/gender, or gay, lesbian) as dichotomous variables. We also include continuous measures for total weekly hours students spend on extracurricular activities, working, partying, and studying in Wave 3. Our last measure of involvement, social inclusion, is an index created from questions in Wave 3 asking how often students felt homesick or wanted to leave campus ( =0.65). Friendship pathways are measured  by a series of dummy variables based on questions asked in Wave 5 during the spring of senior year about how respondents met each of their 5 closest friends. We made a series

• f dummy variables for location of best friends, with each variable coded “1” if

respondent reported having at least one of their four close friends from that pathways since very few have one than one friend from any one pathway. We also measure friendship race/gender composition using questions from Wave 3 (the only wave the asked about gender) that asked respondents about the 4 friends closest to you. We include measures for the proportion of close friends who are 1) white males, 2) non-white males, 3) white females, 4) non-white females. [Insert Table 1 here] 10

We paired these survey data with 50 semi-structured interviews with male and female fgen students from different racial-ethnic backgrounds at Hilltop, a selective liberal arts campus, conducted between 2012-2015. HC is a located in a small city in the northeast United States. Like similarly selective colleges, HC admits roughly 25% of applicants, boasts an over 90% six-year graduation rate, and has a student body that is predominantly white (67%) and affluent, with only 35% of students receiving financial

• aid. It is important to note that the six-year graduation rate is only 85% for under-

represented minority groups, and unfortunately, no publicly available data are available

• n graduation rates by socioeconomic background. On par with other similar private

schools, the cost of attendance is approximately $60,000 annually in estimated costs in 2015-16. The interview protocol was based on Lee’s (2016) work at an elite women’s college, but was modified to capture the unique experiences of HC students. Interviews were semi-structured and open-ended so that a core of questions was asked of each respondent but follow-up questions were added in order to pursue topics that arose in individual interviews. To tap into these inclusion processes, respondents were asked a range of questions about their initial impressions in the transition to college as well as the social and academic pathways they chose in subsequent years, including questions about academic major selection, how they located friendships and whether these changed over time, extracurricular participation, and general perceptions of what it is like to be a fgen student on HC’s campus. The HC campus could not provide a list of fgen students, and we therefore relied

• n two sampling strategies. First, we recruited students who were involved in Hilltop’s

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pre-college summer program. Many but not all students involved in this program come from fgen backgrounds. Second, we used snowball-sampling techniques, with respondents referring us to other fgen students. These resulted in a sample of 6 white women, 6 white men, 11 non-white men and 11 non-white women2. RESULTS To investigate race and gender differences in social inclusion processes, we begin by describing fgen students’ first impressions of campus life, highlighting how all fgen students experienced economic marginality on HC’s predominantly affluent campus. Second, we show that among fgen students, men and women of color experience the greatest initial culture shock and have the lowest levels of overall social satisfaction. Third, we look more closely at pathways to inclusion—conceptualized as the ways students make friends and become involved in campus life—to reveal that campus involvement and how and with whom students make close ties varies by both race and gender, with white men having the most opportunities for cross-class interactions. Last, we show how institutionally supported pathways shape these inclusion processes, pushing and pulling students into social spaces. Moreover, we highlight how students

• utside these pathways seem to struggle the most regardless of race or gender

background. Settling in and first impressions When fgen students arrived on campus, they eagerly fumbled through orientation events and awkward introductions, hoping to secure a new network of friends as quickly as possible. As Clark, a white fgen male, described, “a couple minutes after your parents 2 We plan to interview another 10-15 students for the next draft. 12

leave and you just kind of are all standing there together nervously trying to exchange numbers and make sure that you have friends to eat in the dining hall with.” While most fgen students were initially excited to come to HC, they all realized—some more quickly than others—how their family backgrounds differ from most students on campus by

• bserving the luxury cars in the parking lots and preppy dress of most white students and

their families. For many fgen students, these class differences created barriers to social connections with affluent students. Gabby described, “I think I had a hard time connecting with people because it was hard to sometimes find like a common identity, and like, and what I mean by that is like coming from like the class background I came from, um there were things that people were talking about that I just could not talk about because I didn’t have any of those experiences. Like traveling, or like owning a car, like that was not realities in my life you know, so like it was hard to like connect with people

• n those first introductory levels that then lead to deeper friendships” (Gabby, white

senior). Similarly, Jay, a Latino male noted that, I’m not saying you can't be friends with somebody whose from the higher income, but I mean let's be honest, there's was like some kids [in my dorm] going to the Superbowl and I'm watching the Superbowl on a TV screen, and if he were to invite me to go there's no way I would be able to pay for it

• anyway. So there's just like, the things that he may like to do as a friend, I simply just

can't do, so therefore I can't be his friend.” Thus for both Gabby and Jay, other students’ levels of affluence presented at least potential difficulties in trying to make friendships or envision spending much social time together. Although all fgen students felt at least somewhat out-of-place, students of color have more negative initial impressions of campus life and report overall lower levels of 13

social satisfaction. As one respondent described, “I felt like a fly in a bowl of milk” and

• thers noted the “sea of white faces.” In line with previous studies (Charles et al. 2009),

Table 2 shows that overall social satisfaction differs among fgen students by race, with white students are more socially satisfied compared to students of color. Likewise, our qualitative data reveal that white students perceived campus as more friendly and overall seemed happier with social life compared to non-white fgen students. This is due in part to their ability to manage class marginality. As one white fgen student described, white fgen students have an easier time trying to assimilate into campus culture because class differences are less visible and easier to hide. When Rebecca, a white fgen student, arrived on campus, her initial thoughts were, “Oh my god I am at the preppiest place in

• America. I swear, I don’t know what I am going to do. I don’t fit in here. Umm, but it

wasn’t that serious I mean, like, I still had a certain level of comfort ability because being poor is something you can hide, so that was something where I was like I just won’t talk about money and we’ll be fine. And that worked for a while…” For Rebecca, although class differences initially made her uncomfortable, her white racialized identity allows her to fit with relative ease into the majority space of the dorms and social venues on campus, provided she can manage this key aspect. By contrast, Beth, a Mexican-American student described her first days on campus as follows: “When I first arrived, I saw no black people. No light-skin people. No, nothing. Nothing of color. I just saw white faces. So, a typical Hilltop student on my first day here: boots, leggings, sweater, a little jacket, whatever. The scarf. Blonde hair, blue eyes, brown boots. Boots, boots, boots.” For Beth, the “typical” student was both unlike her in style and racialized appearance and preponderant: there were “no [students] 14

• f color” with whom Beth might identify. Students of color therefore faced the double

burden of class and race marginality. Even students of color who came from predominantly white pre-college environments feel the ongoing drain of being the only person of color in academic and social spaces. For example, Zendaya reported that, “I had less of a time like getting into the culture than other people, ‘cause I always been around white people. So I just like didn’t care. But I feel like it gets tiring. ‘cause like I miss home, and I miss being around people that look like me” (Zendaya, Black female). For fgen students broadly and fgen students of color especially, differences from peers on campus were clear early on. For white fgen students, their racialized position allowed a potential measure of greater comfort and anonymity and seemed to blunt their “culture shock” (Torres, 2009), and predominant differences in students’ first impressions appear to be by race. As students made friends and become involved on campus, however —what we collectively term social inclusion—more complicated variations became evident, based on race-gender positions. Institutional Pathways to Inclusion Next we turn to inclusion processes, specifically where students are involved on campus and with whom, and we find that the picture becomes much more complicated, revealing differences across both race and gender among fgen students. All respondents ultimately reported making friends on campus, and all fgen students similarly reported feeling comfortable in campus spaces where they could authentically be themselves without worrying about being judged or “watched,” as one student of color put it. However, the processes through which they developed friendships differed, as did 15

campus spaces perceived as most and least comfortable varied by race, gender, and institutional pathway. [Insert Table 2 here] First, we consider where students’ campus involvement: what kinds of activities did students participate in? As Table 2 shows, white males significantly differ in their involvement compare to fgen students from other race and gender backgrounds. They are most likely to be involved in the high-status activities of Greek life and partying compared to students from all other backgrounds, and they are more likely than all fgen women to be involved in athletics. Outside of athletics and GLOs, white fgen males spend the least time involved in extracurricular activities and working for pay. In fact, they work less than half the hours per week than white and non-white women. Although not participating in a wide range of extracurricular activities, white males are most likely to be engaged in those campus activities associated with high status and mainstream campus social life. Accordingly, they are the most likely to report feeling satisfied with campus social life. In contrast, non-white females are most likely to feel socially excluded on campus, and they are least likely to be engaged in the high status organizations of GLOs and athletics. Non-white females, however, are most engaged in social justice groups, and they devote about the same amount of time to extracurricular activities, working, and partying compared to white women and to a lesser extent men of color. Although white fgen women are just as socially satisfied as white fgen men, they are less likely to be involved in GLOs, partying, and athletics, and they more likely to spend their time involved in extracurricular activities and working for pay. 16

Finally, non-white men are similarly involved in athletics and partying as their white male counterparts, but they are much more likely to spend their time in extracurricular activities, working for pay, and studying. Non-white males are also much more likely to be involved in Greek life and feel less socially excluded compared to non- white females. Next, we turn to the question of friendship, examining where students made friends, located places of belonging, and what kinds of friends they made. That is, did their social activities connect them to homophilous peers or to cross-group friendships? Here again we see importance differences by both race and gender. While fgen students are equally likely to make friends through classes and other friends, Table 2 shows that White male fgen students are most likely to make close friends through the dorms and GLOs, and they more likely to identify friends through athletics compared to fgen

• women. Not surprisingly given their low level of involvement (outside of GLOs and

athletics), white men are least likely to make close friends through clubs. Overall, their friendship network is approximately made up of 55% white men, 33% white women, 8% non-white men, and 3% non-white women. Like white men, over half of white women (61%) have at least one close friend they met through the dorm, but on the other hand, they are more likely to make their friends through clubs rather than Greek life and athletics. Compared to all other fgen students, white women have the most homogenous friendship group, with 68% of their closest four friends also being white women, followed by 23% white males, 7% non- white females, and 2% non-white males. Non-white men, like their white male counterparts, make friends through athletics, but GLOs and especially the dorms do not 17

• ffer prominent pathways to friendship. Compared to other fgen students, non-white

males have the most diverse friendship group by gender and race, comprising 45% non- white men, 28% non-white women, 16% white men, and 10% white females. Similar to white women and non-white men, non-white women make their closest friends through dorms, classes, clubs, and other friends. Their friendship network is approximately made up of 59% non-white women, 17% white women, 17% non-white men, and 6% white males. Most fgen students thus formed friendships with race-gender similar peers and spent time in different types of campus settings and activities. As one student noted: “I can definitely see how it can be hard for other students to fit in at HC. HC is very cliché, by cliché, I mean social groups. So if you don't fit in to one of the main social groups, I can see how one could have a hard time” (Ricky, white male). Rather than being the result of students’ individual preferences for homophily, however, we find that being part

• f a social group is powerfully shaped by institutionally supported pathways. We now

turn to the qualitative interviews to describe how these institutional pathways pushed and pulled students into different social spaces, influencing who their friends were and how they organized their social lives. Moreover, we find that those not pulled into campus life by an institutionally supported pathway have a much more difficult time. White and Non-White Men Athletics and GLOs Most men in in the sample formed friendships through two highly visible locations: athletics and Greek-Letter Organizations. This ease of connection for white men (and lesser extent men of color) focuses around both access to institutionally 18

supported pathways of athletics (recruited and intramurals) and GLOs. Men who found inclusion through these pathways were able to draw on shared interested in a particular sport or class-neutral activity such as videogames to find common ground with new peers from different backgrounds. Lebron, for example, related that I feel most comfortable during athletic activities. I am most comfortable when I am surrounded by my teammates; whether that is at home, locker room, or playing field. On the football team, we are not separated or divided by class or race, which makes everyone equal. I also feel comfortable with my teammates because we all share the same common goal. We are all student-athletes whose goal is to graduate from a prestigious university and win our league

• championship. (Lebron, African American male).

Moreover, within these groups, fgen men were able to draw on class-neutral, male- centered activities of playing video games or pick-up sports, watching TV, and partying as ways to create social bonds. These activities did not depend on elite cultural capital, current or past access to financial resources, or bring into discussion students’ home lives and family backgrounds. Ricky exemplifies this pattern: when asked about how he spent time with friends, he responded: “Besides football, we kick it, we play video games a lot, we watched sports event together, we party, that's about it. And we talk about things when we need to, things get personal sometimes” (Ricky, white male). Similarly, Todd noted that “We play video games a lot, we party together, we pretty much eat together every meal, we're basically together all the time, honestly.” (Todd, white male). Athletics therefore not only provided an instant network of friends with a shared interest often referred to as “brotherhood,” it also helped students gain easy access to new 19

social opportunities. Indeed, many male athletes report living with other athletes3 and having social lives that are very enmeshed with their teammates. Team membership also often provided an entry point into other elite campus venues, especially GLOs. Although most fgen men entered unsure about participating in GLOs, those that did report being “pulled” in by friends as well as the draw of new social and romantic opportunities. As Ricky, a white male athlete described, The decision to join was made for me. [My GLO] is known as the football fraternity, a lot of football players join the fraternity. So to be a member of the football team, was to be a member of the fraternity. So I just followed my friends. The benefits are meeting new people, it's not just football guys in [my GLO], we have a lot of other people from other places in the school. Also a lot of the events we do on campus with sororities allows me to meet females on campus. For fgen men, athletics not only provides a tight-knit group of friends, a highly visible identity, but it also created a pathway to high-status mainstream social opportunities and cross-class networks. Men’s memberships in elite social groups allowed them to have more institutionally supported spaces in which they feel comfortable; this was especially the case for white men. Todd, white male, reports he is most comfortable in his fraternity, the locker room, and his apartment “because … I've been around [the students who share those spaces] for three years, for the most part. They know when I am joking or if I'm serious and I never have to explain myself.” Notably, all three of those spaces comprise many of the same friends and peers across spaces: Todd practices with teammates who 3 While this is especially true of among upperclassmen, this type of pairing often happens in the first year. 20

are his friends, and conversely lives and parties with friends who are his teammates. Athletics and GLOs offer men4, especially white men, space to be laid back with friends who share the “same mentality.” This source of belonging and “backstage” downtime is not always as available to non-white men in the GLO pathways. Like white men, non-white men are pulled into GLOs for access to powerful networks and dating life, but they are less likely to create intimate life-long bonds due to social distances they perceive between themselves and their white, affluent peers. Like other athletes, Jordan’s Rugby teammates pulled him into Greek life, and although Jordan lives at a GLO he still primarily confides in his two first- year roommates from similar backgrounds that he refers to as his “safety net.” Jordan describes how his social status and network benefited from his GLO participation, yet despite this social-connectedness, he views himself as “an outsider everywhere,” which he attributes to his unique position as a man of color on a predominantly white affluent campus: A lot of people who know me view me as an insider, cause I'm pretty much as socially embedded to the school as can be, as far as involvement goes. I think I'm at place where I'm the exceptional negro… based on what I have done, and what I have accomplished. So I can be the guy that they can say, oh it's not that tough for black people here, just look at [Jordan]. But I don't think the general attitude around black man on campus is positive, it's harder, you have to deal with a lot more stuff, you have to be hyperaware and hyperconscious of things going on, 4 Although GLOs do offer scholarships to low-income students, some fgen men talked about the struggle to pay even reduced due and how brothers will “give you a lot of crap” even if you can’t afford it (Todd). 21

and even your body, like bumping into people. There's a line of where people accepting me for who I am and what I've done.” Although men’s involvement on campus tended to be limited to a small number of activities, it could be parlayed into broad social networks that encompassed race and class variation, participation in high-status activities on campus, and resulting comfort in multiple campus spaces. This was more strongly the case for white men, who could more easily conceal differences from class- and race-majority peers (i.e., white middle- and upper-class students) than could men of color, whose feelings of belonging were more tenuous and conditional. White and Non-White Women Summer Bridge Program The Summer Bridge (SB) program was the primary institutional pathway discussed by women of color, and women of color described how central this pathway was to identifying friends and social group. As with athletics, friends with the SB program pulled non-white women into clubs and social activities, creating overlapping, tightly knit communities. As Zendaya, a black female, explained, “ I was part of SB and a large part of the women in SB trickled down into [Women of Color Organization (WCO)] so I ended up going to WCO.” Moreover, participation in specific clubs was also a gateway to social life, which involves hanging out with these same friends rather than attending GLO or mainstream parties. As Angela, a biracial SB participant, described: A lot of my friends are in the same clubs as me…I go to club meetings with them and then, that means [I go to] a lot of the parties for those clubs and a lot of the events but, just like, just without the school side. Like we'll, um, spend time in 22

• ne of our rooms and, like, watch movies or play, like, different games or listen to

music or, and dance and stuff or we'll go out to eat together, go to the movies or go to parties together. You know, just really, just hang out, relax. We'll do, like, we'll study together and stuff. Unlike the athletics and GLO pathway, however, the SB pathway leads to connections and social activities primarily with similarly positioned women, meaning that women made friends primarily with others who shared their demographic characteristics. This echoes Holland’s (2012) findings from her study of high school integration, in which she noted that women of color had the least institutional support for connecting with affluent, white peers. Although white women also participated in SB program, it was not as central to

• rganizing their social lives. White women who participated in SB found it incredibly

helpful in initially connecting them to those from similar backgrounds, but they were also likely to identify friends in the dorms, classes, and clubs that did not funnel directly from

• SB. As Kate related, “I spend most of my time with um classmates from my Japanese

class cause we just get so close. My roommate. Um there's fellow, there's a few fellow SB kids I'm really close with and they are on my floor typically so I usually see them. And then I have some friends from class I see a lot.” Gabby, a white senior, also describes how SB was a “foundational” entry point but now has branched out: “So the first and primary way was through SB…that’s like the foundation on which I started meeting new people I think, some of it was through like clubs I joined and that kind of thing.” In contrast, non- white SB women describe how non-white SB students, and non-white students in general, have a more difficult time connecting with students outside of SB. As Kaelin, a black 23

woman describes: “In SB, it was like a small group. We were really, really close by the end of it…So it's just one of those things where it's hard for me to, like, branch out a lot, you know. I stick to a lot of the minority groups on campus, you know, and I feel like that's who I connect more with.” In addition to identifying friends beyond SB, white women were more likely to draw less harsh boundaries against mainstream social life, and while they were not eager to join a GLO, they often attended their parties. Despite these differences in branching out, fgen women, with the exception of the athletes, organized their social lives primarily around extracurricular activities and were less involved in high-status mainstream culture (partying and GLOs) compared to fgen

• men. In addition, women were much more likely to describe academics and working for

pay as central to their lives and were less likely to talk about relaxing downtimes compared to men in the sample. When asked about nightlife, many described themselves as “boring” or “room rats” and contrasted themselves with the typical HC student who “plays hard and parties hard.” For most fgen females, their social lives involved hanging with smaller groups in friends in mostly non-mainstream spaces, hanging in their rooms watching Netflix, or attending campus events. In addition, they did not describe having access to class-neutral bonding activities like their male counterparts, but instead when asked about their friends and spaces that felt comfortable on campus, female fgen students largely focused on shared backgrounds, interests and perspectives as central to finding people and places to belong. These differences present additional challenges for women to form cross-class friends. Athletics 24

Like male fgen students, athletics also provided an institutionally supported entry point for both white and non-white women, and it served a similar function of providing access to cross-class friendships and mainstream social opportunities. As shown in the survey results, however, fgen women are less likely than fgen men be recruited and/or involved in athletics. For example, Katherine, a white female athlete, highlights how pivotal athletic entryways are for social inclusion and satisfaction at HC. When asked if there was a time she wishes she never attended HC, she says no after a long pause, but elaborated:

• Yeah. I've kind of like accepted HC for what it is and know that I don't really

like completely fit in but I, like, just have fun with it anyways... I've kind of realized how cliquey HC is. Maybe you don't fit in, it's kind of like not very fun or if you don't like the social scene there's not really much else to do because HC is so small… I think my team really helps out because I really get along with them well and so I spend most of my time with them so that’s all I really have to worry about. Similarly, Beth, a Latina student-athlete who participated in SB, spends the most time with and is the most comfortable around her teammates, and unlike other women of color who participated in SB, she participates in the mainstream party scene and is considering joining a GLO.5 Athletics provides a unique opportunity entry point for fgen students, providing access to cross-class peers and mainstream social life on campus. 5 It is important to note that female fgen athletes were the only women in the sample who even considered joining a GLO. Katherine was involved but chose to quit due to time conflicts with her athletics commitments rather than not feeling a sense of belonging. 25

Thus for both male and female fgen students, institutionally-supported programs offered important pathways into campus involvement, providing links to friendships, further social opportunities, and further forms of campus engagement in the forms of other clubs

• r activities. However, these ostensibly similar pathways had different outcomes in terms
• f friendships and activities. Male fgen students were much more likely to participate in

athletics, leading them in turn to high-status social activities of partying and Greek life, and to opportunities to spend large amounts of time with cross-class and cross-race male

• peers. Female students’ pathways were more varied: while white women and women of

color were more likely to make initial friendships through SB programs, white women’s majority racial status on campus made it easier to “branch out,” decentralizing the importance of the SB group. In both cases, women were less likely to participate in the same kinds of high status activities as male fgen students, which in turn also reduced their cross-class and cross-race connections. Beyond the Institutional Pathway Institutional entry points were exceptionally important for fgen students in the sample to find a sense of belonging on HC’s campus, and this is most clear when we look at those who do not have access to an institutional pathway. As Carlos, a Latino male who was neither in sports nor in SB, explains, “Immediately on campus I didn’t really feel I

• belonged. It was hard to find students of similar socio-economic background or even of

Latino heritage.” Some students, like Carlos, expend a lot of energy trying to identify and create alternative spaces to find a sense of belonging. He and his art and theater friends they hang out in non-mainstream spaces, such as the basement of the University chapel, because he finds mainstream campus spaces, such as the dining hall, GLOs, and sporting 26

events, uncomfortable. Other students spend a lot to time, money, and energy trying hard to belong and ‘pass.’ For example, Clark, a white male, manages the stigma of his class identity by spending money he doesn’t have to buy expensive clothing and lying about his parents’ professions: There's a lot times when I don't tell people what my parents do. Um, or I'll lie a little bit, or I'll say "oh my father started as a correctional officer and now he's blah blah blah...or um, my mother is not teaching assistant, she's a special ed teacher." I'll kind of like stretch the truth a little bit. “ Although students like Carlos and Clark both made friends, their involvement on campus tended to bring them into contact with similar peers, smaller groups, and resulted in lower levels of comfort on campus. Moreover, the strategies and struggles of students outside central pathways largely echoes earlier work (Stuber 2011) on the low-income college students, further suggesting the protective benefits of institutional entry points. Victoria, a black female who had attended a prestigious private high school, provides an important exception to students outside the institutional

• pathways. She quickly connected with students on campus: “that first or second

night…I was actually sitting next to [two women of color] and like met them and was like “You’re two black people. Can we talk?” and I literally said that and I was like “I’m really scared of you, but can we be friends?” …then from there met

• ther people and also found out [the one women] was in SB and that was a

network and sitting there that’s where it kinda started… I was definitely looking for people of color first so I could have some type of a home base.” 27

As Jack found in his discussion of the “privileged poor” (2015), Victoria attributes the ease of her integration to her pre-college experiences at a predominantly white private high school: “just being in that all the time prepared me to come here and not have a culture shock.” In fact, Victoria was one of the only students of color not to report culture shock. Discussion and Conclusion Elite colleges emphasize developing the whole student through involvement inside and outside the classroom, but our results show that fgen students are not engaged in campus life in the same ways or even in the same places. How easy it is to locate friends, who fgen student become friends with, what activities they join, and how they

• rganize their social lives is not simply a matter of personal preferences by is powerfully

shaped by the presence or absence of institutionally supported pathways that create

• pportunities for engagement. In line with Holland (2012), we found that athletics is a

visible, high-status pathway that provides some fgen students with opportunities for the ideal cross-class contact. We find that participation in athletics, regardless of race or gender, provides students immediately with a close-knit group of peers as well as pulling them into social contact with students from different race and class backgrounds. For fgen men and to a lesser extent women, athletic participation often led to involvement in GLOs and the mainstream party scene. Consistent with Schulman and Bowen (2002), we found that fgen men were more likely than fgen women to be student-athletes. A pre-college summer program (SB) targeted toward students from less- advantaged backgrounds was the second institutionally supported entry point to social inclusion for fgen students in our sample. Unlike athletics, this pathway did not result in 28

the same types of inclusion across race and gender backgrounds. For non-white women, this was the primarily pathway of inclusion, but unlike athletics, this pathways pulled non-white women into largely class and race segregated networks, spaces, and social life. Students from other race/gender backgrounds found SB a wonderful initial resource to form friends, but they were able to capitalize on the athlete pathway or seemed to have more choices to branch out through dorms and clubs, compared to non-white SB women. Fgen students who did not participate in either institutionally supported pathway experienced the most difficulty identifying friends and finding a sense of belonging on

• campus. Institutional pathways, such as athletics and SB, provide an instant group of

friends, but those outside the pathways have to identify their own friends, which these results show can be difficult for economically and racially marginalized students. Fgen students outside the institutional pathways felt more pressure to try to ‘pass’ by using identity management techniques. They also struggled the most to find a community of

• friends. Pre-college experiences with white, affluent students, however, marked an

important exception. As Jack’s (2015) work also shows, socioeconomically marginalized students of color who attended private schools had an easier time integrating into elite colleges compared to those who attended public schools. In addition to fewer institutional pathways leading to cross-class interactions, female fgen students engage with their friends in deeply intimate ways, making class and race background salient to relationship building, while men are able to draw on class- neutral activities to create a pathway to connection with cross-class peers. This might be due in part to from differences in perceptions of affluent women on college campuses. Stuber and colleagues (2011) finds that upper class women’s bodies were more clearly 29

marked by class messages while men’s bodies seemed class neutral. They also found that students perceived affluent females but not male students as class exclusionary. This research reveals that studies of social integration tend to miss the differentiation in the processes through which students find a sense of belonging. In addition, this work highlights the powerful role institutions play in such inclusion and stratification process by providing uneven opportunities to males and females from different race-ethnic backgrounds. Ultimately, we see that not all forms of inclusion lead to the same opportunities and it is not simply about students’ choice although students’ background and pre-college experiences are important. Recent scholarship on variation within purportedly cohesive demographic groups makes clear that intersectionality is a core [issue]—we need to compare not only between majority-minority outcomes and experiences but also in more fine-grained ways within groups. Accordingly, research of the process of social integration needs to move beyond focusing simply one axis of social identities, such as class, to consider how multiple, intersectional dimensions of identities form interlocking systems of oppressions that in turn influence how fgen students invest in college life (Crenshaw 1989; Collins 2007). 30

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