There are many forms of scholarly writing, and book-length studies of campus life take us beyond surveys or interview-with-strangers papers to instead show us the daily lives of first-generation students within complicated social contexts and across time, with some level of relationships formed with the scholar.
Most of these ethnographies and qualitative longitudinal studies of first-generation students are set on elite campuses. Often, the authors of these books speak of "drawing the contrasts" between poor and working-class and their privileged peers. Authors sometimes also speak of "studying up"to the affluent. And often, perhaps coincidentally (or perhaps not) we also read that these authors attended, work at, or have other connections with these elite campuses that provided both access and convenience. These are also the most recent books about first-gen students.
This leaves us with multiple book-length studies of first-generation students at the most elite and well-resourced campuses and few of first-generation students at the campuses that the vast majority of them attend. The questions of "studying up" are important, as are the questions of why so many first-generation students never graduate or never do their planned transfers from community college to a four-year campus. The "contrasts" between low-income and privileged students are important to understand, as are questions of relationships between first-gen students and more privileged faculty, questions of navigating campuses with too few resources, questions of job hunts while burdened by student debt, questions of how employers weigh the qualifications of candidates from state schools relative to other candidates.
37% of first-generation students enroll at community colleges. 9% enrolled in for-profit colleges. Just over 50% enroll in public 4 year colleges, most of which are non-competitive admissions regional schools. Very few of the entire population of first-generation students are at private colleges and even fewer are at the most elite campuses.
So it would seem that there is a great deal to be learned by studying students at the campuses that the vast majority attend.
The culture of academia likely matters here. Scholars who themselves attended elite universities are embedded within scholarly networks in which they are mentored and sponsored in publishing. Scholars working on elite campuses and public flagships have lighter teaching loads and more institutional support for the intensive data collection behind book-length studies.
Yet scholars at elite campuses with time and resources could also be studying community college and regional state campuses, given that that's where so many students are, even though these campuses may be at some distance from their own.
In the meantime, here are the book-length studies of first-generation students I'm thinking about. All of these books are excellent, and I am grateful for all I've learned from each. I likely have missed important studies and I'd welcome hearing about those. And I'd love to hear of any in-depths studies on public campuses now in progress.
Studies at Elite, Affluent Colleges and Universities
Alleman, Allen, and Madsen's Starving the Dream: Student Hunger and the Hidden Costs of Campus Affluence Students at three highly selective affluent campuses: A liberal arts college, a private research university and a public flagship university.
Miller's Rising Class:How Three First-Generation College Students Conquered Their First Year (more journalism than ethnography, but within the same genre). Students at Columbia.
Ticken's Educated Out:How Rural Students Navigate Elite Colleges—And What It Costs Them. Students attending a highly selective, expensive liberal arts college.
Anthony Jack's The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges are Failling Disadvantaged Students and Class Dismissed: When Colleges Ignore Inequality and Students Pay the Price. Both set primarily at Harvard.
Osborne's Polished: College, Class, and the Burdens of Social Mobility. 150 students interviewed over five years at 18 selective private colleges in 5 states.
Lee's Class and Campus Life: Managing and Experiencing Inequality at an Elite College. An elite women's liberal arts college in the Northeast.
Studies Comparing Students At Elite and Less Elite Campuses
Stuber's Inside the College Gate: How Class and Culture Matter in Higher Education Students at a private liberal arts college and a state flagship campus.
Studies at Moderately/Non- Selective Public Colleges
Hurst's The Burden of Academic Success: Loyalists, Renegades, and Double Agents Students at a "moderately selective"public university.
Morton's Moving Up Without Losing Your Way: The Ethical Costs of Upward Mobility Not a conventional ethnography, but analysis richly embedded in Morton's work with first-generation students at City College of New York.
Armstrong and Hamilton's Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality Women students at a moderately selective state flagship.
What am I missing?
