An ethnographic analysis of how insecurity is at the heart of
contemporary higher education. Institutions of higher education are
often described as “ivory towers,” places of privilege where
students exist in a “campus bubble,” insulated from the trials of
the outside world. These metaphors reveal a widespread belief that
college provides young people with stability and keeps insecurity at
bay. But for many students, that’s simply not the case. Degrees of
Risk reveals how insecurity permeates every facet of college life for
students at public universities. Sociologist Blake Silver dissects how
these institutions play a direct role in perpetuating uncertainty,
instability, individualism, and anxiety about the future. Silver
examined interviews with more than one hundred students who described
the risks that surrounded every decision: which major to choose,
whether to take online classes, and how to find funding. He expertly
identified the ways the college experience played out differently for
students from different backgrounds. For students from financially
secure families with knowledge of how college works, all the choices
and flexibility of college felt like an adventure or a wealth of
opportunities. But for many others, especially low-income,
first-generation students, their personal and family circumstances
meant that that flexibility felt like murkiness and precarity. In
addition, he discovered that students managed insecurity in very
different ways, intensifying inequality at the intersections of
socioeconomic status, race, gender, and other sociodemographic
dimensions. Drawing from these firsthand accounts, Degrees of Risk
presents a model for a better university, one that fosters success and
confidence for a diverse range of students.
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Navigating Insecurity and Inequality in Public Higher Education
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780226834757
Publisert
2024
Utgiver
Vendor
University of Chicago Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter