Intermediate Educational Transitions, Alignment, and Inequality in U.S. Higher Education

IF 3.3 1区 教育学 Q1 EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH
Christina Ciocca Eller, Katharine Khanna, Greer Mellon
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Substantial social stratification research conceptualizes education as a series of standard transitions from one stage to the next, such as from high school to college. Yet less research examines mandatory transitions within each educational stage, which we call “intermediate educational transitions.” In this article, we examine a crucial intermediate transition in U.S. higher education, shifting from an undeclared to a declared major by major declaration deadlines, to provide a novel perspective on educational transitions. Bridging theoretical approaches from symbolic interactionism, social stratification, structural functionalism, and neo-institutionalism, we argue that successful major declaration transitions depend on students’ individual-level alignment between socially structured actions and culturally informed goals and organization-level alignment between organizational intentions and organizational actions. We use longitudinal interview data paired with 4.5 years of administrative records to assess this argument, finding that both individual- and organization-level alignment contribute to whether students experience seamless, stalled and restarted, or persistently stalled major declaration transitions. We further find that access to compensatory college organizational support determines whether stalled students can restart their major declaration trajectories. These findings indicate that colleges and universities can help to mitigate inequality in intermediate transitions by providing timely, high-quality support.
美国高等教育的中级教育转型、调整和不平等
大量社会分层研究将教育概念化为从一个阶段到下一个阶段的一系列标准过渡,如从高中到大学。然而,对每个教育阶段内的强制性过渡(我们称之为 "中间教育过渡")的研究较少。在本文中,我们研究了美国高等教育中一个重要的中间过渡,即在专业申报截止日期前从未定专业转为已定专业,从而为教育过渡提供了一个新的视角。我们将符号互动主义、社会分层、结构功能主义和新制度主义的理论方法结合起来,认为成功的专业申报过渡取决于学生个人层面的社会结构化行动与文化信息目标之间的一致性,以及组织层面的组织意图与组织行动之间的一致性。我们利用与 4.5 年的行政记录相匹配的纵向访谈数据来评估这一论点,发现个人和组织层面的一致性都有助于学生经历无缝、停滞和重启或持续停滞的专业申报过渡。我们进一步发现,能否获得学院组织的补偿性支持,决定了停滞不前的学生能否重新开始他们的专业申报轨迹。这些研究结果表明,高校可以通过提供及时、优质的支持,帮助缓解中间过渡过程中的不平等现象。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
6.90
自引率
5.10%
发文量
15
期刊介绍: Sociology of Education (SOE) provides a forum for studies in the sociology of education and human social development. SOE publishes research that examines how social institutions and individuals’ experiences within these institutions affect educational processes and social development. Such research may span various levels of analysis, ranging from the individual to the structure of relations among social and educational institutions. In an increasingly complex society, important educational issues arise throughout the life cycle.
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