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College-for-All: Alternative Options and Procedures

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Handbook of the Sociology of Education in the 21st Century

Part of the book series: Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research ((HSSR))

Abstract

This chapter discusses how the status attainment model has been integral to our understanding of the factors affecting average educational attainment, but it poorly describes institutional procedures and individual strategies that lead to academic success. We pose new issues for understanding the experiences of the growing populations of disadvantaged students in open-admissions 2-year colleges. We describe the experiences of individuals from a small study to provide evidence of how disadvantaged students manage to beat the odds and attain educational success. While we cannot address issues of generalizability, we describe alternative sequences and pathways to educational attainment, institutional supports and procedures, and their self-identified sources of direction, despite the major obstacles and setbacks. We situate our cases in prior extensions of the status attainment model to consider alternative mechanisms to educational attainment. These analyses are crucial if we are to understand the dynamic processes that drive educational attainment despite major obstacles.

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  1. Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    James E. Rosenbaum & Jennifer Lansing

  2. University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Caitlin Ahearn

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  1. James E. Rosenbaum
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Correspondence to James E. Rosenbaum .

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  1. College of Education, Department of Sociology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Barbara Schneider

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Rosenbaum, J.E., Ahearn, C., Lansing, J. (2018). College-for-All: Alternative Options and Procedures. In: Schneider, B. (eds) Handbook of the Sociology of Education in the 21st Century. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76694-2_19

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