Class Incorporated: Stratified Patterns of Academic Engagement at a Highly Selective University

This research examines the influence of social class stratification on students’ self-reported academic engagement. Drawing from 44 interviews with students from the three major class groups at an elite university, we show how social class patterns academic engagement. We analyze academic engagement along the following four domains: strategies for academic achievement, beliefs in personal ability, connections to academics, and the alignments between academic activities and career plans (Wang and Castenada-Sound, 2008). Counterintuitively, compared to both upper class and students from the lower class, middle-class students reported the lowest levels of academic engagement. We discuss possible explanations for these non-linear findings. We conclude by recommending that our traditional conceptions of academic engagement need to take social class into account, and further, that policy makers consider scaffolding for all non-upper class students within elite spaces.

The Aspiration of Departement in College by Gender Tendency

Interest in this research arises from one of the things that sometimes escape the attention, namely the gender tendency toward a major in college. This study used final teenage data at first year students at Yogyakarta State University to see how gender differences can represent aspirations for science and social-humaniora majors. Data were collected using a scale. Scale was distributed to 425 respondents by sampling propotioned cluster random sampling. Using the survey method we found that men dominate in the exact plane of about 62.5% and women about 37.4%. The opposite is shown in the non-exact plane dominated by women with a percentage of about 80.4% and about 19.5% of males. This difference is also supported by other factors such as the importance of achievement beliefs in the department, and gender stereotypes in the community that are still inherent. This research is expected to contribute to the literature on career development and can form the basis of the formulation of career guidance programs that can include attention to gender differences

The Association of Peer Academic Reputations in Math and Science With Achievement Beliefs and Behaviors During Early Adolescence

This study examines the nature and implications of peer academic reputations in math and science classes for early adolescents’ achievement beliefs and behaviors. The sample was 840 students (51% girls; 36% African American, 47% European American, 7% Latino, 6% Asian American, and 3% Other). About half the sample (47%) was from 27 fifth-grade classrooms in elementary schools and about half the sample (53%) was from 28 sixth-grade classrooms in middle schools. Peer academic reputations and student adjustment were assessed in the fall and spring of the school year. Peer academic reputation in the fall was associated with students’ self-concept, worry, and engagement (but not intrinsic value) in the spring, controlling for fall levels. Peer academic reputation operated similarly across gender, ethnicity, and grade level. Thus, peers’ opinions and expectations about each other’s math and science achievement matter for the development of students’ achievement beliefs and behaviors in math and science.

Achievement as Resistance: The Development of a Critical Race Achievement Ideology among Black Achievers

In this article, Dorinda Carter examines the embodiment of a critical race achievement ideology in high-achieving black students. She conducted a yearlong qualitative investigation of the adaptive behaviors that nine high-achieving black students developed and employed to navigate the process of schooling at an upper-class, predominantly white, suburban public high school while maintaining school success and a positive racial self-definition. Based on an analysis of interview data, participant observations, and field notes, Carter argues that these students' conceptions of race and how race operates in their daily lives informs their constructions of achievement beliefs, attitudes, and self-definitions and informs their racialization and deracialization of the task of achieving at various times in the school context. Findings from this study indicate that students with strong racial and achievement identities may develop a critical race achievement ideology and enact resilient, adaptive behaviors in racially challenging contexts.