There is a growing concern in this country that the middle class is disappearing and not in the way one would hope. Instead of families moving into a higher socio-economic class and being able to provide richer life experiences for themselves and their children, vast numbers are shifting to a lower socio-economic status level. The gap between the…

The purpose of the article is to compare and contrast higher education and research among public relations and journalism students of middle-class and working-class origin. The paper applied Bourdieu's theory of "habitus" to analyze prejudices against the working class, explores whether working-class students express an anti-education…

This demographic study contributes to scholarship on the recruitment of Blacks into the US LIS workforce by situating Black librarianship within broader population trends. The research combines historical LIS reports, Africana studies scholarship, and federal data to describe how long-term transitions in the overall US Black population influence…

While the literature on the experiences of working-class Students of Color at selective, historically White institutions has grown significantly over the past twenty-five years, how this student population is making sense of their social class identity as they gain access to dominant cultural and social capital at their institutions remains…

How did the undergraduate college rapidly position itself as the gateway to middle-class US employment between 1880 and 1920? This article attempts to explain one part of that process. Drawing on Weberian organisational theory, transnational intellectual history and case studies of three institutions, it identifies hierarchy as a defining aspect…

Higher education in America, still thought to be the world leader, is in crisis. University students are falling behind their international peers in attainment, while suffering from unprecedented student debt. For over a decade, the realm of American higher education has been wracked with self-doubt and mutual recrimination, with no clear…

This paper asks whether concerns about social problems decline with age. Unconditional growth models (without covariates) revealed a decline over 25 years (age 18 to 43) in concerns about racial discrimination, treatment of Aboriginal Peoples, female job discrimination, unemployment and environmental pollution. Educational attainment was not…

This paper explores the educational and migrational pathways which a number of middle-class women from Bangladesh took as they grew up in the 1980s and 1990s. It draws on qualitative research, conducted between July and November 2011, with highly educated Bangladeshi women who migrated to Britain in the early 2000s. French Sociologist Pierre…

The authors paint a national portrait of Latina/o trends over more than 30 years in terms of demographic and financial concerns that pertain to access at 4-year institutions. Using a multiple policy streams framework, the authors contend that growing numbers of Latina/os are in the eye of the perfect storm in a global economy that calls for more…

Surmounting a national--indeed global--recession in the wake of war is not new to America or its leaders. Born out of one of the nation's darkest moments of the 20th century were bold initiatives to empower those who served their country as well as all who sought to enter the American middle class. The GI Bill of Rights was one such measure, as…

This study examined Black-White differences in growth of depressive affect using a longitudinal sample of middle-class, suburban U.S. subjects (n = 956) that spanned from adolescence to early adulthood. Specifically, this study examined whether Black-White differences in growth of depressive affect shift over time, and the extent to which that…

This paper examines trends in social class inequalities in young people's educational attainment and HE [Higher Education] entry between the mid-1980s and the end of the 1990s in England and Scotland. Using time-series data derived from the Scottish School Leavers Surveys and the England (and Wales) Youth Cohort Study, changes in both absolute and…

There are many reasons for pursing a higher education. For most persons, a significant, maybe even the dominant reason, for going to college is that it supposedly will improve one's prospect of acquiring a good job. In a sense, a college degree has long been considered a ticket to the middle class--an adult life with a good income and relatively…

This hermeneutically crafted qualitative study examines how six university-educated middle-class Pakistani Muslim women negotiate the competing expectations of traditional Muslim culture and the emancipated ethos of the university. It uses Robert Kegan's constructive-developmental theory, whose Subject-Object scoring system distinguishes a…

A college degree has become the ticket to the middle class. Yet, at the same time, the cost of achieving this milestone has increased considerably. For many students and families, the only way to meet the substantial cost of higher education is to take out loans. While some amount of debt may be acceptable--after all, it is important for students…