Scholarship on parent-principal relationships often ignores how some parental involvement can create challenges for school leaders. We analyze parent-principal relationships at an urban public K-8 school over a 30-year period, exploring how three different principals "managed" parental involvement. Our analysis reveals how these…

The internal processes of higher education have implications for the cohesion and shape of societies as well as for the quality of life of individuals. The comparison of the historical evolution of access to higher education in the American and European/Romanian contrasted countries reveals the presence of several norms successively constraining…

Discusses the notion of habitus and its utility in understanding how race and class influence educational experiences, educational opportunity, and life trajectories. Uses examples from a longitudinal study of how 15 urban black women from three high schools interpreted educational opportunity in the college application process and how they…

Focusing on parental networks--a central dimension of social capital--this article uses ethnographic data to examine social-class differences in the relations between families and schools. We detail the characteristics of networks across different classes and then explore the ways that networks come into play when parents are confronted by…

Examined how race and class influenced the lives of six African-American high school seniors at a predominantly White, elite, independent secondary school. Interaction of the dominant habitus with the individual habitus of these students results in a form of symbolic violence students are willing to endure for the advantages of attending the…

Our schools are environments of race and class and these school environments structure opportunity based on race and class. This paper explores how students' lives and their access to postsecondary education are framed and structured by the influences of race and class. The college choice decision process of three female Black students from a…

This qualitative study examined the role played by race in the college choice behavior of a group of minority females. It examines the college aspirations and decision making processes of Black female college-bound students and the influences of their parents, friends, college counselors, teachers, and school staff. Subjects were 50 students at 3…