Low SES White Males and College Participation and Success ( Excerpt from dissertation titled , Factors Affecting Low SES White Males Persistence to Graduation )

The current literature contends that specifically among low socioeconomic status (SES) students, whites graduate at higher rates than racial/ethnic minority students (Haycock, 2006), women represent the majority of low SES graduates (King, 2006), and those from high SES backgrounds are the largest share of the national white male graduating cohort (Sax, 2008). Rarely, however, are SES, race, and gender analyzed simultaneously in this body of research, especially as it concerns the persistence to graduation trends of low SES White males. Despite this oversight, King (2006) notes that low SES males of all racial demographics face significant challenges in their efforts to graduate. Consequently, national data reveal a strong relationship between White males’ SES and college success. Based on simple cross-tabs using BPS: 96/01 data, 40.6 percent of low SES White males will leave school without a degree never to return. While this percentage is slightly lower than their Black (47.3) and Latino (45.2) low SES male peers, it is nearly twice the percentage of low SES Asian males (22.3) and nearly tripled that of their high SES White male counterparts (66). Several scholars have qualitatively surveyed and examined the educational experiences of low SES White males (Archer, Pratt, & Phillips 2001; Freie, 2007; MacLeod, 2009; Quinn et al., 2006; Weis, 1990; 2004; Willis, 1977). Though typically based on the experiences of urban men and men from the United Kingdom (UK), this research does share consistent themes with studies of rural low SES men and studies of American low SES White males (Whiting, 1999). The themes consistent across studies of low SES White males and schooling include school as a site of lowered expectations, overtly policed behavior, curriculum tracking, and persistent disengagement. Though Morris (2005) notes that Whiteness is generally privileged in secondary and postsecondary education, when coupled with low SES, White teachers, specifically, tend to view these low SES Whites as particularly unexceptional, even aberrant and backwards. Based on the research on low SES White men and schooling, low SES White males’ experience in education follows a rather predictable pattern of marginalization, resistance, and failure. In the only study specifically dedicated to low SES males and their attitudes towards postsecondary education participation, Archer et al. (2002) use discussion group data from 64 males from working-class and ethnically diverse backgrounds to examine how definitions of masculinity lead to self exclusion from postsecondary education. Using data from the University of North London’s Social Class and Widening Participation in Higher Education Project, Archer et al. (2001) conducted multiple focus groups organized around student decisions about their education and their constructions of participation or non-participation in higher education. Participants were from North and East London and ranged in ages 16 to 30, and were equally represented across race/ethnicity. Researchers found that the non participation of low SES White males in postsecondary education is a direct result of the males’ perceived incompatibility of schooling and notions of working-class masculinity. Based on their extensive work with young low SES White males, these researchers consistently found that low SES White men conceptualized college attendance as a largely middle-class and antimasculine endeavor. Within this framework, low SES masculinity is marked by physical prowess, endurance, and mechanical expertise, traits constructed in direct opposition to managerial masculinities that are deemed soft and effeminate (Leach, 1993; Pyke 1996; Willis, 1977). Coupled with the traditional expectation of men as providers for the domestic household, work, specifically physical labor, and masculinity become fused (Leach, 1993). Consequently, it is here that education,