ED415323 Choosing Colleges. How Social Class and Schools Structure Opportunity. This study examines the ways in which social class and high school guidance operations combine to shape a high school student's perceptions of her opportunities for a college education. It is also an analysis of the intersection of family, friends, and school network effects and how they create an individual's biography.
Students connect with colleges through a complex interactive process.
In fact, the opportunity structure does not work equally well for all. This study is guided by principles that a student's cultural capital affects the level and quality of the education the student intends to acquire, and that a student's choice of college will make sense in the context of that student's family, friends, and outlook. Then, through a process of bounded rationality, the student will limit the number of alternatives actually considered. Following an introduction to the study in chapter 1, chapter 2 introduces the seniors being followed. Chapter 3 analyzes the environments of the four high schools.