In the United States, for many years, admission to prestigious universities such as Yale and Harvard has been the prerogative of children of elite families. In order to make the composition of students more diverse, many elite universities now have a series of poor student funding programs, so that children from poor but academically gifted families also have the opportunity to receive elite education. Does this mean that the poor students who enter elite universities must become "winners in life"? The newly published sociological book", "Cold Children Go to College: Why Do Elite American Universities Turn Their Backs on Poor Students?" In the book, Anthony Abraham Jack found through his own experience and three consecutive years of fieldwork that for the children of the cold, stepping into the university campus is only the beginning, and being admitted does not mean being able to integrate. At elite universities, where the poor are in the minority, policies and circumstances push poor students to the margins, and class and cultural differences drive the resurgence of inequality, showing ubiquitous influence.
"Cold Kids Go to College: Why Do Elite American Universities Turn Their Backs on Poor Students?" 》
By Anthony Abraham Jack
Translated by Tian Lei and Sun Jingchao
Life, Reading, and New Knowledge Triptych Bookstore
<b>The "lucky ones" among poor students </b>
In 2017, a study by Raj Chetty, a professor of economics at Harvard University, showed that 40 percent of children from families earning high in the top 1 percent of the pyramid attended elite universities. This ratio is the same as the proportion of children from poor families attending college, except that the universities that poor children attend include all universities, whether they are four-year or two-year, whether elite or community colleges.
High tuition fees discourage children from poor families, and elite universities miss out on humble but self-motivated students. In order to address inequalities in admissions, and in response to public dissatisfaction with education spending, and to highlight its diversity, many universities introduced loan-free student assistance policies in the late 1990s, replacing loans with scholarships and various forms of funding. "Cold Kids Go to College: Why Do Elite American Universities Turn Their Backs on Poor Students?" The author of the book, Anthony Abraham Jack, a poor black boy born in Miami, benefited from this.
"Cold Kids Go to College: Why Do Elite American Universities Turn Their Backs on Poor Students?" English version
Jack is from Miami's Coconut Grove neighborhood, where his mother works as a patrol security guard at a middle school, his eldest brother cleans classrooms at a small school and cleans the hospital emergency room at night, and his grandmother cleans a rich white house. When one of Jack's cousins was arrested for illegally possessing controlled drugs, an employer of lawyers appeared in court on behalf of his grandmother in return for more than two decades of domestic service work.
Jack is a beneficiary of America's Head Start program, which grew out of President Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty" policy in 1965 to help vulnerable people in the community meet the needs of preschoolers from poor families. He loves to read, but books are a luxury for him. The library is concentrated in wealthy neighborhoods like Macdonald Street or coral gables, and the intrusion of a fat black kid is tantamount to an "uninvited guest" — he's been followed and warned, perhaps because he speaks too loudly, or maybe because his skin is "too dark." Growing up in the segregated community, Jack saw mostly black people, and the white people here were lost except for the police and addicts. At night he wrote his homework in the glimmer of a candle, not to set off the atmosphere, but simply because the family did not have the money to buy electricity.
With his talent and hard work, and thanks to the student aid policy, Jack entered the elite school Amherst University, becoming the first college student in his family. 40 percent of the university's students receive financial aid, meaning that more than half of the students are not eligible for financial aid because their families are wealthy. Surrounded by the rich, Jack was not surprised, because he had learned what it was like to go to school with the rich. In his final year of high school, he spent his last year at an expensive local private secondary school. There, he not only made progress academically, but more importantly, prepared himself for his upcoming university life in life. He's seen life in a wealthy family — they eat five-quarter cooked burgers instead of fully cooked, spend their holidays in holiday villas, and the gifts they receive for their high school graduation are a car and a free backpacking trip across Europe!
Anthony Abraham Jack
Later, during his doctorate at Harvard University, Jack began to engage in sociological research, and he found that the poor children in elite universities in the United States, although they were also from poor backgrounds, had embarked on different paths in high school - some of them, like him, had the opportunity to leave the ruined place where they were located and entered the elite private high school, not only familiar with the lifestyle and habits of rich people, but also knew how to navigate the elite academic field with ease, "They are very poor, but they are also lucky. Early exposure to the world they were going to enter in college", so Jack called these students "the lucky ones"; the other part stayed where they were, completing their studies in public high schools in poor neighborhoods that were dilapidated, crowded, and resource-poor, so that they were strangers to everything in elite universities, "they were not only poor, but completely unfamiliar with the world", which Jack called "double poor students".
In the elite universities that are regarded as the thorny road by the "double poor students", the "cold lucky ones" are like fish and quickly adapt. Why is there such a big gap? From 2013 to 2016, Jack conducted three consecutive years of surveys at an elite university under the pseudonym "Yingjie University", interviewing 103 undergraduate students, 76 from poor families and 27 from wealthy families, documenting the real life of elite universities in the United States.
<b>Being accepted does not mean being able to fit in </b>
Studying in the same elite university, the same poor students, in the face of the intentional or unintentional "show off wealth" of rich students, "double poor students" and "cold lucky people" have different mentalities and feelings.
Growing up in poor neighborhoods in Los Angeles, The Latino boy Joss may be hit by stray bullets or encounter gangs when walking the streets, and the danger is constant. On the day he moved into his college dormitory, he was thrilled to find a Mexican classmate on the same floor, "We are fellow countrymen." The Mexican fellow told him that he liked the Dallas Cowboys the most, and he flew with his father to the stadium every home game. It turned out to be the son of a powerful man from Mexico. With the same skin color and the other's worlds out of reach, Joss appreciates for the first time the great differences that exist at Yingjie University.
Rich classmates drag Joss to eat at an off-campus restaurant, believing that Joss has the money to pay the bills of the local restaurant; rich classmates question in front of Joss why they should pay scholarships to "less excellent students" while their parents have to pay the full tuition... These things, which Joss called "micro-aggressions," happened from time to time. I think that at the beginning, such an encounter once inspired him to come to Yingjie University with an indomitable spirit and overcome various problems, but now it makes him feel depressed, depressed, isolated, and become more reticent and more sensitive.
This feeling, Joshua experienced before stepping into the university door. After being evicted from his home because he could not afford to pay his mortgage, a temporary home became his and his family's "home." After being admitted to Yingjie University, Joshua, who wore a hat, a slouchy shirt and jeans, rushed to the home of the rich alumni to attend a reception for the new students, and as soon as he entered the door, he saw that this palatial mansion housed 50 laughing guests, and each guest was dressed in a high-end Polo shirt. A new classmate who was admitted together praised him for speaking Really Well in English, while another explained that Joshua's community was widely known for its "lazy English." That sense of alienation and difference could not be dissipated in Joshua's heart for a long time.
In the view of Anthony Abraham Jack, for jos, Joshua and other double poor students, entering college is not to embrace new opportunities, but to discover new inhibitions. Although these students know early on that they are poor, being in the campus environment of the rich highlights the gap between the rich and the poor, and the unpleasant experiences accumulate over time to form a serious cultural barrier and respect the elite road.
Completely different from the double poor students, the lucky people in the cold door have been accustomed to staying with rich people before going to college, and it is easy to find a sense of belonging after entering the university.
With no financial resources, Anne and her mother traveled around the United States, staying at different friends' homes until her mother found a job and settled down, and Anne was lucky enough to receive a scholarship to a private high school. There, Anne went abroad for an exchange study and visited the vacation home of a wealthy classmate. As a result, yingjie's new life did not have any impact on her, "because my high school classmates are very rich." After her freshman year, she moved out of her dorm room because roommates from low-income families were always arguing with her over topics of wealth and privilege.
After Latino girl Patricks came from a poor background and won a place in the "Prepare for College" program, the rich donated "a grain of rice" to allow her to attend one of the oldest boarding schools in the United States, including free vacation ski trips and European exchange programs. As a result, she prepared herself for life at Yingjie University early on, and in her ideas and experiences, her racial and class background did not pose an obstacle to integration into the university. After entering Yingjie, Patrice regarded this place as a "home" and even acted as an unofficial campus ambassador, eagerly providing guidance to visitors and new students. But this sense of integration also brought her some trouble, and poor student friends who said they were difficult to integrate into campus life ridiculed her: "You think you are from elite circles, but you are not at all... Look at your clothes and talk. ”
Like double-poor students, Anthony Abraham Jack believes that family problems can affect their college life at any time, whether it is the eviction of family members, the lack of money for parents due to illness, or the violence of friends. The children of the cold door still live under the shadow of poverty and have not yet come out.
<b>Teacher-student exchanges are still "patting on the back" </b>
In the eyes of the double poor students, professors and administrative teachers still represent authority, believing that they should respect each other, rather than increasing each other's burdens because of their own problems and needs. They had no idea that there was also the term "office hours" in elite universities. The so-called office time is the entire piece of time that the professor has set aside for the students to use for after-class chat between teachers and students. J.D. Vance, the author of "The Lamentations of the Countrymen", once got guidance from his girlfriend at Yale Law School - to go to the professor's office more, "The professors here like to communicate more with students, and the communication between teachers and students is an experience here."
Antonetti's parents, both of whom attended the University of Yingjie, also introduced her to two professors who had taught her, and in middle school she had already developed the skill of talking and laughing with the teacher, "If I find a professor who is particularly remarkable, I will go to him." I'm taking an English class this semester and the professor is obviously very good, and I'm confident to meet her during her office hours and communicate one-on-one."
Coming from a high-income family, Joe loved to look for every opportunity to show his personality and talent in front of his teachers and principals when he was in high school. He was very close to a famous professor at Yingjie University, "I went to him during the professor's office hours, and I seemed to have become his right-hand man." When his test score was not as good as expected, he found a teaching assistant and argued with the assistant teacher to get a higher score.
Why is it that if parents are middle- or upper-class, their children are perceived as having an advantage when they enter college? The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu proposed the concept of "cultural capital", which refers to a whole set of lifestyles that are not necessarily explicit in a given situation but are admired. The norms that middle- or upper-class children learn in the home are the norms that dominate campus life— it's the student's right to answer questions from adult teachers and how to proactively build relationships with authority figures. Anthony Abraham Jack points out that the benefits of students building good relationships with professors and administrative teachers are not only about getting help with their coursework or grades, but also about letters of recommendation, on-campus jobs, off-campus internships, and even awards and honors, job opportunities, etc., and that professors and administrative teachers are more likely to nominate "students they know, like, or impress."
Because they have experience studying in private high schools, they know why and how to communicate with adults and establish relationships, so they will actively and effectively contact professors in college, build networks, and regard them as noble people on the road to pursuing their goals in life. Double-poor students are difficult to adapt to, even disdain, and in their eyes, any interaction with professors beyond the narrow academic field is a "slap in the face".
Valeria was an impoverished student with outstanding academics, and "building a relationship with a professor" was her most painful struggle at the University of Yingjie, because she thought that was something that social circles would do. Her experience in high school was "going to class, listening to lectures", never talking to the teacher outside of class, "I can't find a reason to bother the teacher"; her father taught her that "homework is the most important" and "you don't want to fight for your place by patting yourself on the back, right?" You have to reap the rewards through your own hard work. It must be more time-consuming and laborious, but it is more valuable. You'll also feel more proud. It wasn't until her junior year that Valeria realized, "Ah! Here, the most important thing is to pull the relationship. ”
Whether it's seeking academic help or managing the relationship between teachers and students, it's a hidden course at elite universities. Anthony Abraham Jack pointed out that universities must create opportunities for all students who cross the threshold of college to succeed, so that all students know what the teacher-student relationship looks like, and the places that nurture the teacher-student relationship are open to every student.
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