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Perpetuating inequity : The role of parent councils in opportunity hoarding and privilege-dependence of higher education institutions

Author
Kirk, Chris
Published
[University Park, Pennsylvania] : Pennsylvania State University, 2023.
Physical Description
1 electronic document
Additional Creators
Ford, Karly
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Restricted (PSU Only).
Summary
In 2019, thirty-three parents collectively paid over $25 million to conspire with a college preparatory firm and college administrators from several top US universities to influence the college admissions decisions for their children. While this is certainly an extreme anecdotal example of how a small subset of parents, parents have for some time now increasingly involved themselves during their children's college education. Despite legislation such as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) limiting a parent's rights to their children's educational record and hostile societal rhetoric (e.g., "helicopter parents") suggesting parents should be less involved during college, parent involvement during college has only increased, following similar patterns in K-12 education. More broadly, parent involvement in education has piqued the interest of sociologists and education researchers, who have found that what parents do during their children's education matters as much as educational attainment in terms of influencing key educational and occupational outcomes. Scholars have also identified classed parenting strategies used by parents in K-12 and, more recently, in higher education. Through strategies such as concerted cultivation or opportunity hoarding, parents, typically white and affluent, attempt to secure advantages for their children during schooling. These parenting practices, however, are not implemented in a vacuum. Instead, education institutions are privilege-dependent organizations that construct organizational environments catering to those on whom they depend for status. Thus, the strategies used by parents to secure advantages for their children in education are only successful because schools value and reward them. Rather than neutral passive environments in which parents and students act, education institutions actively shape the environment by creating organizational pathways which cater to advantaged parents and families who often are better able to provide the institution with the financial and social capital they need to succeed. Corresponding to the increase in parent involvement during college, colleges and universities have increasingly constructed organizational arrangements structuring their involvement. These arrangements, such as parent and family programs, are portrayed as contributing to student success as they encourage positive parent involvement in their student's college education. However, since colleges and universities are privilege-dependent, this raises questions about using such arrangements to structure parent involvement. To study this organizational arrangement, this dissertation uses an organizational lens to examine how colleges and universities structure parent engagement during college by looking at a specific organizational routine: parent councils. Using content analysis of university websites and semi-structured interviews with staff who work with parents, this study highlights the organizational practices surrounding the parent-university relationship. Specifically, this dissertation identifies parent councils as possible mechanisms for creating openings for opportunity hoarding, especially when resources and benefits are coupled with the parent council position, a position only some parents can fulfill.
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Dissertation Note
Ph.D. Pennsylvania State University 2023.
Technical Details
The full text of the dissertation is available as an Adobe Acrobat .pdf file ; Adobe Acrobat Reader required to view the file.
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