Social class and cultural (re)production in higher education: An ethnographic look at the culture of Student Affairs offices

This dissertation examines the distinctive cultures of Offices of Student Affairs on college campuses. Daily practices of Offices of Student Affairs of three four-year liberal arts colleges are described. The study explores the cultural milieu and organizational structure of each office, meaning-making interactions within regular meetings, administration of the student judicial systems, and attempts to change the office cultures. The concept of a governing cultural rubric is developed for each office. A social class analysis is utilized to make sense of the differences in cultural rubrics between offices. The author utilizes qualitative field methods. The majority of the data is the result of ethnographic fieldwork with some content analysis. The author was a participant observer in each of the three fields considered and spent 7 years, from 1994 to 2001, as a participant observer in the three Offices of Student Affairs studied. Participant observation and content analysis data is combined to describe the cultural practices of the student affairs professionals in each office. The study concludes that the culture of student affairs offices is related to the social class culture of the student clientele they serve. It is argued that this relationship contributes to the microreproduction of social class culture among students. It further observes that the increasing access to higher education will not significantly effect upward social mobility in part because of the propensity for institutions to modify their cultural practices according to the social class of their clientele. Suggestions are made for further examination of the relationship between the social class of student clientele and the culture of student affairs offices. The author examines the extant of sociology of education literature and identifies a relative absence of consideration of institutions of higher education. Specifically he highlights the dearth of focus on daily practices of creating meaning within said literature. He suggests that, given increasing rates of college attendance across all social classes, that now is the time for sociologists of education to expand their research horizons to include these institutions and their daily practices.