The Role of Social Class in the Formation of Identity: A Study of Public and Elite Private College Students

2007/04/01 by Elizabeth Aries, Maynard Seider · 2 citations
Social Sciences · #Critical Race Theory in Education #Higher Education Research Studies #Social and Cultural Dynamics

paper · doi:10.3200/socp.147.2.137-157

openalex publication_date 2007/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29

Abstract

The authors explored the influence of social class on identity formation in an interview study of 15 lower income students and 15 affluent students from a highly selective liberal arts school and 15 lower income students from a state college. Students ranked occupational goals as 1st in importance to identity and social class as 2nd. The affluent students regarded social class as significantly more important to identity than did the lower income students, were more aware of structural factors contributing to their success, and had higher occupational aspirations. Social class was an area of exploration for half the students, with higher levels of exploration shown by the lower income private school students than by the state college students. Lower income students developed an ideology that rationalized their social class position.

Citations

• Emerging adulthood: A theory of development from the late teens through the twenties.
• Cultural capital in educational research: A critical assessment
• Development and validation of ego-identity status.

Cited by

• Social class group identity, intergroup attitudes, and views on social mobility and inequality in the U.K. and the U.S.
• The psychology of social class: How socioeconomic status impacts thought, feelings, and behaviour

Related

• The psychology of social class: How socioeconomic status impacts thought, feelings, and behaviour
• Social class group identity, intergroup attitudes, and views on social mobility and inequality in the U.K. and the U.S.
• The role of social identification as university student in learning: relationships between students’ social identity, approaches to learning, and academic achievement
• Teaching Social Class
• ‘Why can't people see or understand or make that effort to see who I am?’: documenting the experiences of low socioeconomic students at an elite tertiary institution through a social identity lens