<p>Using Pierre's Bordieu's paradigm of "culture capital" a new, and albeitly limited, study attempts to break down the value of EC's in college admissions - with surprising results. </p>
<p>I would love to see a CC take on this! :)</p>
<p>The article by Gabler and Kaufman is featured in Context magazine.</p>
<p>Asteriskea:</p>
<p>I have just read the article. Occasional-museum going parental unit here. We used to go to the Museum of Science practically every weekend when S was small and to the American Museum of Natural History when we visited NYC during his dinosaur phase. He used to drag us there. He has been a most reluctant visitor to museums of fine arts, but apparently, it does not matter in college admission, and did not matter in his case.</p>
<p>Actually, I think that Bourdieu's notion of of culture capital may help explain why certain lower income groups do better than other similar groups in admission in this country (but not necessarily elsewhere). With certain groups of immigrants, there is a certain level of culture capital that is much higher than the income level of the family. A most extreme example of this are the families of MIT and Harvard grad students whose children qualify for free or reduced lunch in the public schools. They may be of very low income but their level of education is very high, and it affects their children's education far more than their financial situation. When I was a grad student, it used to be a local rumor that all the waiters in the local Chinese restaurant (there was only one) were MIT engineering students.</p>
<p>One can argue that grad students are only temporarily poor. But there are recent immigrants who have similar levels of education or aspire to similar levels. When S1 was in 7th grade, a Soviet Jew joined his class, barely speaking English. By 9th grade he was speaking and reading and writing fluently (his parents' English improved but remained halting). Shortly after he graduated, he was invited to perform at the Kennedy Center. In Boston, there are many young women from Barbados who support themselves by providing baby-sitting services and use the money to fund their college studies. </p>
<p>Some people commented in the first article that museum-going is a proxy for income. And it may well be in this country. But in England, where museums are free as a result of a policy decision to encourage lower-income folks to visit them, it is largely the middle-class folks who attend the museums. Going to the opera is far cheaper than attending a rock concert or a football game (we could get tickets for Covent Garden at a couple of pounds, sitting in "the Gods", i.e., high up). So the idea that museum-going is a proxy for income does not hold for England. To me, therefore, museum-going is only a metaphor for a certain level of education that is considered part of elite culture. And it is this culture that is valued by colleges. </p>
<p>PS: I never thought one could drop Bourdieu's name in an everyday exchange. Now I know how it can be done!</p>
<p>"So the idea that museum-going is a proxy for income does not hold for England. To me, therefore, museum-going is only a metaphor for a certain level of education that is considered part of elite culture. And it is this culture that is valued by colleges."</p>
<p>I do not disagree. I would perhaps prefer to substitute "higher literacy" both for the above term "elite culture" and the referenced term "culture capital." I say this because when educators speak of literacy they are often using it in the broader context of knowledge/fluency inclusive of the arts. The degree of <em>parental</em> literacy has been proven to be the strongest determinant of a student's academic success pre-college, overriding income and ethnicity. (The second strongest determinant being parental involvement in, support of, education.)</p>
<p>Naturally, "elite" (or, demanding) colleges are looking for previously & predictably successful students. Second, lovers of art museums tend to be lovers of other arts, such as music/dance/drama -- augmenting the literacy component.</p>
<p>Or, shifting to a biochemical model, good saturation + good genes = good outcomes. (Otherwise known as, the intellectual-legacy factor.)</p>
<p>No surprises, to me, but great article, asterisk. Thanks!</p>
<p>Actually, the CollegeBoard came to relatively similar conclusions. Having first discovered that a 1400 on the old SAT was simply a 1200 plus $100k in family income, when they drilled down the numbers further, they discovered that the strongest associations were not with family income, but with 1) average income in the area surrounding the school (or of the student body in a private school), and 2) highest educational level of one parent. In the first case, "surrounding income" might be a surrogate for "cultural capital"; in the second case it definitely is. This does indeed explain the relative success of certain recent refugee groups (Vietnamese from Ho Chi Minh City, Bahamanians, etc.) and relative failure of others (Hmong, highland Minh, Dalits from India (there aren't many in the U.S.), etc.</p>
<p>
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Having first discovered that a 1400 on the old SAT was simply a 1200 plus $100k in family income
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That's just silly.
[quote]
This does indeed explain the relative success of certain recent refugee groups (Vietnamese from Ho Chi Minh City, Bahamanians, etc.
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The obvious and logical explanation for the success of these groups in modern society is European colonization. The "lower caste" groups you mention were shut out from such beneficence.</p>
<p>say along with me "correlation does not imply causation". </p>
<p>If you think about it, the activities that the authors discounted as related to elite admission were activities available to all students. So what is special about parents visiting art museums? It is an attribute of the parents and not the child. To overgeneralize a bit, there is a certain type of parent who enjoys visiting art museums. Doesn't it seem plausible that these parents would also value attending elite colleges more highly than most and steer Johnny or Jessica there?</p>
<p>My take is this correlation is really a marker for a certain type of parent. I think you could find a similar correlation if you measured consumption of high-end wines (no 2-buck Chuck, please!) and an inverse correlation to watching boxing matches.</p>
<p>What's wrong with 2-buck chuck? You get them in this temple of middle-class high-falutin consumption, Trader Joe's. Other folks make do with Liquor Mart.:(</p>
<p>The authors of the article DO say that this elite culture is an attribute of the parents, and that it does not matter if the kids go to museums or not. What it boils down to, is home life matters.</p>
<p>I can see it: besides playing Mozart to Johnny and Jessica while they're still in the womb (well, I guess that pre-pregnant women ought to be exposed to classic music, like cows), the parents ought to go to museums. One will do, so perhaps dads can go while mom listen to Mozart. I am so glad there's not much left I can do to enhance my kids' chances at college admission!</p>
<p>On Driver's point: European colonization may explain the success of Vietnamese (but the Hmong got colonized by the French, too) but not the Chinese. There certainly were treaty ports where European influence was strong, but there are plenty of Chinese who have succeeded and come from provinces not under such influence. In Asia, the two biggest success stories, Korea and Taiwan were under Japanese colonial rule.</p>
<p>neither the article's authors, nor anyone here posting so far has said that "correlation = causation." That does not mean that correlation is not important -- indeed as a "marker."</p>
<p>In my corner of the world, PLENTY of people who are not intellectuals drink high-end wines and don't produce children who end up at elite colleges. I vote for museum-visiting parents as a truer correlative of admission <em>trends.</em> (Conversely, no one said either that parental non-interest in art will doom an "elite" application.)</p>
<p>The authors' findings are logical & credible to me, combined with my experience as an educator -- watching achievement, and lack of it, in the pre-college set as well.</p>
<p>am I the only one that considers this data too old to be of much value. If the kids were 8th graders in 1988, they applied for college in 1991 -- 15 years ago.</p>
<p>I doubt if the profiles of the students or the criteria used by adcoms to evaluate these profiles have changed enormously. If anything, there may be even more emphasis on the factors that the authors emphasize as selectivity has increased.</p>
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<p>culture capital may help explain why certain lower income groups do better than other similar groups in admission in this country </p>
<br>
<p>Yep. This is the center of the issue for me. Coming from a culture with a 4000-year history of high-stakes standardized tests offering a route to the top (for example) influences family and social dynamics a lot. Take a drive around Queens or another urban neighborhood that attracts immigrants from all over the world. Virtually all of the immigrant residents are poor, working 3 jobs to keep food on the table, etc. But in some poor ethnic neighborhoods, you see storefront cram schools on every corner. In others, you won't find any. You can guess which neighborhood is sending its kids to MIT five years after they get to the US.</p>
<p>
[quote]
epiphany writes: neither the article's authors, nor anyone here posting so far has said that "correlation = causation."
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Well, I guess we just read things differently. The lead 2 sentences in the article at insidehighered.com say "Do you want your daughter to get into Harvard? Get yourself to an art museum."</p>
<p>Sure sounds like someone saying correlation == causation to me ;)</p>
<p>And the funniest thing is I think we are actually agreeing!! All the study found is a marker, and a fancier word for that is a correlation. Markers ARE important. However purposely causing the marker to occur will not lead to the event it marks. Or, as we all heard in stats, "correlation does not imply causation".</p>
<p>Hanna:</p>
<p>If you're referring to China, I believe the exams started really offering a path to social mobility during the Song dynasty (10th-14th century). Long ago, but not quite 4,000 years. :)</p>
<p>To pick up on Marite's comments in #7:
The Hmong were among the SE Asian equivalents of "American Indians." They, along with other so-called "montagnard" tribes were treated nearly as badly as the "untouchable" tribe mentioned by Mini. They were considered to be barbarians by the Europeanized Chinese population (Laotian or Vietnamese), and as such, missed out on the positive effects of European colonization. To compare them with the francophile vietnamese doesn't really work. Most of the Hmong now in the US are here because of the efforts of CIA/Special Forces guys who worked with them back in the 60s.</p>
<p>The success of Korea and Taiwan has very little to do with their enslavement by the Empire of Japan, and much more to do with the freedom--political and economical--granted by the American "occupation" force that liberated them. Much like the occupation force that liberated France and shoved the Marshall Plan down their throats.</p>
<p>Driver:</p>
<p>Taiwanese and Korean received more education under the Japanese than Vietnamese did under French colonization. Taiwanese of a certain age (not the folks who came from the mainland in 1949) speak Japanese fluently. Most Vietnamese did not get an education under the French.
Anent the Hmong, the overwhelmong majority of those in the US came from Laos, not Vietnam. So there was no chance of their being ill-treated by the Vietnamese. Such is not the case of the Dega in North Carolina.
But one thing is clear. The Hmong came from a pre-literate culture. The Vietnamese were influenced by Chinese culture and adopted the Chinese exams (Hanna's point stands).</p>
<p>Marite,
I'm not sure where you're going with this...but if you're suggesting that the the early 20th-century colonization of the Pacific rim by the Empire of Japan had similar and equally-longlived benefits for the subjugated population as the 18th-19th century British occupations of south asia and the Caribbean, I'd' like to hear some sources.</p>
<p>Anent (a great TheDad word, btw) the Hmong, as I said, they were a tribal people treated as untouchables by the Chinese-based dominant ethnic groups in Southeast Asia. They were definitely mostly from Laos, and they are here now in the US thanks to the efforts of former CIA/Special Forces personnel from the 1960s era. See: "Tragic Mountains" by Jane Hamilton-Merritt, "Back Fire" by Roger Warner, and "Shadow War," by Kenneth Conboy. I'm cited in all three.</p>
<p>Excuse me, I just finished fishing out and dusting off an old, and might I add, unused "art museum lotto" game given to my children with the best of intentions way back when - never could get my kids to even look at it, yet play with it. They do, however, adore musuem visits. </p>
<p>For quite some time studies have indicated a strong correlation between modern high academic performance and parental (read maternal) influence - even in Japan. Now, we have a new twist - parental influence on the choice of EC's can tip the balance in favor of not just attending college but getting accepted into an elite one. The much maligned SAT exam, viewed by many informed academics to be a signal tool aimed to promote democracy and a meritocracy in higher education, does not level the playing field because EC's favor the advantaged over the disadvantaged.</p>
<p>As the article in InsdeHigherEd points out, for Ivy-bound obsessed parents the findings of this limited and "unusual" study indicate that "numerous activities had no apparent impact on whether or not students will end up in college - elite or not." Including sports, public service clubs and cheerleading. In the end, it is the "cultural inheritance" that surrounds both learning and the activity that counts - the intellectual spark of passion and curiosity that ought to, and does, make an EC meaningful. After all, the whole point of all of this is "What Really Counts in Getting In".</p>
<p>Mikemac,</p>
<p>I will agree that the line you quoted from the article, does not follow from the conclusions of the study. However, it was not my line now, was it? Do not confuse an opinion of a study, with opinion about commentary on a study. I never said, nor implied, that parents could manipulate admissions results by sudden, insincere attendance at art museums. I said that a history of parental art-museum attendance is not a surprising correlation to upper level college admissions -- for all that such attendance tends to carry with it. It is also not surprising given results I've noticed in my long history with education (& acquaintance with parental background) and the admissions results played out with my graduating students. (Which is why I said that the information was credible, as well as logical.)</p>
<p>So when you argue with someone, it's best that you argue with <em>their</em> opinions & statements, not statements & opinions to which they have not assented.</p>
<p>Driver:
I don't want to discuss comparative colonialism on CC, so I will not pursue this discussion.</p>
<p>For WHATEVER reason, the Hmong came to the US as pre-literate people; the Vietnamese did not; the Koreans did not; Taiwanese did not and recent immigrants from the PRC did not. Many Chinese who came in the late 19th century and early 20th centuries were illiterate, but by now Chinese-Americans are all educated and what's more, they come from a culture that for the last millennium has valued education. That was the point of that Hanna was trying to make. And, au fond, that was what the authors of the article were trying to suggest with their examples of museum-going parents.</p>
<p>By the way, the hiatus in my participation in this thread was due to my having my nails done. The Vietnamese manicurist turned out to have been a middle school teacher in Vietnam. My Chinese take-out restaurant's owner has a daughter about to go to a top ten LAC.</p>
<p>The "WHATEVER" reason that the Hmong came to the US as pre-literate people was that they were a pre-literate but fiercely war-capable people who assisted US military personnel in a secret war. They were definitley pre-literate, in fact many were damn near stone-age. As were many of the most effective US allies in the war in southeast Asia. The Vietnamese had been the "victims" of French Indochina, as had the Laotioans, and the treatment of tribal "aboriginals" such as the Hmong was uniformly racist and exclusionary (to be fair, the tribes were self-segregating, but the animosity directed at the tribes was profound.) My whole point in raising this issue is that you can't compare the tribal people who immigrated to the US from SE Asia to "Vietnamese" who grew up speaking French and benefitting from a European education system. I can't think of any Hmong who were educated in Europe, and who first came to fame fighting the Japanese occupation.</p>