Why Faculty Underestimate Low-Income Students’ Family Responsibilities
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
Low-income college students face costly moral choices between pursuing their personal academic success and fulfilling their family responsibilities. They almost certainly face these choices more frequently and at a greater personal cost than many of their faculty recognize. This article explores the sources and nature of that professorial blind spot. This article argues that this moral blind spot results from the fact that middle-class people and low-income people practice family in markedly different ways. They uphold different moral norms (independence vs. mutual aid) which shape the qualitative nature of college students’ obligations within their families. They also tend to utilize different family structures (nuclear vs. complex and extended) which create quantitative differences in the number of people to whom family responsibilities can attach. The paper ends with a practical implications section that discusses ways to address this moral blind spot so instructors can more effectively collaborate with students as they navigate conflicts between family and academic responsibilities.
Downloads
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
- Authors retain copyright and grant the Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (JoSoTL) right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License, (CC-BY) 4.0 International, allowing others to share the work with proper acknowledgement and citation of the work's authorship and initial publication in the Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
- Authors are able to enter separate, additional contractual agreements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in the Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
- In pursuit of manuscripts of the highest quality, multiple opportunities for mentoring, and greater reach and citation of JoSoTL publications, JoSoTL encourages authors to share their drafts to seek feedback from relevant communities unless the manuscript is already under review or in the publication queue after being accepted. In other words, to be eligible for publication in JoSoTL, manuscripts should not be shared publicly (e.g., online), while under review (after being initially submitted, or after being revised and resubmitted for reconsideration), or upon notice of acceptance and before publication. Once published, authors are strongly encouraged to share the published version widely, with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in the Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
References
Amato, P. R., & DeBoer, D. D. (2001). The Transmission of Marital Instability Across Generations: Relationship Skills or Commitment to Marriage? Journal of Marriage and Family, 63(4), 1038–1051. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2001.01038.x
Arnett, J. J. (2000). Emerging adulthood. A theory of development from the late teens through the twenties. The American Psychologist, 55(5), 469–480.
Beatty, B. J. (2019). Hybrid-Flexible Course Design. EdTech Books. https://edtechbooks.org/hyflex
Brown, S., & Manning, W. (2009). Family Boundary Ambiguity and the Measurement of Family Structure: The Significance of Cohabitation. Demography, 46, 85–101. https://doi.org/10.1353/dem.0.0043
Bui, Q., & Miller, C. C. (2015, December 23). The Typical American Lives Only 18 Miles From Mom. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/24/upshot/24up-family.html, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/24/upshot/24up-family.html
Burton, L. (2007). Childhood Adultification in Economically Disadvantaged Families: A Conceptual Model. Family Relations, 56 (4), 329–345. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2007.00463.x
Clawson, D., Gerstel, N., & Russell Sage Foundation Staff. (2014). Unequal Time: Gender, Class, and Family in Employment Schedules. Russell Sage Foundation. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wfu/detail.action?docID=4003853
Cohen, P. (2013, April 4). College Graduates Marry Other College Graduates Most of the Time. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/04/college-graduates-marry-other-college-graduates-most-of-the-time/274654/
Compton, J., & Pollak, R. A. (2009). Proximity and Coresidence of Adult Children and their Parents: Description and Correlates. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1513453
Costa, D. L., & Kahn, M. E. (2000). Power Couples: Changes in the Locational Choice of the College Educated, 1940–1990. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 115 (4), 1287–1315. https://doi.org/10.1162/003355300555079
Fomby, P., & Kravitz-Wirtz, N. (2019). Family Systems and Parents’ Financial Support for Education in Early Adulthood. Demography, 56(5), 1875–1897. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-019-00807-0
Francis, A. (2015). Family Trouble: Middle-Class Parents, Children’s Problems, and the Disruption of Everyday Life. Rutgers University Press. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wfu/detail.action?docID=4414543
Goldrick-Rab, S. (2016). Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream (Illustrated Edition). University of Chicago Press.
Hamlett, M. (2018, February 28). Why do we still shame adults who live with their parents? The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/28/michael-b-jordan-live-with-parents-millennials-shame
Hansen, K. V. (2004). Not-So-Nuclear Families: Class, Gender, and Networks of Care. Rutgers University Press.
It’s hard to build a life when you need to move cities for an academic career (2018, October 26). The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/oct/26/its-hard-to-build-a-life-when-you-need-to-move-cities-for-an-academic-career
Kendig, S. M., Mattingly, M. J., & Bianchi, S. M. (2014). Childhood Poverty and the Transition to Adulthood. Family Relations, 63 (2), 271–286. https://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12061
Kinsley, P. M., (2014). The pull of home: Family dynamics and the initial college experiences of low-income undergraduates (doctoral dissertation). University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Lareau, A. (2011). Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life, 2nd Edition with an Update a Decade Later. University of California Press.
Lundberg, S., Pollak, R. A., & Stearns, J. (2016). Family Inequality: Diverging Patterns in Marriage, Cohabitation, and Childbearing. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 30(2), 79–102. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.30.2.79
Malik, R. (2019). Working Families Are Spending Big Money on Child Care. Center for American Progress. Retrieved July 30, 2020, from https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/early-childhood/reports/2019/06/20/471141/working-families-spending-big-money-child-care/
Manning, W. D., Brown, S. L., & Stykes, J. B. (2014). Family Complexity among Children in the United States. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 654(1), 48–65. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716214524515
Martinez, G. M., Daniels, K., & Febo-Vazquez, I. (2018). Fertility of Men and Women Aged 15–44 in the United States: National Survey of Family Growth, 2011–2015 (No. 113; National Health Statistics Report, p. 17). Centers for Disease Control. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr113.pdf
Molloy, R., Smith, C. L., & Wozniak, A. (2011). Internal Migration in the United States. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 25(3), 173–196. JSTOR.
Morton, J. (2021). Moving Up Without Losing Your Way: The Ethical Costs of Upward Mobility. Princeton University Press.
Musick, K., & Michelmore, K. (2018). Cross-National Comparisons of Union Stability in Cohabiting and Married Families with Children. Demography, 55 (4), 1389–1421. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-018-0683-6
National Science Foundation, (2018) Survey of Earned Doctorates. National Science Foundation. Retrieved February 18, 2021, from https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf20301/report/path-to-the-doctorate#parental-education
Nelson, M. K. (2020). Like Family: Narratives of Fictive Kinship. Rutgers University Press.
Nietzel, M. T. (2021). The Well-Heeled Professoriate: Socioeconomic Backgrounds Of University Faculty. Forbes. Retrieved June 4, 2021, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2021/03/28/the-well-heeled-professoriate-socioeconomic-backgrounds-of-university-faculty/
Nunlee, M. (2016). When Did We All Become Middle Class? Taylor & Francis Group. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wfu/detail.action?docID=4626175
Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project (2015, May 21). Supporting Family Members. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2015/05/21/2-supporting-family-members/
Reeves, R.V., Guyot, K., & Krause, E. (2018, May 7). Defining the middle class: Cash, credentials, or culture? Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/research/defining-the-middle-class-cash-credentials-or-culture/
Reeves, R. V. & Pulliam, C. (2020, March 11). Middle class marriage is declining, and likely deepening inequality. Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/research/middle-class-marriage-is-declining-and-likely-deepening-inequality/
Roschelle, A. R. (1997). No More Kin: Exploring Race, Class, and Gender in Family Networks. SAGE Publications. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wfu/detail.action?docID=1598450
Stack, C. B. (1974). All Our Kin: Strategies for Survival in a Black Community ([First edition].). Harper & Row.
Trail, T. E., & Karney, B. R. (2012). What’s (Not) Wrong With Low-Income Marriages. Journal of Marriage and Family, 74(3), 413–427. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2012.00977.x
United States Census Bureau, (2016). America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2016. The United States Census Bureau. Retrieved August 8, 2021, from https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2016/demo/families/cps-2016.html
Verschelden, C., & Pasquerella, L. (2017). Bandwidth Recovery: Helping Students Reclaim Cognitive Resources Lost to Poverty, Racism, and Social Marginalization (Illustrated edition). Stylus Publishing.
Walters, J. (2010, March 2). Degrees of Separation. The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/education/2010/mar/02/academic-career-live-apart-couple
Wang, W. (2015, December 4). The link between a college education and a lasting marriage. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/04/education-and-marriage/
Zaloom, C. (2019). Indebted: How Families Make College Work at Any Cost. Princeton University Press. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wfu/detail.action?docID=5802071