Degrees of Risk
Navigating Insecurity and Inequality in Public Higher Education
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Degrees of Risk
Navigating Insecurity and Inequality in Public Higher Education
An ethnographic analysis of how insecurity is at the heart of contemporary higher education.
Institutions of higher education are often described as “ivory towers,” places of privilege where students exist in a “campus bubble,” insulated from the trials of the outside world. These metaphors reveal a widespread belief that college provides young people with stability and keeps insecurity at bay. But for many students, that’s simply not the case.
Degrees of Risk reveals how insecurity permeates every facet of college life for students at public universities. Sociologist Blake Silver dissects how these institutions play a direct role in perpetuating uncertainty, instability, individualism, and anxiety about the future. Silver examined interviews with more than one hundred students who described the risks that surrounded every decision: which major to choose, whether to take online classes, and how to find funding. He expertly identified the ways the college experience played out differently for students from different backgrounds. For students from financially secure families with knowledge of how college works, all the choices and flexibility of college felt like an adventure or a wealth of opportunities. But for many others, especially low-income, first-generation students, their personal and family circumstances meant that that flexibility felt like murkiness and precarity. In addition, he discovered that students managed insecurity in very different ways, intensifying inequality at the intersections of socioeconomic status, race, gender, and other sociodemographic dimensions. Drawing from these firsthand accounts, Degrees of Risk presents a model for a better university, one that fosters success and confidence for a diverse range of students.
Institutions of higher education are often described as “ivory towers,” places of privilege where students exist in a “campus bubble,” insulated from the trials of the outside world. These metaphors reveal a widespread belief that college provides young people with stability and keeps insecurity at bay. But for many students, that’s simply not the case.
Degrees of Risk reveals how insecurity permeates every facet of college life for students at public universities. Sociologist Blake Silver dissects how these institutions play a direct role in perpetuating uncertainty, instability, individualism, and anxiety about the future. Silver examined interviews with more than one hundred students who described the risks that surrounded every decision: which major to choose, whether to take online classes, and how to find funding. He expertly identified the ways the college experience played out differently for students from different backgrounds. For students from financially secure families with knowledge of how college works, all the choices and flexibility of college felt like an adventure or a wealth of opportunities. But for many others, especially low-income, first-generation students, their personal and family circumstances meant that that flexibility felt like murkiness and precarity. In addition, he discovered that students managed insecurity in very different ways, intensifying inequality at the intersections of socioeconomic status, race, gender, and other sociodemographic dimensions. Drawing from these firsthand accounts, Degrees of Risk presents a model for a better university, one that fosters success and confidence for a diverse range of students.
256 pages | 7 tables | 6 x 9 | © 2024
Education: Higher Education
Sociology: Social Institutions, Social Organization--Stratification, Mobility
Reviews
Table of Contents
Prologue
1. Welcome to the Ivory Casino
2. Precarious Pioneers: Deploying Resilience for an Uncertain Journey
3. Risk Minimizers: Using Resistance to Alleviate Insecurity
4. Opportunity Maximizers: Building an Enterprising Self
5. Insulated Explorers: Flexibility and the Pursuit of Self-Discovery
6. Amplifying or Alleviating Insecurity: The Role of Universities
7. The Lessons of Precarity
Acknowledgments
Appendix: Methods
Notes
References
Index
1. Welcome to the Ivory Casino
2. Precarious Pioneers: Deploying Resilience for an Uncertain Journey
3. Risk Minimizers: Using Resistance to Alleviate Insecurity
4. Opportunity Maximizers: Building an Enterprising Self
5. Insulated Explorers: Flexibility and the Pursuit of Self-Discovery
6. Amplifying or Alleviating Insecurity: The Role of Universities
7. The Lessons of Precarity
Acknowledgments
Appendix: Methods
Notes
References
Index