High School Context and College Plans: The Impact of Social Structure on Aspirations

Abstract

The controversy surrounding the contextual effects of high school status on college aspirations is reviewed. Some of the ambiguity in research findings may be traced to the failure to consider school conditions which foster and hinder college aspirations. Research on high school students in the metropolitan Minneapolis-St. Paul area shows that highly intelligent students are most likely to be found in high status schools. Hence, it may be easier for adolescents at any level of intelligence to get higher grades in low status schools where competition is lean. Within any given category of measured intelligence, attending a high status school appears to raise scores on a less potent predictor of aspirations, school status, and lower scores on a more potent predictor of aspirations, academic rank position. Since rank is an important predictor of college aspirations under all conditions, controlling for rank increases the correlation between school status and aspirations. The analysis suggests that although the effects of school status tend to cancel each other out and the net effect on aspirations is small, the theoretical importance of school status cannot be discounted.