Unseen disadvantage: How American universities' focus on independence undermines the academic performance of first-generation college students.

作者：Nicole K. Stephens, Stephanie A. Fryberg, Hazel Rose Markus, Camille S. Johnson, Rebecca Covarrubias · 发表于：Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · 年份：2012 · DOI：10.1037/a0027143 · 被引用次数：1325 · 研究领域：Higher Education Research Studies、Racial and Ethnic Identity Research、School Choice and Performance

American universities increasingly admit first-generation college students whose parents do not have 4-year degrees. Once admitted, these students tend to struggle academically, compared with continuing-generation students--students who have at least 1 parent with a 4-year degree. We propose a cultural mismatch theory that identifies 1 important source of this social class achievement gap. Four studies test the hypothesis that first-generation students underperform because interdependent norms from their mostly working-class backgrounds constitute a mismatch with middle-class independent norms prevalent in universities. First, assessing university cultural norms, surveys of university administrators revealed that American universities focus primarily on norms of independence. Second, identifying the hypothesized cultural mismatch, a longitudinal survey revealed that universities' focus on independence does not match first-generation students' relatively interdependent motives for attending college and that this cultural mismatch is associated with lower grades. Finally, 2 experiments at both private and public universities created a match or mismatch for first-generation students and examined the performance consequences. Together these studies revealed that representing the university culture in terms of independence (i.e., paving one's own paths) rendered academic tasks difficult and, thereby, undermined first-generation students' performance. Conversely, representing the u...