Do extracurricular activities increase students' likelihood of attending college, including prestigious institutions? Yes, but grades, test scores, and family background still matter more.
References
1.
BourdieuPierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste (Harvard University Press, 1984). A dense, encyclopedic treatment of the role of cultural capital at work, home, and school in 20th-century France.
2.
CollinsRandall. The Credential Society: An Historical Sociology of Education and Stratification (Academic Press, 1979). The book perhaps most closely associated with the argument that much social stratification is built on formal educational credentials—or the lack thereof.
3.
KaufmanJasonGablerJay. “Cultural Capital and the Extracurricular Activities of Girls and Boys in the College Attainment Process.”Poetics32 (2004): 145–68. A more detailed report on our research.
4.
LareauAnnette. Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life (University of Chicago Press, 2003). An acclaimed report detailing some dramatic differences in family life among the economically privileged and the less privileged.
5.
SteinbergJacques. The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College (Viking, 2002). A fascinating, readable, behind-the-scenes look at the college admissions process.
6.
WallerWillard. The Sociology of Teaching (Wiley, 1932). A classic text in the sociology of education, describing the school as a functional system that works first and foremost to perpetuate itself.
