Desires in context: The effect of neighborhood college degree attainment on adolescents’ college aspirations

Citation

Douds, Kiara (2017). Desires in context: The effect of neighborhood college degree attainment on adolescents' college aspirations. Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America. Chicago, IL.

Abstract

In this paper, I utilize Bourdieu’s habitus as a theoretical framework for understanding how social context can shape individuals’ aspirations. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) and coarsened exact matching (CEM), I provide a causal estimate of the effect of neighborhood college degree attainment on adolescents’ college aspirations. My results indicate that living in a neighborhood with low college degree attainment decreases adolescents’ aspirations to attend college. However, the effect differs among racial groups: The effect is larger for blacks than whites and insignificant among Hispanics. My analysis provides the first causal estimation of the effect of any contextual factor on adolescents’ educational aspirations. These findings contribute to the neighborhood effects literature by identifying another way in which place-based inequalities produce unequal outcomes for children and suggest that scholars of inequality should take seriously individuals' desired ends as mechanisms through which inequality is produced.

URL

https://paa.confex.com/paa/2017/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/14674

Reference Type

Conference proceeding

Book Title

Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America

Series Title

Race, Education, and Neighborhoods

Author(s)

Douds, Kiara

Year Published

2017

City of Publication

Chicago, IL

Reference ID

9170