The goal of this research is to investigate why some young adults battling poverty are able to overcome barriers and achieve success in an environment of deprivation and inequality, while others fall prey to the same predicaments of poverty. Drawing on three years of ethnographic study, I provide a holistic lens on the lives of sixteen young adults from a low-income city. I illuminate how the organization of daily activities can grant access to the skills and social relations required for academic success and analyze how these valuable forms of social networks and skills are cultivated and shared. Instead of primarily focusing on educational settings, I document the experiences of sixteen youth presenting a holistic lens on their lives. This detailed ethnography follows the young adults into multiple components of their lives, including school, work, family, neighborhood, peer groups, romantic relationships, hobbies, extra curricular activities and leisure. In sum, I aim to generate a more thorough understanding of the effect of class on educational outcome among young adults while simultaneously examining what is takes to overcome hardships. Data generated by this project mainly includes ethnographic data drawing on participant observation and in-depth interviews among a group of youth and their networks.
Broader Impact of Study
Considering the fact that America's poverty rate rose to 15.1% in 2010, its highest level since 1993 and those growing up in poverty face tremendous barriers in achieving educational success, it has never been more important to continue to explore the processes through which poverty hinders educational achievements and how some overcome the barriers. At the policy level, my dissertation illuminates ways in which the transition from high school to college can be better facilitated among young adults. I will show that educational performance is influenced by multiple contexts of life, demonstrate the avenues inside and outside school where interventions can be made and, highlight the resources and skills that are helpful in making this transition.
Drawing on three years of intensive fieldwork, among sixteen young men and women and their networks from a poor inner city community in Connecticut, my dissertation outlines the constraints on educational success and upward mobility in the inner city. With rising rates of unemployment, underemployment, eviction, incarceration, retrenchment of public assistance, and deteriorating neighborhoods, conditions have become worse for the urban poor in recent years. Given this widening income and wealth gap, chances of upward mobility among poor inner city residents seem bleak, this research documents what is means to come of age under these dire conditions and pursue upward mobility. Studying the complexity of these young adults' neighborhood relationships—ties to their families, romantic partners, peers, and school settings—sheds light on how these relationships collectively enable and constrain achievement. My study shows how poverty is reproduced owing to the strong connection between class and education. In addition, I show how the cycle of reproduction of poverty maybe challenged through resources and skills that are acquired in these different spheres, thus enhancing our understanding of social reproduction of poverty by invoking newer definitions of culture. However, my findings also reveal that resources and information gathered within these contexts are fragmented, insufficient and often contradictory. Available resources and information often obfuscates the potential routes to improved conditions and compels youth to accept the status quo of marginal employment.
