Literature Review #5

My source is called "Why Parents Pay for College: The Good Parent, Perceptions of Advantage, and the Intergenerational Transfer of Opportunity." This source talks about three types of parent's consciousness about paying for college. It first talks about how parents think their children will benefit from college. Next, it talks about how parents feel obligated to pay for their children's college education. And lastly is discusses what parents feel they deserve in return for paying for the their child's education. Parents feel that they need to help their children out with paying for college but why? " Conventional wisdom would suggest that money spent on one thing cannot be spent on another. Such a presumption holds that the money parents allocate for their children's education cannot be spent on themselves"(pg. 267). Parents feel that they need to pay for their children's education to take care of them. It's a physiological thing, parents feel like they need to take care of their "children" (even though most college students are 18 and older making them adults) because they raised them and this is letting them still play a large role in their lives. Some parents want to be seen as "the good parent" and paying for college is a way that they feel will help them succeed at that. "Although parents may not be able to articulate precisely the idea, their words suggest that paying for college maximizes the likelihood of their maintaining a core identity. The emotional, occupational, and financial success of their children sustains and nourishes heir own status as a 'good parent'"(267). Parents also want to help their children with college because children are often reflections of their parents. So if parents want their children to succeed and make them look good and feel good about themselves as parents, some parents will want their children to go to college. And it's difficult to pay for college as a student so the parents will help. "Because children are seen as reflections of their parents, the parents are evaluated by significant others in terms of their children's successes and failures. Seen this way, the purchase of a college education is an insurance policy against negative self-concepts for children and parents alike" (268). So this source really talks about what the "good parent" is and why parents try to act this way. This was written by Lynda Lytle Holmstrom, David A. Karp and Paul S. Gray. Holmstrom is a professor of sociology at Boston College and specializes in applying to college and how families are involved. Karp is also a professor of sociology at Boston College. Paul S. Gray is also a professor of sociology at Boston College. So all of these professors have a lot of experience with sociology and how people think. This is directly related to my topic of the sociological aspect of paying for college. This is exactly the information that I need. 

Terms:

The "good parent"- a parent who pays for their child's college education

Social Class- people who have the same educational or economic status 

Holmstrom, Lynda L., David A. Karp, and Paul S. Gray. "Why Parents Pay for College: The Good Parent, Perceptions of Advantage, and the Intergenerational Transfer of Opportunity." Symbolic Interaction 34.2 (2011): 265-89. Print.