The Balancing Act of Family and College: Reciprocity and Its Consequences for Black Students (2024)

Literature indicates the ways that young adults –especially those from advantaged backgrounds—rely on parents during college and the transition to adulthood. Litle research focuses on how the Black family reaches into college and Black college students’ provision of support to parents and other kin. Te nexus of family and higher education is a rich site for investigating inequalities in educational atainment and outcomes. Based on interviews with Black undergraduates, this paper analyzes variation in familial involvement during college. It shows the ways in which Black students maintain a balancing act to meet academic responsibilities and family obligations. Tese practices help sustain the families they value but also reproduce class inequalities. Te social organization of colleges and families imposes greater costs on disadvantaged students and ofers greater benefts for advantaged students. Te structure of education and constructions of family diminish obligations to family, narrow family ties, and mystify aspects of dependence, especially for disadvantaged students. Student narratives highlight the broad character of family values that ofen compete with academic obligations and detract from college immersion. Diferent forms and paterns of assistance and connection by class and gender are tied to structural resources and cultural diferences, such as the place of family, the meaning of self, assessments of who counts as family, and reliance on a norm of one-way giving