Privileged Poor vs. Doubly Disadvantaged

What happens when students of color from lower-income families and distressed neighborhoods arrive at an elite university? How do they navigate the university’s expectations and opportunities? One answer, sociologist Anthony Abraham Jack finds, is that it depends on what they learned in high school—not about STEM or literacy, but about forming relationships with faculty.

Jessica McCrory Calarco has shown how the class gap operated in a majority-white elementary school, where middle-class...