Social Class and the Extracurriculum

Abstract

Social class is a powerful and often unrecognized influence on student participation in the extracurriculum. Spontaneous student-created extracurricular experiences depend on students affiliating and interacting with each other; student social class is a powerful influence on student affiliations. Students tend to exercise consciousness of kind- and self-select to interact with culturally, ethnically, gender-, and class-similar members of the campus community. However, planners of extracurricular experiences typically neglect student social class in planning, promoting, or conducting an experience as well as neglecting social class as a topic for planned experiences. This article explores social class as both a personal characteristic and as a feature of the campus environment. Social class affects how members of the campus community perceive and participate in campus curricular and extracurricular activities and how extracurricular experiences are designed.