Who benefits from ethnic capital? Group norms, social-class and education among Armenian-Americans in Los Angeles

ABSTRACT

Sociologists show that the high levels of college-educated adults found in specific immigrant communities become a social resource, called ethnic capital, which is accessed in co-ethnic community organizations and promotes academic achievement for even the working-class descendants of these groups. But how does ethnic capital guide youth mobility? And does it benefit co-ethnic families who do not participate in these organizations? I investigate these questions through original, qualitative fieldwork with forty-two working-class, second-generation Armenian-Americans in Los Angeles. By comparing how social support for college preparation varies with organizational participation, I find that despite categorically converging with participants in graduate degree aspirations, non-participants access weaker mobility resources which distances them from perceived ethnic norms of achievement and a symbolic belonging to the co-ethnic community. I conclude that how ethnic capital benefits families varies but favours those who already possess material resources to enrol their children in co-ethnic organizations.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnic capital
• protective ethnicity
• second-generation
• education
• Armenian-Americans
• culture

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers at ERS as well as research participants who made this work possible. I am also especially thankful for the thoughtful feedback of Professors Nina Bandelj, Ann Hironaka, Paul Hanselman and other participants of the Center for Demographic and Social Research and the Race Research Workshop in the Department of Sociology at University of California, Irvine.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Oshin Khachikian http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2563-577X

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Center for Organizational Research, University of California, Irvine [COR small grants – 2017].