Home And College Belief In Connection To The Sociological Imagination

In this assignment, I will discuss the belief that children should not leave their homes to go to college. This is familiar to me because living with a traditional Hispanic family, my family believed that a person should not leave their home to go to school. I was told things such as, “Why would you want to go to that school when you can get a perfectly good education at home?” and when I would explain my reasoning it seemed like their views served as a barrier towards understanding my purpose. To me, this belief connects to the sociological imagination because of the changing gender expectations in society, contrasting cultural beliefs, and improvements in transportation throughout the years.

Example #1: Since the beginning of history, there was always a rift in equality between men and women, the main example being the prohibition of women getting an education. One reason for this was an argument by medical professionals stating, “that women would suffer immense harm to their health by following study regimes similar to men’s” (Jones). Men even argued that women weren’t as intelligent as men, and in the mid-nineteenth century when women were allowed access to education, they still weren’t granted degrees (Jones). Author Jack Myers revealed that “only 40 percent of college degrees are going to men versus 60 percent going to women, which is a flip of where we were in the 1970s,” proving that women can be more successful than men (“‘The Future of Men’ Explores evolving gender roles). This applies to the sociological imagination because now it is common for both genders to go to school and study any degree they prefer, while in the nineteenth century it would have been astounding to learn about the equality that has improved between men and women.

Example #2: In the world, there are contrasting ethnic beliefs towards young adults leaving their homes to go to college versus studying at a local school. A 2011 study proved that non-white races were less likely to leave their homes as young adults, showing that “31% of young Black men aged 25–34 lived in the parental home, compared with 21% of young Latino men and only 15% of White men” (Lei, Lei, and Scott J. South). Similar statistics were also found among women, where “differences between young Black women (11%), Latino women (11%), and White women (9%) are substantially smaller” (Lei, Lei, and Scott J. South). This applies to the sociological imagination because in America and within white families, it is very common for young adults to leave to college, while in other countries and races in the United States, that is considered very strange and, as I’ve been told, unnecessary.

Example #3: Before the creation of trains, buses, and cars, “the vast and impenetrable landscape made travel difficult and as a result people tended to live very local lives” (“Transportation Infrastructure”). With improvements in transportation came more access for people to not only quickly travel to school, but also go away to college. For example, a student named Patricia Howard was able to attend Staten Island College with the help of a shuttle bus, and this mode of transportation closed the distance between her and the school of her dreams (Kolodner). This applies to the sociological imagination because prior to the industrial revolution, it was most likely difficult for some individuals to get to school’s that were miles away from their homes. But in our present day, it is strange to think of a time when we couldn’t swipe a MetroCard or ride a car to get to school like we can today.

Works Cited

“‘The Future of Men’ Explores Evolving Gender Roles.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 1 Mar. 2016, www.cbsnews.com/news/the-future-of-men-jack-myers-traditional-gender-roles-new-world-jodi-kantor/.

Jones, Claire. “HerStoria.” HerStoria Womens Access to Higher Education An Overview 18601948 Comments, 21 July 2012, herstoria.com/womens-access-to-higher-education-an-overview-1860-1948/.

Kolodner, Meredith. “Can Better Transportation Increase Diversity on College Campuses?” The Hechinger Report, 4 Nov. 2015, hechingerreport.org/can-better-transportation-increase-diversity-on-college-campuses/.

Lei, Lei, and Scott J. South. “Racial and Ethnic Differences in Leaving and Returning to the Parental Home: The Role of Life Course Transitions, Socioeconomic Resources, and Family Connectivity.” Demographic Research, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 19 Jan. 2016, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4838405/.

“Transportation Infrastructure.” America on the Move | Transportation Infrastructure, National Museum of American History, amhistory.si.edu/onthemove/themes/story_47_1.html.