Three Pathways
This pathway at MU is meant to help less privileged students move upward, but often fails because it requires strong advising and support that the university does not consistently provide.
Mobility Pathway
This term describes how mobility programs boost their success rates by selecting only the most academically prepared and easiest-to-help students from disadvantaged backgrounds—often leaving the neediest students behind.
Creaming
A major feature of the party pathway that distinguishes it from other pathways (in how the university treat them) is:
The university actively provisions organizational infrastructure (Greek system, easy majors, dorm placement)
A working-class student receives a full scholarship but still cannot afford sorority dues, spring break trips, or expensive “going-out” clothes. Which type of capital is creating this barrier?
Economic Capital
Fraternity parties were located in these buildings, which_____ owned rather than the university, giving them property rights and limiting university control.
fraternities
This pathway at MU offers an exciting social scene, Greek life, parties, and easy majors, and is most attractive to affluent students who have the resources to enjoy a “fun” college experience.
Party Pathway
In Paying for the Party, this group of hardworking, lower-income women enters MU determined to climb academically, but faces obstacles like weak advising, financial pressure, limited cultural capital, and social isolation—making upward mobility far harder than effort alone can overcome.
Strivers
This highly choreographed series of events—filled with matching outfits, rehearsed conversations, and careful image management—sorts women into sororities in ways that mirror class and beauty hierarchies at MU.
Rush Process
A student has a strong résumé, good manners, a polished way of speaking, and familiarity with elite social norms, which helps her perform well in interviews. According to Bourdieu, these assets best represent:
Cultural Capital
This criterion referred to 'what a woman did with what she had' through expensive grooming, fashion, weight management, and achieving the right look - not just natural beauty.
"Cuteness"
This pathway is designed for ambitious, highly prepared students, often backed by well-resourced parents, who use AP credits, strong advising, internships, and competitive majors to “launder privilege” into academic merit and secure elite careers.
Professional Pathway
In Paying for the Party, these two groups of working-class women follow very different mobility trajectories: one group is handpicked by selective programs because they already show strong academic promise, while the other struggles to climb despite effort, facing multiple structural barriers and limited capital.
Creamers and Strivers
A/An ______ was operationally defined as someone who could claim only one people on the floor (outside of roommate) as a 'friend' by year's end.
Isolates
This student arrived at MU knowing literally hundreds of people from her in-state feeder high school, where '250 people from our class of 880 came here,' giving her instant access to parties, dinners, and social information." What form of capital do you see here?
Social Capital
Men gained status from multiple sexual partners, but women risked being called this label for the same behavior, illustrating ______in the party scene.
sexual double standard
In Paying for the Party, this unwritten arrangement explains why affluent students flock to the party pathway: the university provides the social infrastructure—Greek life, easy majors, and a fun campus environment—while students agree to expect little academic rigor or faculty contact in return.
In competitive majors at MU, success for some students meant a loss for others-spots, scholarships, internships-revealing this economic game logic where gains for one group come directly at the expense of another.
Zero-sum competition
According to Armstrong & Hamilton, these academically lightweight programs help universities keep wealthy, socially oriented students enrolled and happy—by letting them party hard without risking academic failure, ultimately supporting institutional solvency.
Easy Majors
In Paying for the Party, this sociological process explains how affluent sorority members use exclusive recruitment, shared cultural tastes, and alumni networks to keep valuable social and career opportunities within their own group—while shutting out less privileged students.
Social Closure
Underprivileged students faced this type of academic condition, meaning even one wrong class choice, bad advisor, or early low grade could permanently derail their trajectory.
Little margin for error
In Paying for the Party, these two pathways appear to offer upward mobility, but differ sharply in who can actually succeed: one requires the university to provide intensive advising, structured coursework, and hands-on support to help less-prepared students move upward; the other group of students already arrive with strong cultural capital, parental guidance, and the skills needed to navigate competitive academic programs on their own.
The Mobility Pathway and the Professional Pathway
In the Striver group, these students remain at MU—often because of financial limits, family obligations, or lack of advising—while these students transfer out in search of a better academic fit or stronger mobility pathway.
Stayers vs Leavers
Women who push back against Greek norms or fail to fit the sorority mold risk being assigned this label, marking them as unfeminine, unfriendly, or socially threatening. they are placed in the _____of the floor
Dark side
An honors student impresses professors with her academic confidence and vocabulary, which leads to invitations to join research teams, eventually helping her land a high-paying job after graduation.
Cultural → social → economic
Language (cultural) → Joining Research Teams (social) → Job (economic).
Affluent women gain safety, status, and opportunity from party culture, while less privileged women face risk, exclusion, and downward mobility. The interaction of these two concepts explains how gendered expectations are experienced very differently depending on a woman’s access to economic, social, and cultural resources. What interaction do you see here?
Gender and Social Class