Current Attitudes and Socialization Patterns of White and Negro Students Entering College

Abstract

The new norms confronting the incoming college student, with the subsequent challenges and reorganization of familiar behavior patterns, are intensified for students who are educationally and socially mobile. Typically, college attendance for Negro students reflects a pattern of upward mobility. Negro colleges have been a major agency for selecting and socializing as well as providing credentials for upward mobility.1 For the white student, college attendance may be viewed as a process for maintaining status as well as social striving. Clark and Plotkin2 reported that graduates of segregated high schools in the South showed the lowest drop-out rate in college and received better-than-average college grades despite their consistently lower scholastic aptitude test scores positing a motivational hypothesis to account for their conclusions: non-graduation means falling back into