TY - JOUR
T1 - The Geek Instinct
T2 - Theorizing Cultural Alignment in Disadvantaged Contexts
AU - Puckett, Cassidy
AU - Nelson, Jennifer L.
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding The research reported here was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences; U.S. Department of Education, through Grant R305B080027 to Northwestern University; as well as a National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant #1303682; a Northwestern University Sociology Department MacArthur Research Grant; a Graduate Research Grant from Northwestern University; a Technology Grant from the Information Technology Group at Northwestern University; an American Council of Learned Societies/ Andrew W. Mellon Dissertation Completion Fellowship; and support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation through the Emerging Scholars’ Group at Arizona State University. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute of Education Sciences, the U.S. Department of Education, or other supporting parties.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2019/3/15
Y1 - 2019/3/15
N2 - Research suggests poor outcomes among children raised in disadvantaged contexts are a consequence of cultural mismatch, that is, competing practices that create conditions too weak to support positive outcomes. While useful, research is limited in its primary focus on individual social spheres and, as a result, does not yet fully account for dynamics across spheres. It also fails to explain the puzzling case of why some children from disadvantaged contexts succeed. To address this, we propose a cultural alignment framework that considers the interaction between organizational routines, cultural practices, and the habits children carry across spheres. Using the case of technological competence, we find that children’s habits can exert force and shift cultural practice to produce alignment in unexpected ways, such as opening additional learning experiences at school—but only if children fit within organizational routines, making the organization more flexible to their individual action. More broadly, the cultural alignment framework can be used to understand dynamics across social spheres, the conditions under which alignment can occur, and how these dynamics shape learning in such settings as higher education and employment.
AB - Research suggests poor outcomes among children raised in disadvantaged contexts are a consequence of cultural mismatch, that is, competing practices that create conditions too weak to support positive outcomes. While useful, research is limited in its primary focus on individual social spheres and, as a result, does not yet fully account for dynamics across spheres. It also fails to explain the puzzling case of why some children from disadvantaged contexts succeed. To address this, we propose a cultural alignment framework that considers the interaction between organizational routines, cultural practices, and the habits children carry across spheres. Using the case of technological competence, we find that children’s habits can exert force and shift cultural practice to produce alignment in unexpected ways, such as opening additional learning experiences at school—but only if children fit within organizational routines, making the organization more flexible to their individual action. More broadly, the cultural alignment framework can be used to understand dynamics across social spheres, the conditions under which alignment can occur, and how these dynamics shape learning in such settings as higher education and employment.
KW - Alignment
KW - Cultural mismatch
KW - Habit
KW - Organizational routines
KW - Social spheres
KW - Technology
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U2 - 10.1007/s11133-019-9408-4
DO - 10.1007/s11133-019-9408-4
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85061197239
SN - 0162-0436
VL - 42
SP - 25
EP - 48
JO - Qualitative Sociology
JF - Qualitative Sociology
IS - 1
ER -