Elena G. van Stee

@elenavanstee.bsky.social

1451 Followers 405 Following

PhD Candidate in Sociology @upenn.edu | Fellow in Sociology @harvard.edu | Incoming managing editor @contexts.org‬ | www.elenavanstee.com

Harvard Sociology Culture and Social Analysis Workshop (Elena van Stee and Guillermina Altomonte)
In Brief: Whose parents are paying? by Elena G. Van Stee | February 5, 2025 | Fall 2024 Media coverage of race and higher education in the United States often portrays Asian American and White families as competing for limited seats at prestigious institutions. What happens, though, when it’s time for those admitted students to go to school? New research aims to untangle patterns in these families’ college spending. The study, published by Kimberly Goyette and colleagues in Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, uses data from the 2015-2016 academic year drawn from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS). In their analysis, the authors find that Asian American parents paid more for their children’s college education compared to White parents, despite having lower average incomes. In part, this reflects the fact that Asian American college students were more likely to attend selective schools. But, by acknowledging the under-acknowledged diversity within the Asian American group and breaking the data down by immigrant generation, the scholars note important nuance. Parental spending was highest among three ethnic groups—Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Americans—and among recent immigrants. In fact, by the third generation in the United States, differences in Asian American and White parents’ college spending were no longer significant.
Freelance social science editing: copyediting, developmental editing, research translation.
Situational Fluidity and the Use of Identity Labels in Interactions (Andy Holmes & Amin Ghaziani) Abstract The number of people who identify as LGBTQ+ more than doubled in the past decade, and with this growth has come an upsurge of expressive identity labels. However, that there are more labels available does not explain how people decide which to use. On the basis of 52 interviews, the authors show that LGBTQ+ people adopt multiple terms and adjust their usage relative to the interactional demands at hand. Inspired by research in psychology and population studies on sexual fluidity, the authors call the sociological variant situational fluidity. Two pathways motivate it. First, respondents anchor newer labels with established terms in the interest of smoother interpersonal interactions. Second, anticipating resistance encourages some individuals to alter their preferred labels in order to buffer against possible policing or pushback. This process-based account offers an alternative to traditional linear models that propose the achievement of a self that is articulated with a single and stable term.
"Parenting gender, from left to right" (review of Mallory Rees & Abigail Saguy 2024, "Following a Child's Lead and Setting Kids Up for Success: Convergence and Divergence in Parenting Ideologies on the Political Right and Left" in Social Forces). Written by Elena G. van Stee (University of Pennsylvania) for Contexts Magazine)
Contexts blog: Q&A with Alondra Nelson
Contexts Magazine Fall 2024
CJ Pascoe & Elena van Stee