It’s poverty and inequality that undercut Boston’s brightest
“Jack’s research included more than 100 interviews with a diverse group of students and spanned two years of ethnographical observation at an unnamed elite university. In his book, he draws distinctions among disadvantaged students, rather than treating them as a monolithic group. Some poor students — whom Jack describes as the privileged poor — had mentors and experiences that taught them how to navigate a college campus and take advantage of the resources offered there. Others arrived with little knowledge of what would be expected of them.”