Body Capital Research

This project aims to provide essential evidence related to Body Capital– the amount of energy or effort that someone has available to spend on life tasks (including education), encompassing all the resources that “live in the body”: physical, mental, and psychological (Wladis et al., 2024). Our conceptualization of Body Capital draws from research across disciplines that provide evidence of physical, psychological, and mental resources that  can be depleted or accumulated, are exchangeable for other forms of capital, and that may help explain unequal higher education outcomes. This research builds on ongoing interdisciplinary collaboration to investigate structural and environmental factors in higher education that impact students’ access to Body Capital as a resource for college.