- Working-Class Perspectives offers weekly commentaries on current issues related to working-class people and communities. Contributors discuss a variety of issues, from what class means to how it intersects with race and gender to how class is shaping American politics. We welcome relevant comments of 500 words or less.
For questions or comments about this blog, e-mail Sherry Linkon. For assistance with news stories about working-class politics and culture, call or e-mail John Russo, 330-207-8085. Categories
Archives
The State of the Working Class
Listen to Working-Class Perspective editor Sherry Linkon's recent interview about Working-Class Studies on KERA's Think with Krys Boyd.Working-Class Studies on Moyers & Company
Why Springsteen Voters Have Fled the Democratic Party
Hillary Clinton Needs to Declare the Trade War Lost
What Trump's Youngstown Problem Says About Campaign 2016
No Passes for Stereotyping -- Of Any Kind
Beyond Working-Class Stereotypes
The Half-Life of Deindustrialization: Donald Trump Is Just a Symptom
How Clinton and Kaine Can Make Youngstown a Call for Unity
Why Trump Is in Youngstown
What We Can Learn from Melania Trump's, Um, Flattery of Michelle Obama
To Really Understand Working-Class Voters, Read These BooksLinks
Blogroll
Category Archives: Issues
Amplified Advantage: Why Education Is Not the Answer to Our Class Problems
Thirty years ago, after having dropped out of college after just one term, unable to pay for my dorm room, I was unsure if I would ever leave the working class. Two years later I was a student at Barnard … Continue reading
Posted in Allison L. Hurst, Class and Education, Contributors, Issues
Tagged higher education, inequality, working-class students
3 Comments
Re-Placing Class: Community, Politics, Work, and Labor in a Changing World
This week, we’re posting something a little different: the call for papers for this year’s Working-Class Studies Association conference. This year’s gathering marks the 25th anniversary of the conference that led to the founding of the Center for Working-Class Studies, … Continue reading
National Labor Relations Board Twists the Knife in the Heart of Unions and Workers
It may be hard to remember, but the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is supposed to ensure the right of workers to organize and safeguard the stated public policy expounded in the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which favors collective … Continue reading
Posted in Contributors, Issues, Labor and Community Activism, Wade Rathke
Tagged Labor law, NLRB, Unions, workers' rights
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Sanders or Warren? Populist-Progressivism or New Deal? Take Your Pick!
Despite their general agreement on specific issues, the two most left-wing candidates for the 2020 Democratic Party nomination, Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, have embraced different ideological markers. Sanders calls himself a “democratic socialist” and his near-miss 2016 primary … Continue reading
Posted in Contributors, Guest Bloggers, Issues, Working-Class Politics
Tagged 2020 election, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, New Deal, Populism, Progressivism
3 Comments
Counting on Class: The Continuing Appeal of Meritocracy
Neither faith in nor critiques of the idea of meritocracy is new. Michael Young’s famous 1958 book The Rise of Meritocracy argued that class privilege and advantage were likely to be amplified as financial and cultural capital passed across generations … Continue reading
Posted in Contributors, Issues, Tim Strangleman, Understanding Class
Tagged inequality, meritocracy
2 Comments
En Guerre: Populism and a Plant Closing in France
Stéphane Brizé’s En Guerre (At War), released in France in 2018 and in the United States this July, tells the story a car factory closing in Agen, a small company town in the southwest of France. In this grim and … Continue reading