- 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
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The State of the Working Class
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Category Archives: Class and Education
Paying the Poorly Educated
Joe Biden was right to propose free Pre-K education for 3- and 4-year-olds and free community college in his initial legislative package, rather than pushing for free public university education and the cancellation of college debt. All four progressive education … Continue reading
The Power of Recognizing Higher Ed Faculty as Working-Class
Just over 20 years ago, Michael Zweig published The Working Class Majority: America’s Best Kept Secret. At that year’s How Class Works conference at SUNY Stony Brook, academics from history, political science, labor and industrial relations, and other fields debated … Continue reading
What bell hooks meant to me
In the final month of a horrible year of many tragedies and too many deaths, we lost bell hooks, a writer, scholar, and activist whose work has had a profound influence on many of us. I want to add my … Continue reading
Working-Class Scholars and Activists Bringing Change
At the beginning of 2021, I asked whether life for working-class people would get any better now that everyone understood that working-class people keep societies running. I wasn’t very optimistic about bosses or governments doing much to stem job insecurity … Continue reading
Toxic Class Encounters
It’s thirty years this autumn since I began my undergraduate degree at Durham University in the North East of England. To tell you the truth I didn’t know much about the city before I applied there. My visit for the … Continue reading
Posted in Class and Education, Contributors, Issues, Tim Strangleman
Tagged class privilege, classism, Durham University, working-class students
5 Comments
The Hidden Price of an Education: Black and Working-Class in Academe
In August 2004, I entered a doctoral program at Carnegie Mellon University. My family is from Braddock, Pennsylvania, a largely black neighborhood with working-class roots, and they were ecstatic that I would be their first doctor. I did not know … Continue reading
Essential Work: The 2020 WCSA Awards
At the center of all the chaos and turmoil of 2020 has been the essential worker on the front lines—from healthcare workers treating those infected with COVID-19 to service workers of all kinds who have kept us fed, supplied, and … Continue reading
The Class System of Higher Ed Goes Online
Most American colleges and universities moved courses online over the last week. That shift highlights the class disparities of higher education. For example, at Georgetown, by the time the University President announced that classes were moving online, more than 30 … Continue reading
A Punishment with No End: The Journey of a Working-Class Criminal into Academia
We call ourselves the flower pot kids after the floral themed street names the local council assigned in a vain if well-meaning attempt to brighten up an otherwise dreary area. The council-owned social housing consisted of tattered prefabricated buildings from … Continue reading
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
4 Comments