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Subscribe to Working-Class Perspectives - 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
Listen to Working-Class Perspective editor Sherry Linkon's recent interview about Working-Class Studies on KERA's Think with Krys Boyd.Links
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Category Archives: Class and Education
How Their Silence Diminishes Us
Dear [REDACTED], I’ve started this letter too many times. A few weeks ago, we stood at opposite ends of a small apartment. I’m new to being part of gatherings like this, so I watched warily from the sidelines of the … Continue reading
Making Sense of Working-Class Work
Forty years ago this July, I left school to start my first career as a railway worker. At sixteen and with few if any qualifications, I was lucky to find a good job which was fully unionised. As the union … Continue reading
Posted in Class and Education, Contributors, Issues, Tim Strangleman, Work
Tagged working conditions, working-class jobs
1 Comment
Class Ceilings
Most of us have stopped believing in the myth of the meritocracy. The myth promises that the ablest or most intelligent or hardest working get ahead of the rest. Most everyone realizes this is not true, yet we continue to … Continue reading
Deadbeat Creditors and Other Tales of Moral Hazard
Some twenty years ago, three years out of law school, my partner and I attended a friend’s wedding in New Jersey. Both of us had racked up a lot of debt and were struggling to find permanent jobs in NYC. … Continue reading
Working-class Academics in Poland: Translating working-class studies into the post-communist context
When I encountered Western working-class studies for the first time, I was a little bit confused. Being born in Poland a few years before the democratic change of 1989, I was raised to value Western culture over so-called “relics of … Continue reading
Posted in Class and Education, Contributors, Guest Bloggers, Issues
Tagged working class in Poland, working-class academics
1 Comment
Hope and Concern: The WCSA’s 2022 Award Winners
Great plagues subvert our expectations about how things work, opening up new opportunities and widespread mobilization for social change. According to one massive study of historical epidemics, “civil unrest” often follows – as we are seeing now. Whatever direction the … Continue reading
Posted in Allison L. Hurst, Class and Education, Class and Health, Class and the Media, Class at the Intersections, Contributors, Issues, The Working Class and the Economy, Understanding Class, Working-Class Culture
Tagged WCSA, work and class, working-class poetry, working-class studies, Working-Class Studies Association
1 Comment
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
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