CIVIC LEARNING FOR SHARED FUTURES

v o l . 1 1 , n o . 3 | F A LL 2 0 0 8

Class on Campus: Breaking the Silence

Surrounding Socioeconomics

vice president for planning and enrollment management at California State

University-Dominguez Hills
Susan E. Borrego,

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

FEATURED Topic
Socioeconomic class has dramatic
effects on opportunity within and beyond
collegeyet it is a challenging topic of
conversation for students and faculty
alike. This issue of Diversity & Democracy
provides some tools to guide difficult
discussions about class in the hopes
of creating more inclusive campuses
and a more equitable world beyond.

ISSUE HIGHLIGHTS
04 | Dont Lose Your Working-Class

Students
07 | Raising Awareness of Class Privilege

Among Students
10 | Stratified Learning: Responding

to the Class System of Higher

Education
12 | Race and Class: Taking Action at the

Intersections

As bell hooks has said, Nowhere is there a more intense silence about the reality of
class difference than in educational settings (2000). On college and university campuses, everyday practices and policies are embedded with unexamined class assumptions, and individuals experience classed norms in powerful ways. Yet there is little
consciousness about how class affects campus climates and individual lives. In order to
improve our educational settings, we must identify the class-based norms embedded
in how we conduct business, how we organize curricula, what we teach, and how we
shape all these questions. By recognizing our biases, we will create more inclusive
learning environments governed by more complex understandings of diversity.
Unexamined and Invisible
In the United States, there is little discussion about social class. The deeply held but
inaccurate notion that America is a classless society stifles many conversations about
the impact of class in our lives. Furthermore, the recognition that class is an issue
challenges the core American belief that people can pick themselves up by their bootstraps. American history includes some true rags to riches stories. But these obscure
how class background typically shapes opportunity in a culture where the single most
reliable predictor of ones class status is the class status of ones father (Bee 1987).
Admittedly, class in America is a complex topic. Multiple definitions of class,
disagreement about the significance of class background, and ambiguity about
class categories all complicate our attempts to understand the subject. For many
years sociologists have studied economic stratification but have made few attempts
to examine how class shapes life experiences. But, as Julio Alves has said, even if
the definition of class evades usthe consequences certainly dont (2006).
To understand these consequences, we must first understand how class shapes
individual lives, social policy, and educational opportunity. In order to create
a more diverse and inclusive educational community and to use a class lens as
a resource, we must acknowledge the complexities that surround identity.
Multiple Identities
Janet Zandy describes class as an aspect of shared economic circumstances and
shared social and cultural practices in relationship to positions of power. [Class]
shapes our lives and intersects with race, ethnicity, gender and geography in profound
ways (1996). In order to build inclusive environments, we must understand how these
multiple identities can also intersect to form an interlocking system of oppression
(Linkon 1999). In other words, we must understand our own relationships to power.
In reality, individual lives involve multiple and dynamic overlapping identities.
While working-class people, for example, may share common experiences related to

v o l . 1 1 , n o . 3 | F A LL 2 0 0 8

C o n te n ts

A B OU T T H I S I S S U E

Class on Campus

On an abstract level, the United States is a country fixated on socioeconomic

status. Americans routinely note the growing divide between rich and poor while
immersed in a wealth-obsessed culture that those who talk of the American
Dream frame as widely accessible. Yet on an interpersonal level, Americans are
quiet about class, a still-taboo topic in polite conversation. This silence extends
to the halls of higher education, where belief in meritocracy and discomfort with
ones status can quickly shut down discourse.
The history of class-based critique in education is rich and complex. But as
economic pressures and political maneuvering deepen socioeconomic divides,
it is more important than ever that we all join the conversation. Socioeconomic
status influences where students are likely to attend college and how they fare
when they arrive. Student success depends not just on programs and policies, but
also on campus climatesand new innovations in liberal education cut across
all these domains. By opening the door to conversation, this issue of Diversity &
Democracy suggests methods to create more inclusive campus cultures, while
providing students with a lens that enhances their ability to effect change, both in
college and beyond.

04 | D
 ont Lose Your Working-Class
Students
07 | R
 aising Awareness of Class
Privilege Among Students
10 | S tratified Learning: Responding
to the Class System of Higher
Education
12 | R
 ace and Class: Taking Action at
the Intersections
Perspectives
14 | C
 lass, at Vanderbilt? Breaking the
Silence at an Elite Institution
15 | E ngaging with Contradiction by
Engaging with Community
Campus Practice
16 | F inding Context: Teaching About
Class through Local History
18 | U
 nderstanding Socioeconomic
Difference: Studies in Poverty and
Human Capability
Research Report
20 | R
 ecent Research on
Socioeconomic Status and Higher
Education
For More
22 | In Print
23 | Resources
23 | Opportunities

Published by the Association of American Colleges and

Universities, 1818 R Street, NW, Washington, DC 20009;
tel 202.387.3760; fax 202.265.9532. Diversity & Democracy
(formerly Diversity Digest) is published three times
per year and is available at www.diversityweb.org/
DiversityDemocracy.
Note: The opinions expressed by individual authors in
Diversity & Democracy are their own and are not necessarily
those of the Diversity & Democracy editors or AAC&U.

VOL. 11, NO. 3

economic or social vulnerability, their

experiences differ based on other aspects
of identity. Working-class people of
color often experience different forms
of marginalization related to racial
identity. The same is true of gender
and class, sexual orientation and class,
geography and class, etc. There is no
single class identity: class is always
experienced through multiple lenses.
Even if we recognize these intersections, we often arent very skillful at
describing them. Consequently, our
conversations can dissolve into competitions over who is most marginalized,
distracting from powerful opportunities
to build bridges across difference. By
developing class consciousness that
attends to multiple identities, we increase
our ability to provide effective leadership,
create diverse environments, and expand
the foundations of knowledge. We
thus open the door to more integrated
learning experiences for all students.
Class in the Academy
The practice of exploring class in the
classroom has powerful implications for
all students. Helping students understand their own relationships to power is

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES

an important first step toward engaging

diverse communities. This understanding is important both for workingclass students, who often feel that they
do not fit into the academic environment, and for students of relative class
privilege, who often are unconscious of
how certain advantages shape their lives.
Like work related to white privilege,
discussions of class privilege can be
emotional for students and faculty.
Embedded assumptions about class and
merit, including what is lazy or productive and who qualifies as poor, can
quickly create tension in a discussion. A
stigma attaches to identifying oneself as
working class, with students often feeling
shame about admitting that their experiences are different from their classmates
(one student described not wanting her
classmates to know that her mother
worked as a custodian at their school).
At the same time, middle- and uppermiddle-class students may find it easier
to deny their privilege than to admit the
ways class status has benefitted them.
Further complicating these explorations is the fact that education has long
functioned as a way out of the economic
restrictions associated with being working

CIVIC LEARNING FOR SHARED FUTURES

class. The culture of higher education,
however, sends both subtle and explicit
messages to working-class students,
encouraging them to leave their communities (and even their identities) behind
in order to be successful in the academy.
Laura Rendn (1996) has described the
space working-class students occupy,
located between working-class (home)
culture and middle/upper-class (university) culture, as border living. In
order for students to have holistic and
welcoming learning experiences, educators must identify strategies to assist
students in negotiating border living.
Rethinking Middle-Class Norms
If education is a way out of workingclass culture, this is not unrelated to
the fact that institutional practices are
embedded within middle-class norms.
If we are committed to creating more
inclusive learning communities, we must
critically examine our institutions and
our practices to unmask how classism
manifests in organizational structures,
whether through the texts we use,
how our classes are organized, or how
we reflect on our social locations.
Scholarly disciplines have broadened
the base of knowledge by illuminating
what and who has been missing from
canons, historical analyses, and scientific
questions. For example, the practice
of excluding women or people of
color as subjects of study or voices of
authority at one time went unexamined.
Scholarship about race and gender has
now revitalized disciplines. Similarly,
we need to unmask narrow constructions of class that diminish scholarship
and limit learning experiences.
When choosing textbooks, for
instance, do we include material that
helps students develop capacities to
examine the complexities of class? Do
we offer multiple class perspectives so
working-class students can see themselves as much as middle-class students
can? A sociology professor who taught

social stratification for twenty years

realized that her own middle-class
training led her to teach theoretical
constructs without considering the
lived implications of class for her
students. She redesigned the course,
expanded examples, and incorporated
experiential knowledge. Exploring the
lived reality of class became a common
investigation for her students, generating rich conversations, revealing
complex differences, and producing
deeper understandings of the course
material. She transformed the learning
experience by breaking the unspoken
norms that had excluded the knowledge
and experiences of some students.
Recommitting to Inclusive
Institutions
The Association of American Colleges
and Universities has argued that we
must educate for a just and equitable
future (Schneider 2007). Fulfilling
this commitment undoubtedly involves
cultivating a deeper understanding
of how social class shapes lives and
institutions. By examining our practices
through a class-based lens, we can
develop more complex understandings of
diversity and more integrated, inclusive
learning experiences for our students.
A commitment to educating the
whole student requires knowing who
students are, what challenges they face,
and what experiences they bring to college. Educators must develop cultural
competency skills to effectively facilitate
across difference. Institutions, too, must
develop policies and programs that support warmer climates for working-class
students, including orientation and
transition programs that help workingclass students learn the unwritten rules
of college. And students, regardless
of their class identity, must develop
knowledge and cultural competence
that includes an understanding of class.
As we make these changes in our
institutions, we must recognize that

class perspectives, like those related

to race and gender, offer a critical lens
for our work. Though a great deal
of work related to race and gender
remains, we have made some progress
related to these issues thanks in large
part to perspectives provided by new
ways of seeing and new disciplines.
Forty years ago, formal womens
studies programs did not exist. Today
the discipline has shaped pedagogical
approaches, institutional practices,
and even what counts as knowledge.
Imagine what might be possible if
working-class studies did the same.
By inviting class culture to influence
our practice and pedagogyand by
opening up the discussion about class
on campus, as this issue of Diversity
& Democracy attempts to dowe can
assist students in tapping their unique
class positions as a source of power
and prepare them to become classconscious leaders in the world at large.
In doing so, we answer Laura Rendns
call to create a new consciousness
in the academic borderlandsone
that heals, one that connects diverse
cultures, languages, realities, and
ways of knowing (1996).

<

Refe r e n c es
Alves, J. 2006. Class struggles. Chronicle of Higher

Education 53 (8): B5. chronicle.com/weekly/

v53/i08/08b00501.htm.
Bee, H. L. 1987. The journey of adulthood. New
York: Macmillan Publishing Company.
hooks, b. 2000. Where we stand: Class matters.
New York: Routledge.
Linkon, S. 1999. Teaching working class. Amherst,
MA: University of Massachusetts Press.
Rendn, L. I. 1992. From the barrio to the
academy: Revelations of a Mexican American
scholarship girl. In L.S. Zwerling & H. B.
London (Eds.), First-generation students: confronting the cultural issues (pp 55-64). San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Schneider, C. G. 2007. Civic learning in a diverse
democracy: Education for shared futures.
Diversity & Democracy 10:3. www.diversityweb.
org/DiversityDemocracy/vol10no3/schneider.
cfm
Zandy, J. 1996. Decloaking class: Why class identity and consciousness count. Race, Gender &
Class 5 (1): 7-23.

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES

VOL. 11, NO. 3

[Class on Campus]

Dont Lose Your Working-Class

Students
and Heidi Bulmahn Barker, all assistant professors in the
department of education at Regis University
Elizabeth Grassi, Joan Armon,

In the halls of the teacher education

department at our small liberal arts
university, the three of us often talk
about the same issues concerning
students in our program who worry
us. The issues seem to grow out of a
common characteristic some struggling students share: a working-class
background. Two of the three of us
are from working-class families, and

Wesleys Story
Wesley enrolled in our university on a
sports scholarship. He attended several
other institutions beforehand and was
the first in his family to go to college.
Wesley remembered times in his childhood when his family did not have
enough money for necessities, especially
during periods when his father was
unemployed. When he enrolled in his

For working-class students, the ability to draw

connections between their lives, courses of study,
and future jobs is essential.
financing college was a problem for all
three of us, so we understand the challenges facing working-class students.
After much reading and consultation, we identified some strategies that
wed like to share. Since developing
them, weve deliberately tried to apply
the strategies in our classes and our
department. We want to show solidarity
with our students from working-class
homes who may feel isolated among
peers from middle- and upper-middleclass families. Working-class students
need to know that their perspectives
are valued in courses throughout the
curriculum, and we are finding that our
students benefit from the consistent
and predictable approaches we have
introduced in our courses in English as
a second language, literacy, and special
education. To illustrate what were
doing, we present a case study of the
progress of one working-class student in
our department, Wesley (a pseudonym).
4

VOL. 11, NO. 3

first upper-level education class in our

department, he had a very low grade
point average and a reputation for
not taking classes or coursework seriously. From the start, Wesley resisted
course requirements that were not
immediately relevant or important to
him. He needed help connecting the
material discussed in class with his
work in his teaching internships.
Wesley was placed at Oakton
Elementary School in Ms. Nemises class.
Most of the schools students were from
low-income families. Many of them
were second language learners, and the
teacher was from Mexico. This context
presented challenges for Wesley, because
the school was underfunded and Ms.
Nemise (a pseudonym), although fluent
in Spanish and Mexican culture, was
not fluent in academic English. Ms.
Nemise desperately wanted the children
in the class to have access to the cultural
and linguistic knowledge and skills

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES

that could promote their success in the

United States. Her concern for their
welfare led her to create a partnership
with Wesley. Ms. Nemise taught Wesley
about linguistic and cultural expectations for children coming from Mexico,
and Wesley explained to the class the
cultural and linguistic components of
academic success in the United States.
Ms. Nemise called on Wesley to teach
the students regularly even though he
was a student in an educational methods
course rather than a student teacher.
Wesley was forced to broaden his
cultural knowledge in order to teach
effectively. For example, when Ms.
Nemise asked Wesley to teach the class
mathematical concepts, he quickly
discovered that the traditional approach
he had used in other placements did
not work well in this classroom. He
turned to Ms. Nemise and the students
to find out how mathematical concepts
are approached in their country of
origin. Once he understood the perspective of the students, he was able to
use their background knowledge as a
launching pad for lessons and successfully complete the math curriculum.
When school personnel discovered that Wesley was a basketball
player, they asked him to start an
after-school program. He developed
a basketball club with children of all
ages. When he noticed some mothers
standing out in the hallway waiting,
he invited them in and expanded the
club to include parents as well.
This placement was a turning point
for Wesley. He started coming to class
regularly, completing assignments,
and actively contributing to class
discussions. His professors highlighted
Wesleys experience in the classroom,
and gave him the space to tell his
classmates not only about the successful
lessons or programs he conducted in
his school placements, but also about
his background and its contribution
to his successful teaching practices.

CIVIC LEARNING FOR SHARED FUTURES

Wesley also started visiting our
offices regularly, spending time talking
about his placements and how much he
enjoyed working with children. He was
pleased about the positive impact he
was having on them and their families.
We exchanged our stories with Wesley,
discovering that we shared common
elements in our histories. In short,
Wesley became an engaged, motivated
education student and received job
offers in every placement thereafter.
Connections
One component of Wesleys success
was his perception that his elementary
school placement was relevant to his
college coursework. Other workingclass students in our program also
talk to us periodically about their
perceived need for their courses to
have real-world application. Richard A.
Greenwald and Elizabeth Grant write
in Border Crossings, published in
the 1999 book Teaching Working Class,
about the importance of engaging
working-class students in meaningful
activities that offer them concrete outcomes. Placing Wesley in a low-income
school with at risk children prompted
him to use instructional strategies
from his coursework to communicate
effectively with non-English-speaking
students. He saw the results of his
actions immediately, which motivated
him to become a better teacher. Wesley
consulted his professors about how to
make lessons more comprehensible to
non-English-speaking students, asking
the Spanish speakers among them for
translations of English phrases so that
children could better understand him.
For working-class students, the
ability to draw connections between
their lives, courses of study, and future
jobs is essential. Wesleys school placement, in conjunction with course
discussions, readings, and presentations,
helped him to see the connections
between his background and his

chosen profession. Education

researchers stress
that working-class
students should be
allowed to make
connections in
class between their
observations and
personal histories
and classroom
material.
Drawing on students experiences
in class discussions is an effective
way to tackle issues of social class.
When Wesley began working with children from economic backgrounds that
mirrored his own, he reflected on his
memories from childhood of living with
scarce resources to help him to understand the childrens situation. Doing so
enabled him to make deep connections
with the children and their parents as
well as his own past. In Oakton classrooms, Wesley was able to build on his
strong belief in the educational system
as a tool for moving up the economic
ladder. The connections he made
between his experience and that of his
students surfaced not only in the energy
and commitment Wesley brought to the
school, but also in the rapport he built
with families. Mothers regularly brought
him gifts of food before school. When
we visited him at Oakton, every child
in the school seemed to know him.
A Matter of Trust
Trust between working-class students
and their professors and teachers
in school placements appears to be
essential to the students success. We
find that working-class students, even
more so than students from other
class backgrounds, respond well to
being trusted with responsibility. Many
have taken on significant responsibilities in the home earlier than
their middle- or upper-class peers.

Bates College

Wesley developed trust in educational institutions as he immersed

himself in his school placement,
which provided opportunities for
him to demonstrate his strengths.
He was desperately needed by the
school, the teacher, the children,
and their families. His strengths
compassion for children in need and
a passion for working with children
from low-income homeswere
highly valued at Oakton. When Ms.
Nemise relied on Wesley to teach
lessons and other school personnel
asked him to organize after-school
activities, Wesley took these responsibilities seriously and asked us, his
professors, to help him translate
and create lessons. When he visited
our offices, we worked with him to
make further connections between
his coursework, his upbringing,
and his practical experience.
Some research has found that
working-class students have a sinkor-swim philosophy and maintain an
emotional toughness that prevents
them from reaching out to faculty
when they are failing or need help
(see the article by Janet Galligani
Casey in the JulyAugust 2005 issue
of Academe). By placing Wesley in a
situation that allowed him to make
his strengths apparent, we opened the
door to his having conversations with
professorsconversations based on

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES

VOL. 11, NO. 3

his successes rather than his failures.

To include working-class students
in higher education, we have to first
make them comfortable. We did so
with Wesley by sharing our own
stories with him and encouraging him
to share his stories from a platform
of strength. We built trust, and over
the course of two years, he opened
up about his academic difficulties.
We responded by working with him
at a departmental level to address
gaps in his writing and other academic skills and pointed him toward
financial resources and emotional
support to help him graduate and
complete his teacher licensure.
Although Wesley is highly marketable in any school district, he chose
to work at one of the poorest schools
in the area. His positive impact on
the students, school, and community continues. We now know, after
working with Wesley and others like
him, that we can take positive action
to support our students through the
college and teacher licensure experience. Although not all working-class
students aspire to teach children in
low-income schools, we now intervene
much more directly to encourage
the sometimes latent talents of our
working-class students and the passionate commitment many of them
have to children in low-income areas.
We coach them on how to handle college and point out its relevancy to the
practical world. We explicitly make
connections between coursework
and practice in a way that coincides
with the students working-class histories and their desire to help others
improve their lives through education.
We build trust by carefully selecting
school placements where our students
will be entrusted with significant
responsibilities that highlight their
strengths and create safe spaces for
them to reveal and confront challenges, whether personal or academic.
6

VOL. 11, NO. 3

Several of the working-class students in our department are dealing

with financial burdens, domestic
conflicts, caretaking responsibilities,
or the inability to attend class and
complete assignments consistently.
We meet regularly as a department to
brainstorm about how best to work
with each student. Drawing from
our list of strategies, we tailor our
responses to the particular student.
Our approaches typically involve
mentoring students in academic or
other skills (such as interviewing),
checking in with them regularly
about their overall well-being, or
visiting them in school placements
to let them know that we have a
personal investment in their success.
The challenge for us, of course, is
finding the time for such extra efforts.
And sometimes we fail, even after
weve tried strategies such as creating
an individual goal-setting plan with a
student. If we find that a student is not
capable of or committed to becoming
a teacher who can make a positive
difference for children, we work with
our campus career services department
to counsel the student out of teacher
education and into another field.
Our first goal in spending extra
time and effort to support our
working-class students is, however,
to prevent them from dropping out
of teacher education. Our task is collaborative: the students must adapt to
the requirements of our college and
our states teacher-licensure program,
and we must adapt the program
to our students and their distinctive needs and talents. We see the
potential of diamonds in the rough,
and if we make initial efforts to get
to know working-class students and
support them, and if the students
respond, we can usually guide them
to success. A good number of them
have in fact graduated from the
program and are employed in local

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES

school districts where their mentors

in the field speak highly of them.
Our next goal is to collect
longitudinal data on teacher and
student performance and teacher
retention so that we can answer
more questions about our students
and our strategies, such as:
n Did we help our working-class

students find their calling

in life? If so, what strategies
helped us accomplish this?
n Do we approach male students differently from female
students and, if so, how?
n What more might we learn
about what students workingclass backgrounds bring to
their teaching experiences?
n Does a working-class background help students become
more successful than more
privileged students in the field?
If so, in what contexts?
As more students from low-income
homes attend school, teachers from
low-income, working-class backgrounds are needed more than ever
to understand, nurture, and teach
students what they need to do to reach
their own potential. Human talent
is precious, and we cannot afford to
ignore the passion, expertise, and
energy of our Wesleysqualities that
many children in our nations schools
are waiting for and deserve.

<

Refe r e n c es
Casey, J. G. 2005. Diversity, discourse, and the

working-class student. Academe 91 (4).

Greenwald, R. A. , and E. Grant. 1999. Border

crossings: Working-class encounters in higher

education. In Teaching working class, ed. S. L.
Linkon, 28-38. Amherst, MA: University of
Massachusetts Press.

Editors Note: This article originally appeared

in the SeptemberOctober 2006 issue of Academe

and is reprinted by permission of the American
Association of University Professors, which holds the
copyright.

CIVIC LEARNING FOR SHARED FUTURES

[Class on CampuS]

Raising Awareness of Class

Privilege Among Students
Rory Gilbert,

manager of Diversity Initiatives for Maricopa County Community College District

Class privilege is the elephant in the

room when it comes to diversity education. Students who willingly wrestle
with race, gender, sexual orientation,
and religion often balk at exploring
class privilege, which threatens the
fundamental myth that all people in
the United States enjoy equal access to
opportunity. Yet unexplored beliefs about
class impact the policies, practices, and
relationships that shape our lives. Our
students, the next generation of workers,
community leaders, and global citizens,
must recognize class privilege to break
down systemic barriers to opportunity. How can educators successfully
teach students about class identity?
Preparing to Introduce High-Level
Concepts
Privilege and class are high-level concepts for students and teachers striving
to discuss diversity in the classroom, and
preparatory work is critical. As educators
work to create an environment where
students can safely explore challenging
concepts, some fundamental rules apply:
1. Students need to feel validated
and respected. Guilt and blame are
not effective tools in moving people
forward in social justice work:
they simply increase resistance.
2. Students learn through their own
processes of discovery. They need to experience principles in action, and they need
to identify for themselves what changes
are necessary in order to feel invested
in change. Thus diversity education is
developmental work: educators must
meet people where they are, leading
them on their own journeys of discovery
by building their capacity for change.

3. People need to feel connected

to the subject at hand. Diversity
work is ultimately about relationships, which is why experiential and
synergistic learning is so important.

is complex, includes everyone, and

is not a code word for some people.
Students should recognize that they
have many interrelated identities and
identify their connections with others.
Unmasking dominant group invisibility
is important: when discussing race,
for instance, encourage white students
to recognize that they have a race.
Third, the instructor should help
students develop skills in intergroup
communication, including empathy,
perspective taking, and comfort with

Privilege and class are high-level concepts for students

and teachers striving to discuss diversity in the classroom,
and preparatory work is critical.
These fundamental rules provide the
framework for a number of capacitybuilding guidelines. First, the instructor
needs to help learners create a community
that is safe and inclusive. Working as
a community to develop standards of
behavior can help. For example, the
instructor should be cognizant of the balance of voices in the classroom based on
privilege status and (without expressing
judgment) invite the class to find solutions to disparities in who speaks up.
Second, the instructor should help
students understand that diversity

ambiguity. The instructor should

provide opportunities to practice
intergroup communication, make
the process of intergroup dialogue
overt by naming it, and help students
process their experiences so they
feel validated for their efforts.
Finally, instructors need to ensure
that students understand key concepts
including socialization, social construction, hierarchy, and systemic
oppression (see Adams 2000 or
Johnson 2001 for background information). Without these frameworks,

University of Montana

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES

VOL. 11, NO. 3

students may personalize the concepts

of privilege and class rather than
understanding their systemic nature.
Example: Using Handedness to
Introduce Privilege
Discussion of handedness (adapted
from presentations by Steve Robbins)
is one way to introduce the concept of
privilege and minimize resistance before
engaging in more specific discussions
about class. Handedness does not carry
the emotional charge attached to other
differences in todays society. Although
left handedness is no longer associated with deviance, many people have
learned to use their nondominant right
hands to adapt. Left-handed people face
numerous daily obstacles, including the
risk of accidents caused by operating
instruments designed for right-handed
users. Yet right-handed people are often
unaware of the privileges they enjoy.
Handedness demonstrates many
concepts related to privilege:
a) Handedness is not chosen
or bestowed.
b) Right handedness is considered normal, while left handedness
has historically been perceived as
deviant, dangerous, and sinister.
c) The society may view left-handed
people as awkward or strange, and lefthanded people often believe this about
themselves (internalized oppression).
d) Left-handed people frequently
change their behaviors to fit into a
right-handed world (passing and
code shifting).
e) Right-handed people are
unconscious of the benefits they
receive (the privilege of ignorance).
f) Right-handed people cannot avoid
the benefits they receive, even when they
are conscious of the benefits (institutionalized and systemic nature of privilege).
Students accept handedness privilege
and recognize that they are not personally responsible for the oppression of
left-handed people. They understand
8

VOL. 11, NO. 3

that they have inherited a system that

benefits some and disadvantages others.
Once students have accepted handedness, they are more open to learning
about other privileged identities. I have
found that many people who experience nonprivileged status in other parts
of their lives appreciate this analogy.
The Challenge of Teaching about
Social Class
Social class is a taboo subject in the
United States. I have found that students
prefer to stratify the middle class into a
range of subclasses (lower-lower middle,
lower middle, middle middle, upper
middle, and upper-upper middle) rather
than identify themselves or others in
their peer group as either lower or upper
class. This behavior is not specific to
students, nor is it specific to those of a
certain socioeconomic status: people
with annual incomes from $20,000 to
more than $100,000 tend to define
themselves as middle class (Vigeland
2008; NOW: Politics and Economy 2004).
This reluctance may originate in the
pervasive myths about opportunity in
the United States. As Greg Mantsios
(2003) has noted, Americans commonly
believe that success in the United
States requires no more than hard
work, sacrifice, and perseverance, that
everyone has an equal opportunity to
succeed, that most Americans have
achievedaffluence, and that the
United States is fundamentally a classless
society. Challenges to these deep-seated
beliefs cause cognitive dissonance, a
discrepancy between what we currently
believe to be true and other contradictory information (Goodman 2001).
Cognitive dissonance can be particularly potent for students of class privilege.
They are often unconscious of their privileged status, believe that their success is
based on their own merits, and think that
the benefits they receive are normal and
available to all. What does it mean to a
person of class privilege to acknowledge

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES

that health care, legal protection, and

education services are disparately rendered? How is ones status challenged if
success depends on privilege rather than
on hard work? (Mantsios 2003) These
questions can make students exceedingly
uncomfortable and invoke anxiety, fear,
confusion, anger, guilt, and resentment.
People of privilege may find it easier to
deny that privilege exists than to experience this discomfort (Goodman 2001).
Although students of privilege
are often unconscious of the benefits
associated with status, students without
privilege have to confront their difference
on a routine basis. Yet even these students subscribe to the general tendency
not to talk about [class] and [to] think of
[America] as a classless society (Collins
and Yeskel 2005). Many students who do
not have class privilege subscribe to the
notion that their class position is of their
own making. These students react to
conversations about class in a variety of
ways, from caretaking privileged students
who feel guilty, showing pride in their
own accomplishments, expressing anger,
embarrassment, or fear of being judged,
or shock at discovering their social class.
This range of reactions presents a
great challenge to instructors working to
keep both privileged and nonprivileged
students from fleeing the discomfort
of the subject. But after the instructor
has laid the groundwork for general
discussions of class, an exploration
of class privilege can be effective.
Example Exercise: Understanding
Social Class Hierarchy
An introductory activity masked as
a warm-up exercise allows students
to appreciate how quickly socialization to the class hierarchy occurs:
n Give each student a token or strip of

paper of one of three random colors

(e.g. orange, green, and blue) not connected to their identities. Ask them
to talk to as many of their classmates

CIVIC LEARNING FOR SHARED FUTURES

as possible, exchanging papers each
time they talk to another student.
n Interrupt the activity after a minute
or two and explain that you have
forgotten to tell them something: Blue
is best, green is okay, and orange
is not so good. Remind them about
the purpose of the activityto talk
to as many students as possibleand
ask them to proceed. Note the differences in behavior now that you have
assigned value to the strips (engaged
in social construction of difference).
n Interrupt a third time and call the
blue group over to you. In front of
the other groups, talk about how
lucky they are to be blue. Do not
attach any real meaning to their good
fortune (dont associate it with wealth,
intelligence, ability, etc.). Then call
the green group over and tell them
that they are okay. Finally, call the
orange group over and tell them how
sorry you are for their misfortune.
Ask the students to continue the
activity, reminding them to talk to
as many students as possible. Once
again, observe the behaviors.
n After another two minutes, end
the activity and debrief by asking
students to describe what happened,
identify their feelings, discuss the
changes in behavior, and relate the
exercise to real-life experiences.
Students are usually quick to recognize the parallels to class structure.
Instructors can use this activity to
discuss how class privilege is initially
an accident of birth, but ultimately
something that we work to maintain.
Conclusion
This article has provided some introductory resources and context for
developing lesson plans on a complex
topic. I believe that students who are
aware of socioeconomic privilege are
more able to make decisions and implement practices that benefit all members
of society. If they are able to recognize
and address classism, students can

change the conversation about class. By

providing adequate contextualization
and preparation and including the voices
of both privileged and non-privileged
students, instructors can facilitate students movement to action. When we
aid students in creating strong learning
communities, we help them navigate
their own journeys of discovery.

<

Refe r e n c es
Adams, M. et al. 2000. Readings for diversity and

social justice: An anthology on racism, antiSemitism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, and

classism. New York: Routledge.
Adams, M. et al. 1997. Teaching for diversity and
social justice: A sourcebook. New York:
Routledge.
Collins, C. and F. Yeskel. 2005. Economic apartheid in America: A primer on economic
inequality and insecurity. New York: The New
Press.
Elliott, J. 2006. www.janeelliott.com
Goodman, D. 1997. Promoting diversity and social
justice: Educating people from privileged groups.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Johnson, A. 2001. Power, privilege and difference.

Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Co.

Kivel, P. 2002. Examining class and race: An

exercise. http://paulkivel.com/resources/
classandrace.pdf
Kolker, A. and L. Alvarez . 2001. People like us.
New York: Center for New American Media.
Mantsios, G. 2003. Class in America2003. In
Race, class, and gender in the United States, ed.
Paula Rothenberg, 193 207. New York: Worth
Publishers.
McIntosh, P. 1988. Unpacking the invisible knapsack. Excerpted from Working Paper 189,
White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal
Account of Coming To See Correspondences
through Work in Womens Studies.
Payne, R. 2005. A framework for understanding
poverty. Highlands, TX: aha! Process Inc.
Robbins, S. 2007. www.slrobbins.com
Shirts, R. 1969. StarPower. California: Simulation
Training Systems. www.stsintl.com/
schools-charities/star_power.html
Vigeland, T. January 11, 2008. What is the middle
class? Marketplace.publicradio.org/
display/web/2008/01/11/what_is_the_middle_
class?
Who is the middle class? June 25, 2004. NOW:
Politics and the Economy. www.pbs.org/now/
politics/middleclassoverview.html

Resources for Teaching about Class and Classism

n A Framework for Understanding
Poverty by Ruby Payne (2005) provides insights on class as culture
and includes useful surveys to help
students understand class differences.
n Teaching for Diversity and Social
Justice, edited by Maurianne Adams,
Lee Anne Bell, and Pat Griffin (1997),
includes a curriculum chapter on
classism with useful activities to
illustrate the extremes of wealth
and poverty in the United States.
n Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
by Peggy McIntosh (1988) prepares students to explore their
own points of privilege.
n Star Power, a challenging activity
sold by Simulations Training Systems,
helps demonstrate how privilege
and class are interconnected, but
may result in resistance even with
significant preparation. www.stsintl.
com/schools-charities/star_power.html

n Examining Class and Race, an activity

by Paul Kivel, addresses the myth
of the level playing field through
a sociogram-like representation of
class participants. The activity may be
adapted to include a range of target
identities (gender, sexual orientation, ability status, etc.) (paulkivel.
com/resources/classandrace.pdf ).
n People Like Us, a PBS video, examines
through interviews and commentary the role social class plays in
the United States. A supplemental
Web site provides games, statistics, and instructional guides:
www.pbs.org/peoplelikeus/
n Jane Elliotts Blue-eyed/Browneyed films, available at www.
janeelliott.com, explore how
easily people are socialized and
impacted by hierarchical systems.
Rory Gilbert

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES

VOL. 11, NO. 3

[class on campus]

Stratified Learning: Responding to the

Class System of Higher Education

professor of English and American Studies and codirector of the Center for
Working-Class Studies at Youngstown State University
Sherry Lee Linkon,

A recent New Yorker cartoon shows

a middle-aged man in a business suit
flapping his arms and hovering several
feet in the air, while a similarly dressed
colleague looks on and comments,
Interesting, but we can never forget
that you went to a state college. Perhaps
because I teach at a state college, that
cartoon made me laugh even as it made
me angry. I got angry, too, when my
parents brushed aside my suggestion that
my saxophone-virtuoso nephew apply

Those differences affect the experiences

and opportunities of students as well as
faculty. But before we can consider how
to respond to this class hierarchy, we
need to understand how it operates.
Why Status Matters
Like working-class people, working-class
institutions are at once invisible and
denigrated. Because they dont fit the
standard image of college, working-class
institutionsalong with both faculty

Higher education in America is stratified in ways that

reflect and perpetuate the social hierarchies of American
society.
to Youngstown State University (YSU)
because we have a great jazz program
and he could have received a full scholarship. He went to Northwestern instead.
Although I come from an upper-middleclass background, after studying class in
education for more than a decade, I have
a working-class chip on my shoulder.
Higher education in America is
stratified in ways that reflect and
perpetuate the social hierarchies of
American society. This isnt just a
matter of status; its a matter of material
conditions. Funding and connections
buy elite schools (most private fouryear and research institutions, and
some highly selective and well-funded
public universities) the resources (and
time) upon which to build prestige.
Meanwhile, at working-class institutions
(most public universities and all community colleges), low status correlates
with insufficient funding and facilities.
10

VOL. 11, NO. 3

and students from these schools

experience significant marginalization.
In American public discourse,
going to college means moving away
from home, living in a dorm, spending
evenings eating pizza with friends
and studying. In reality, many college
students, especially at working-class
institutions, commute to campus and
struggle to balance a job and homework,
let alone find time for pizza. Media
reports tell us that the college admissions process is putting increasing
pressure on high school students, few of
whom gain entrance to their preferred
school. Yet more than 25 percent of
four-year institutions accept 75 to 90
percent of applicants, and 17 percent
of schools have no admissions criteria
at all (Almanac of Higher Education).
While selectivity is one criterion for
elite status, working-class institutions
pride themselves on another goal:

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES

providing access to students for whom

college might otherwise be impossible.
Because they dont fit the image of
college, working-class institutions are
widely seen as second-rate schools that
students attend because they have to, not
because they want to. Students joke that
YSU can also mean You Screwed Up.
That image sticks, even though the university has many strong programs and its
faculty and students have won prestigious
national awards, grants, and recognition.
These status differences are part
of a self-perpetuating system for both
faculty and students. For faculty, professional prestige is based largely on where
one works and where one is trained.
Institutional prestige facilitates access to
grants, awards, and jobs, and these in
turn contribute to the status of both the
individual professor and his or her university. For students, institutional status
influences opportunities in the job market
and in graduate school admissions.
Real Differences
The class system of higher education
creates real differences in resources and
working conditions for both faculty and
students. Elite schools generally have
larger endowments and a stronger pool
of potential donors, so they can provide
high-quality facilities, well-stocked
libraries, up-to-date technology, and
other conditions that facilitate teaching
and learning. In contrast, publicly
funded schools, especially regional
campuses and community colleges,
almost never have enough money.
Their faculty and students frequently
work in run-down buildings and lack
access to technology, materials, and staff
support. On my campus, for example,
science faculty regularly see their
research disrupted when pieces of the
ceiling fall on their labs and desks.
Workloads also differ. At workingclass institutions, many faculty teach four
or more sections per term, including
large classes. They are likely to serve

CIVIC LEARNING FOR SHARED FUTURES

on many committees, advise dozens
of students, and have relatively limited
clerical or graduate assistant help. At
most elite schools, faculty members
teach smaller and fewer classes, and
they often have teaching assistants to
help with grading and preparing class
materials. They may also have lighter
committee and advising loads, lots of
clerical support, and a couple of days
each week to work on research.
Students also work harder at
working-class schools, in part because
many come from working-class backgrounds. Students at working-class
institutions often work thirty-five or
more hours per week, commute long
distances between home and campus,
and have family responsibilities that
make completing assignments difficult.
A report by the American Council on
Education reports that, not surprisingly,
students with lower household incomes
work more than wealthier students
(American Council on Education
2006). These students work hard to get
all they can from their education. But
the decks are stacked against them.
Differences of resources, working
conditions, and status translate into different opportunities. Education is widely
seen as the ticket to upward mobility,
but the value of the degree rests in
part on the class of the institution. A
ticket from an elite school admits a
graduate to better jobs and graduate
programs, while tickets from workingclass institutions too often get students
only one rung up the class ladder,
if that. Thus, while more students
than ever are attending college, more
people are not moving into the middle
class (Scott and Leonhardt 2005).
How We Can Respond
The class system of higher education serves the interests of those
who benefit from elite educations,
and that makes changing the system
difficult. So if we cant change the

George Mason University. (Photo by Evan Cantwell, Creative Services)

system, how should we respond?

First, faculty and graduates of
working-class institutions must resist
internalizing the idea that our work and
education are not good enough. We
and our allies should brag about what
community colleges and regional state
schools offer: dedicated faculty who
care about teaching and about their
students, programs that help students
succeed despite their busy lives and often
inadequate preparation, and university
communities that value the culture and
experiences of working-class students.
Second, we should advocate for
state and federal funding formulas
that will increase access for lowerincome students and reward schools
that successfully address their needs.
This means rethinking state funding
formulas that reward universities based
on research-oriented criteria that have
little to do with the quality of student
learning. It also means advocating for
more financial aid so students can
work fewer hours or afford to live on
campus. And it means paying attention to the student loan crisis. In May
2008, several banks announced that
they would no longer lend money to
students attending community colleges, reducing access for the more
than 6.8 million students who attend
these schools (Almanac of Higher

Education). We should fight back.

We can fight best when we fight
together. In 2007, the Public Higher
Education Network of Massachusetts
(PHENOM) developed its own Plan for
UMass, advocating for more funding
and better access to higher education
(www.phenomonline.org). By bringing
together representatives from the multiple UMass campuses, including faculty,
staff, and students, PHENOM made its
ideas visible and put pressure on state
leaders. PHENOM activists enacted the
last words of early twentieth-century
labor organizer Joe Hill: Dont waste
any time mourning. Organize.

<

Refe r e n c es
Almanac of Higher Education. Chronicle of

Higher Education online. http://chronicle.com/

weekly/almanac/2007 (accessed June 12, 2008).
American Council on Education. 2006.
Working their way through college: Student
employment and its impact on the college experience. http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.
cfm?template=/CM/ContentDisplay.
cfm&ContentFileID=1618 (accessed June 12,
2008).
Linkon, S. L. , Ed. 1999. Teaching working class.
Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts
Press.
Scott, J. , and D. Leonhardt. 2005. Shadowy
lines that still divide. New York Times, May 15.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/national/
class/OVERVIEW-FINAL.html?scp=2&sq=class+
in+america+series&st=nyt (accessed June 12,
2008).
Shor, I. 1980 (1987). Critical teaching and everyday
life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES

VOL. 11, NO. 3

11

[Class on Campus]

Race and Class: Taking Action at the

Intersections
Rhonda Soto,

coordinator of the Race/Class Intersections program at Class Action

Discussing race without including class

analysis is like watching a bird fly without
looking at the sky: its possible, but it
misses the larger context. Intersections
of race and class are complicated and
personal, and they need to be acknowledged. Yet in the United States, so
little talk about class occurs that great
confusion surrounds these intersections.
As the coordinator of the Race/Class
Intersections program at the nonprofit
Class Action (www.classism.org), I have

heard from many people who say our

conversation is the first time they have
publicly discussed the intersection of
race and class. They search for the right
words to express the complicated relationship between these categories, and
find that it defies existing frameworks.
Much of Class Actions work takes
place at institutions of higher education.
We work with professional and administrative staff, students, and community
members to identify and dismantle

Steps to Support Low-Income Students across Identities

Campuses should take steps to create
more supportive cultures for lowerincome students from diverse cultural
backgrounds. These include:
Review and Revise the Curricula
Challenge curricula and academic
cultures that privilege certain people and
marginalize others. As womens studies
and ethnic studies have done, encourage
diverse voices, leadership styles, and
methods of teaching, learning, and
evaluating that build on the strengths
of poor and working-class students
from diverse cultural backgrounds.
Give students opportunities to learn
about their own identities, histories,
and cultures. Recognize working-class
studies, like womens studies and ethnic
studies, as a legitimate and necessary
field of intellectual inquiry.
Provide Necessary Support Services
Welcome students to campus early.
Invite families to learn about the school
and the college experience. Give access
to academic support for students who
have had less rigorous preparation.

12

VOL. 11, NO. 3

Provide programs specifically for firstgeneration college students, including

facilitated support groups, orientation
programs that help students understand
the hidden rules of the academy, and
faculty/staff mentors. Provide role
models with similar backgrounds,
including first-generation faculty
and staff, who can help alleviate the
culture shock and isolation many firstgeneration students experience.
Reduce the Barriers
Like other forms of oppression, classism
operates on multiple levels, from
individual attitudes to institutional
practices and cultural norms. Give
faculty, staff, and students opportunities
to learn about classism through
training and workshops. As individuals
consciousness about classism and racism
increase, they become able to change
their behaviors. As a result, campus
communities become more welcoming
places. A systemic review of campus
policies and practices may also help
expose unintended classism.
Rhonda Soto

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES

class barriers and biases, and to build

opportunities for cross-class alliances.
Class remains largely invisible on college
campuses, as most institutions do not
include class in their campus dialogues,
diversity training, or curricular offerings. The lack of discussion about class
has led to confusion about the race/
class intersection, with race sometimes
becoming a stand-in for class. This
is problematic not only for the many
first-generation college students who
are people of color, but also for students
whose race- and class-based identities
do not intersect in stereotypical ways.
Complicated Junctures
When race becomes a stand-in for class,
it creates conflict for students of color
who are presumed to be from low-income
families and for white students who are
presumed not to be. We hear the terms
working-class whites and middle-class
blacks, but not the terms middle-class
whites or working-class blacks. But it
is unnecessary to name what is normative. Thus our discussions about the
working class and people of color make
working-class white students and middleclass students of color invisible, which can
be devastating to these students. At the
same time, our language suggests indifference to working-class people of color,
who are accepted as the norm. In order
to serve the full range of students on our
campuses, we must deal with issues of
racism and issues of classism, and we
must understand how they intersect.
Research confirms ever-widening disparities in educational achievement and
enrollment among Latinas/os, African
Americans, and low-income students,
as compared to their white middle- and
upper-class peers (Kelly 2005). Because
school resources are tied to local
revenues, students from low-income
communities, who are disproportionately
people of color, are more likely to have
inexperienced teachers, limited resources,
and little access to role models or men-

CIVIC LEARNING FOR SHARED FUTURES

tors (Annie E. Casey Foundation 2008).
They enter college without adequate
preparation for success, and their transition to higher education is often difficult.
Moreover, families with limited income
may not be able to spare their hardworking college-age children, who could
contribute financially rather than plunge
the family into debt with education loans.
The challenges related to resources are
often compounded by the psychological
pressures low-income students, particularly low-income students of color, face.
College definitely has a class culture,
and it isnt the culture of working-class or
lower-income students. Research tells us
that college is a middle-class experience
and that many low-income students feel
pressured to assimilate (DiMaria 2006).
Race and ethnicity may deepen these
students feelings of isolation, especially
if they come from families whose culture
and language differs from that of majority
students. Perception and judgments
of faculty and peers have an impact as
well. Because affirmative action is a hotbutton issue, students of color may find
themselves prejudged by their peers and
professors, even as the numbers of (typically white) legacy admissions exceed the
number of affirmative action admissions.
The presence or absence of cultural,
social, and academic capital can also
have a profound impact on students.
Pierre Bourdieu describes cultural
capital, or what you know, as the forms
of knowledge, skill, education, and other
advantages a person has that confer
higher status (1986). Knowing the rules
of etiquette (such as which fork to use)
or understanding references to theater
are examples of cultural capital. Social
capital, or who you know, refers to
resources based on group membership,
relationships, or networks of influence and support (Bourdieu 1986). To
these Will Barratt adds the concept
of academic capital, which students
begin to attain in the home (2007).
Second-generation students come to

At an Exploring Class workshop at Dartmouth College, students participate in an activity that visually represents
disparities of wealth distribution in the United States. (Photo courtesy of Class Action)

college with accumulated academic

capital, which they apply to gain more
through excellent grades, honors and
awards, and participation in academic
clubs. Students of color and lowerincome students may have significant
cultural or social capital within their
own communities, but the dominant
academic culture might not recognize
or appreciate these forms of capital.

For more theory and research on

these topics, see Class in Education,
a recently published special issue of
the journal Equity and Education
guest edited by Felice Yeskel, Class
Actions executive director. Class
Action also provides a range of
resources to assist campuses on our
Web site: www.classism.org.

Supporting Students
If educational institutions are to embrace
all of their students and staff, they must
address the impact of race and class on
the experiences and successes of students.
Acknowledging the existence of class
on campus is an important first step.
Some elite colleges, recognizing that few
students from lower-income families are
attending their schools, have recently
increased financial aid to recruit highachieving students from low-income
families. But getting poor and workingclass students through the door is only
the beginning. Institutions need to take
additional steps (including revising the
curricula, providing support services, and
reducing cultural barriers, as detailed in
the sidebar) to provide adequate support
so students can succeed and thrive.

Annie E. Casey Foundation . 2008. Race Matters

<

Refe r e n c es
toolkit. www.aecf.org.

Barratt, W. 2007. Talking about social class on

campus. NASPA NetResults. wbarratt.indstate.

edu/documents/talking_about_social_class.htm
(accessed November 5, 2007).
Bourdieu, P. 1986. The forms of capital. In J.
Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of Theory and
Research for the Sociology of Education, 241-58.
Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
DiMaria, F. 2006. Working-class students: Lost in
a colleges middle-class culture. Education
Digest: Essential Readings Condensed for Quick
Review 72 (1): 60-65.
Kelly, P. 2005. As America becomes more diverse:
The impact of state higher education inequality.
National Center for Higher Education
Management Systems, Boulder, CO: Lumina
Foundation for Education.
Yeskel, F. , Ed. 2008. Coming to class: Looking at
education through the lens of class:
Introduction to the Class and Education Special
Issue. Equity and Excellence in Education: The
University of Massachusetts Amherst School of
Education Journal 41 (1): 1-11.

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES

VOL. 11, NO. 3

13

[perspectives]

Class, at Vanderbilt? Breaking the

Silence at an Elite Institution
Katherine Fusco,

lecturer in the English department at Vanderbilt University

When I started teaching at Vanderbilt

University, I noticed students who
did not fit the mold of the privileged
upper-class young adult my colleagues
had told me to expect. These students
had work-study jobs, athletic scholarships, and talent scholarships at the
music school. Several told me they
were struggling to fit in academically
and socially for reasons ranging from

university like Vanderbilt? Although

Vanderbilt actively pursues a diverse
student body, many of our students
come from wealthy backgrounds. Not
surprisingly, these students find class differences easier to ignore than to address.
In my classroom, wealthier students
in particular struggled with the idea
that extreme wealth depends upon the
exploitation of others. Occasionally these

What, I wondered, would it mean to teach about class, and

specifically about the working class, at an elite university
like Vanderbilt?
unfamiliarity with professors cultural
references to lack of access to the
status markers valued by their peers.
As I watched these young adults
struggle, I grew concerned about
whether all students were getting a
fair shot at college. With the help of
Vanderbilts Writing Studio and Center
for Teaching, I began researching how
socioeconomic status affects college
students. I found that working-class
students deal with a range of issues
that affect their academic success,
including lower confidence in their
writing, preferences for certain styles
of instruction, and psychological
pressures to pass as middle class.
Inspired by what I learned, I decided
to focus my entry-level composition class
on the topic of working-class studies.
When I shared my plans with colleagues,
they frequently responded with laughter:
Class, at Vanderbilt? To be fair, I
shared some of the concerns implicit in
their derision. What, I wondered, would
it mean to teach about class, and specifically about the working class, at an elite
14

VOL. 11, NO. 3

students would claim that working-class

authors who had experienced upward
mobility needed to get over their class
history and move on. They would even
complain that authors like bell hooks
were stereotyping the rich. Although I
found comments like these ridiculous,
I also felt that I needed to allow them
into the conversation to prevent shutting
down communication. Middle-class
students, too, sometimes found that
class was a touchy subject as they realized the precariousness of their class
positions and recognized their own
participation in structures of inequality.
Even as I tried to combat this
resistance, I was aware of the psychological toll our discussions took on my
working-class students. These students
frequently seemed frustrated with their
classmates obliviousness, but they also
seemed uncomfortable speaking up. One
student talked with me privately about
what she described as the carelessness
of the wealthy. She mentioned that most
of her classmates left their laptops lying
around, but that she thought of hers as

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES

Katherine Fusco

her gold. For working-class students

like her, Vanderbilt is a golden opportunity made possible through scholarships
funded by the universitys generous
endowments. Yet even with this opportunity, many students struggle to gain
access to the world their more affluent
classmates occupy so comfortably.
Working-class students are as much
a part of the Vanderbilt community
as their more wealthy peers, but you
wouldnt know it from the reaction
Class, at Vanderbilt? Implicit in this
statement is both a willed blindness to
the presence of students who do not fit
the Vanderbilt profile and an erasure
of their presence on campus. This
silence in the face of class inequality
communicates to students that if they
have made it to an elite institution like
Vanderbilt, they need not be concerned
about class. Even more damagingly, it
suggests to all students that only poor
or working-class students need to
think about socioeconomic inequity.
But class inequality is a problem in
which all are implicateduniversity
students and professors included.
In response to these acts of erasure,
I maintain that class must be part of the
curriculum, especially at elite universities. I hope that my colleagues at all
universities will learn to see teaching on
class as a necessity, not an anomaly.

<

CIVIC LEARNING FOR SHARED FUTURES

[perspectives]

Engaging with Contradiction by

Engaging with Community
junior majoring in political science and minoring in womens, gender, and sexuality
studies at Macalester College
David Seitz,

Its the first seriously snowy day of

winter in the Twin Cities. (Believe it
or not, it doesnt snow continuously
in Minnesota.) Up bright and early
this Saturday morning, a gaggle of
students hops into a van and crosses
the river, from St. Paul to Minneapolis.
Were going to learn about the role
of the arts in social change.
The students are part of Macalester
Colleges Lives of Commitment
program, a joint project of the Civic

fed me until the river is contaminated

or the shoreline seized for development. (As some say in Minnesota, oh
dear!) But if you teach me to organize,
then whatever the challenge, I can join
together with my peers, and we will
fashion our own solution. The students
chuckle, and Ricardo pauses to turn
up the heat in the chilly storeroom. He
explains why he appreciates the piece.
It takes that twist to show that the
original conclusionif you teach me

[C]ivic engagement projects should strive for mutual

accountability and transformation rather than for topdown service from college to community.
Engagement Center and the Center
for Religious and Spiritual Life. Lives
of Commitment brings together thirty
first-year students for weekly volunteering in partnership with immigrant
and refugee tutoring organizations. The
program complementsand complicatesthis partnership with reflection
groups, retreats, and day trips like this
one, all organized around questions of
vocation and ethics. Our destination
this morning is the Northland Poster
Collective, a center created for and by
artist-activists. For nearly thirty years,
the Collective has produced joyful,
intelligent artwork to spread the communitys messages about social justice.
At Northland, artist Ricardo Levins
Morales shares a favorite poster with
us. The posters text begins simply: If
you give me a fish, you have fed me for
a day. Then the writing takes a curious
turn. If you teach me to fish, you have

to fish, you feed me for a lifetimewas

patronizing as hell, he says. The room
is silent for a moment. Then students
nod, several in strenuous agreement.
This is precisely the kind of realization that the Lives of Commitment
program fosters: that civic engagement
projects should strive for mutual
accountability and transformation
rather than for top-down service
from college to community. Macalester
students come from widely divergent
backgrounds and often have very different approaches to civic work. But
whatever our backgrounds, we students
have a lot of privilege to account for
as we build community partnerships.
Lives of Commitment creates a space
for us to wrestle with the tensions
between privilege and marginalization, similarity and difference.
In the program, students find
structured opportunities to reflect on

David Seitz (Photo by Aaron Brown)

their own socioeconomic backgrounds

and closely connected identities such
as race and nationality. Integral to this
process are the strong relationships
the program fosters among students
and between students and partner
communities. As a privileged person,
Im often more comfortable engaging
economic injustice and racism only
in my head space, simultaneously
divorcing it from the life I lead. Because
Lives of Commitment connects students more deeply with community
partnersand with one anotherour
discussions happen in heart space
as well. We learn to approach community partnerships with an eye
toward mutual exchange and with
openness to reformulating our own
personal and political commitments.
Ricardos admonition about being
patronizing, and its implicit invitation to think honestly about where Im
coming from, linger in my mind as I
continue my civic engagement work
beyond the program. My classmates
and I know there isnt one perfect way
to be or act. But thanks to our sustained
engagement with one another and with
the community, we can keep asking
questions and taking risks. By engaging
personally with activists, community
members, and other students, I have
come to understand that living a life of
commitment requires my commitment
to the lives and voices of others.

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES

<

VOL. 11, NO. 3

15

[CAMPUS PRACTICE]

Finding Context: Teaching About Class

through Local History
Ehren Helmut Pflugfelder,

department at Purdue University

doctoral student in rhetoric and composition in the English

A few semesters ago, I proposed and

taught a working-class studies course at
a Midwestern research university (not
my current school) whose students, in
general, did not come from the working
classes. Most students majored in math,
medicine, law, or the hard sciences,
with only 10 percent working toward
a humanities degree. I knew from past
courseswhere students had openly
challenged the values of inclusiveness
and diversitythat some students might
not care about socioeconomic diversity,
nor value the cultural studies approach to

Goals and Frameworks

My main goal, aside from teaching
students strategies for historical and
cultural research, was to broaden students worldviews and encourage them
to value other perspectives. To do this,
I took a cue from Sherry Lee Linkons
Teaching Working Class and brought my
students into the immediate contexts
of working-class culture (1999).
Luckily, the university was located
in Cleveland, where waves of immigration and a strong manufacturing base
have created a sprawling city with a

By connecting the class to the community, instructors

can help students make sense of the material and engage
with their surroundings.
economics. I realized I was up for a challenge that would require me to choose
my pedagogical approach carefully.
But despite these challengesor
rather, because of themI wanted to
show students that they could broaden
their perspectives by seeing the world
through a class-based lens. I also wanted
to develop a framework that other
instructors could use in their courses:
one that encourages dynamic interaction with social class through local
history. Any instructor, regardless of
background, can incorporate a schools
geographic and historic environment
into the curriculum. By connecting the
class to the community, instructors can
help students make sense of the material
and engage with their surroundings.

16

VOL. 11, NO. 3

complex economic history. Cleveland

is currently struggling to avoid the
extreme economic troubles affecting
other rust-belt cities as it shifts from
a manufacturing-based economy to
technology-driven one. Given this
context, I knew that the area had more
than enough working-class history to
fulfill the course needs. History professors and local historical institutions like
the Western Reserve Historical Society
helped me to identify relevant information as I prepared to teach the course.
Although finding information was
not a problem, I faced another challenge
that I hoped to turn into an asset. I
had lived in the area for less than three
years, so I could hardly present myself
to students as an expert on Cleveland
neighborhoods and social history. I

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES

decided to reveal my background to

students on the first day, framing the
course as an opportunity for joint
inquiry. This strategy allowed me to
de-center the classroom, giving students room to be experts about certain
issues and events. As a result, students
took ownership of their knowledge.
The focus on students immediate
environment not only offered students a
tangible grasp on working-class studies,
but allowed the city to dynamically reinforce classroom discussion. As students
discussed their jobs and interactions
in the world beyond the classroom,
they connected their lives with our
analysis and saw class-based issues arise
in their own lives. The city became a
pedagogical tool that was constantly
available, whenever students walked to
class, took the bus to the store, watched
the news, or went out on the town.
Course Methods
As students analyzed the cultural
and economic implications of different local histories, they came to
recognize how distant events affect
the current culture. Students learned
that socioeconomic diversity involves
more than census numbers. They saw
how change is interrelated: a shift in a
citys budget, for instance, has multiple
consequences for bus routes, employment, and police presence. They also
came to see more subtle relationships,
such as how their schools architecture
was influenced by civil unrest. The
following are some key strategies that
led students toward these realizations:
Field (Trips) Work. We spent several classes at the Western Reserve
Historical Society, a museum dedicated
to showcasing Cleveland history. The
staff and professors from the university led us through the exhibits and
introduced us to the library holdings,
which provided material for students
research projects. Other local trips
included a visit to Little Italy, where we

CIVIC LEARNING FOR SHARED FUTURES

spoke with local business owners and
saw evidence of how the neighborhood
grew to accommodate new immigrants
of various socioeconomic classes.
Understanding Disasters. We
examined how the local community
responded to man-made catastrophes,
such as a significant riot, a massive explosion, and a century-old
murder case. Instead of focusing
on the gory details, we tried to
understand the reasons for the catastrophes, see who they affected, and
critique the aftermath. Students were
eager to recognize the present-day
ramifications of these events.
Peer Poll Assignments. I required
students to complete weekly surveys of five to ten peers previously
unknown to them, of whom they
asked a question related to the weeks
activities. Some questions focused on
general diversity issues, while others
addressed specific local concerns.
As the semester unfolded, the polls
helped students gain insight about how
socioeconomic culture operated in the
city and in the lives of their peers.
Reading Outsider Critics. Course
readings allowed students to understand
radically different perspectives on topics
that initially seemed mundane to them.
We read works by visiting hitchhikers,
local artists, comic book creators who
used content from the citys history,
and historians who criticized the very
socioeconomic structures students
found so comfortable. Confronting these
diverse perspectives allowed students
to debate ideas they would not have
encountered in their day-to-day lives.
Oral Histories. The oral history
research project became the centerpiece
of the course. Students worked to report
and contextualize local historical events
by interviewing participants whom they
identified through various businesses
and organizations. This project challenged students to expand upon skills
gained during the peer poll assignments,

Students explored the social class history of various neighborhoods, including the Haymarket area, which was
Clevelands first slum. Image courtesy of the Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio (www.wrhs.org).

requiring them to organize information

around a central topic and write as-yet
unreported histories. At the end of the
semester, we collected these histories and
placed them online to provide a resource
for the community and other students.
A Promising Pedagogical Experiment
As my experience shows, with a little
preparation, any instructor can use local
history to teach about class difference.
In retrospect, I was pleased with most
of the courses outcomes. Engagement
with outside historical organizations
added a depth of meaning and a
breadth of material that I would have
found difficult to develop on my own.
Most significantly, I learned that in
order to encourage students to engage
in the community, I had to get involved
with the community myself. Such
engagement can bring both students
and teachers much closer to understanding the economic realities of the
world in which they teach and learn.

<

Refe r e n c e
Linkon, S. L. , Ed. 1999. Teaching working class.

Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts

Press.

Peer Poll Assignment

Questions
Each week, students polled five to ten
peers to learn more about their diverse
attitudes and experiences related to
socioeconomic class. Questions for this
assignment included:
1. What is your work history?
2. Do you think you are part of the
working class? Why/why not?
3. What do working-class people
earn?
4. What are three things associated
with the working class?
5. What is the difference between
high culture and low culture?
6. To what subcultures do you
belong?
7. Do you live in a working-class city?
Explain.
8. Can you name three class
markers?
9. Can you name three examples of
everyday discrimination?
10. What is the biggest challenge
facing your city right now?

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES

VOL. 11, NO. 3

17

[CAMPUS PRACTICE]

Understanding Socioeconomic
Difference: Studies in Poverty and
Human Capability

director of the Shepherd Program for the Interdisciplinary Study of Poverty and
Human Capability at Washington and Lee University
Harlan Beckley,

Although the United Nations

Development Programme consistently
ranks the United States among the most
impoverished of all developed countries,
U.S. undergraduate institutions offer
little opportunity for a sustained study of
poverty informed by first-hand engagement (United Nations 2008). At many elite
schools, students have limited opportunity
to encounter poverty in person, and
socioeconomically disadvantaged people
are grossly underrepresented in undergraduate enrollments. Many institutions
have rightly invested in enrolling more
economically disadvantaged students. Few,
however, have fully incorporated the study
of poverty or interaction with impover-

ished communities into their educational

programming. Prompted by these gaps
and by the lack of socioeconomic diversity
at our own institution, in 1997, a group
of faculty, students, and administrators at
Washington and Lee University initiated
a new program for the interdisciplinary
study of poverty and human capability.
Program Scope and Structure
The Shepherd Programnamed for an
alumnus benefactor who has also supported efforts to increase racial diversity
at Washington and Leehas grown
significantly during its first decade.
Beginning with one faculty member and
a half-time administrative assistant, the

Examples of Shepherd Program Study

Students completing the Shepherd program concentration enroll in at
least two interdisciplinary courses, four discipline-based courses, and a
summer internship over the course of their undergraduate education.
They almost always combine these required components of the program
with other cocurricular activities. Recent participants included:
n Logan Gibson, a 2008 graduate who taught in Swaziland for her summer
internship and returned to Africa the following summer to set up a library in
Rwanda. Logans capstone thesis was on the education of girls and women in
South Africa.
n Alice Shih, a 2008 graduate who interned as an advocate with Housing Works,

a community-based organization in Washington, D.C., dedicated to fighting

the twin crises of HIV/AIDS and homelessness. Alices capstone thesis on the
cognitive, developmental, and social effects of hunger and malnutrition among
children in the United States emerged out of her work with the Campus Kitchen.
Both Alice and Logan are now postgraduate interns for the National Community
Action Foundation, where they work on antipoverty policy. Logan plans to gain
more experience in policy and development in the D.C. area, while Alice has
accepted a one-year legal research position at Yale University. Alice and Logan
intend to pursue careers focusing on policy and development to combat domestic
and international poverty.
18

VOL. 11, NO. 3

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES

program now has four and a half fulltime staffers who administer its multiple
cocurricular components. At least twenty
percent of undergraduate students
and a handful of law students enroll in
coursework linked to the program, and
students can choose from more than
thirty discipline-based courses sponsored
by eleven departments. The scope of the
programs cocurricular activities is even
larger, with nearly half of the undergraduate student body participating.
Students typically begin the program
with an interdisciplinary course on
poverty and human capability, which
15 to 20 percent of students complete
at some point prior to their senior year.
These students are eligible to apply for
an eight-week summer domestic or
international internship, in which thirty
or more undergraduates (primarily rising
juniors and seniors) participate each
summer. Most students who complete
the internship choose to concentrate (or
minor) in poverty studies. These students
enroll in four discipline-based courses
focused on poverty, as well as a capstone
interdisciplinary seminar. The capstone
course culminates with a research paper
emerging from cocurricular experiences and linked to the major field of
study. This thesis project helps prepare
students for future civic involvement.
The summer internship is structured
as a non-credit-bearing course for which
all students receive expense reimbursement and students on financial aid
receive $1,300 stipends. Interns work in
a range of settings (from rural Arkansas
to urban New York) in positions relevant to their long-term professional
interests. A student planning a career
in health care might intern at a public
health facility in Helena, Arkansas, or
at the addiction clinic at Manhattans
Bellevue Hospital. These internships
expose students to many forms of
diversity as they work with people
from vastly different cultural, racial,
and economic backgrounds and along-

CIVIC LEARNING FOR SHARED FUTURES

side interns from Berea, Morehouse,
Spelman, and Middlebury colleges.
Most Shepherd Program students
supplement their course work with
additional cocurricular options. Entering
first-year students may participate in
a preorientation service trip led by
upper-level students who have completed the introductory course. Alumni
chapters in major metropolitan areas
organize and host alternative break
service-learning projects in February
and April. Other cocurricular options
include community-based research and
work with the Campus Kitchen chapter
(www.campuskitchens.org). Even after
graduating, students can continue their
Shepherd Program education through
fellowships that support work with agencies serving disadvantaged persons.
Program Outcomes
The Shepherd Program accomplishes two
primary goals. First, it informs a broad
cross-section of students about issues
pertaining to poverty. Second, it facilitates
a deeper understanding of poverty, both
international and domestic, to enrich
the academic majors of 5 to 7 percent of
each graduating class. We intend for the
sustained study of poverty to shape and
even transform the professional and civic
lives of graduates, whether they become
businesspersons, educators, lawyers,
healthcare workers, policymakers, community organizers, or entrepreneurs.
Accomplishing the Shepherd Programs
goals requires a sustained and integrated
curricular and cocurricular approach.
Shepherd Program graduates attest that
the most profound impact of their education occurs as they encounter people
different from themselves and become
passionate about staying in touch with
their new friends. But service learning
is effective only when integrated into a
new cognitive understanding. Students
are often astonished to learn that more
than twelve million children in the
United States live in food insecure

Shepherd Program students engage in several cocurricular options, including Washington and Lees Campus
Kitchen chapter. Through Campus Kitchen, students prepare meals from food that would otherwise be discarded.
They deliver these meals to community agencies, where they eat with community members while promoting
nutrition education. (Photo by Patrick Hinely for Washington and Lee University)

households, where inadequate nutrition

can influence cognitive development
(U.S. Department of Agriculture
2007). Discoveries like this motivate
and inform their cocurricular work.
Although tailored to Washington
and Lees special circumstances and mission, the principal purposes and core
components of the Shepherd Program are
adaptable to most institutions. Through
this sustained and integrated approach,
students can come to better understand
the challenges poverty presents in the
United States and in the developing world.
Growing Initiatives
We are now collaborating with David
Bradley, executive director of the National
Community Action Foundation, to
expand the Shepherd program and
help remedy the conspicuous absence
of sustained poverty studies in higher
education. David has been working
without remuneration to secure partial
funding for an eleven-school consortium
via congressional authorization for a
demonstration project in higher education. Assuming congressional action, the
consortium will allow ten more schools
to incorporate the study of poverty and
human capability in their undergraduate
and legal education programming. In

the meantime, several foundations have

provided funding for smaller similar
programs at four additional institutions.
These programs will not automatically
augment socioeconomic diversity on our
campuses. But they will afford students
from all socioeconomic backgrounds an
opportunity to work with others across
educational, social, and economic strata
in order to diminish poverty. They thus
remove the barriers that separate our
students from disadvantaged people
both on and off our campuses while
simultaneously making our institutions more inviting for economically
disadvantaged students. Combined with
financial aid programs and admissions
policies that expand opportunities for
all, initiatives like the Shepherd program
can help increase socioeconomic diversity on campuses by engaging with the
community beyond their boundaries.
For more information, including
descriptions of related courses,
visit shepherdapps.wlu.edu.

<

Refe r e n c es
United Nations Development Programme.

2008. Capacity development: Empowering people

and institutions. www.undp.org

United States Department of Agriculture.

2007. Food security in the United States:

Conditions and trends. www.ers.usda.gov/
Briefing/FoodSecurity/trends

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES

VOL. 11, NO. 3

19

[RESEARCH REPORT]

Recent Research on Socioeconomic Status and Higher

Education

Socioeconomic status has very real

effects on student access and success in
higher education. Several recent reports
have underscored the challenges facing
low-income and working-class students,
providing useful data for advocates of
class-attentive policies and practices.

dents limited awareness of opportunities).

They dispute the idea that excellence
and access are mutually exclusive and
encourage institutions to recommit themselves to serving the public. To download
the report, visit www.pellinstitute.org/
files/files-demography_is_not_destiny.pdf

Demography is Not Destiny:

Increasing the Graduation Rates of
Low-Income College Students at
Large Public Universities
Authors Jennifer Engle and Colleen
OBrien examined fourteen public institutions that serve high numbers of lowincome students to determine what practices best support student retention. Their
report provides several recommendations
for institutions, states, and the federal government to improve graduation rates for
low-income students. Engle and OBrien
identify common features of institutions
with higher graduation rates (including
high levels of student involvement and
special programs for at-risk students),
as well as barriers to taking advantage of
support programs (such as cost and stu-

Missing in Application: The Texas

Top 10 Percent Law and Campus
Socioeconomic Diversity
In a paper presented at the March 2008
meeting of the American Educational
Research Association, authors Dawn
Koffman and Marta Tienda examine the
effects of Texass Top 10 Percent Law,
passed in response to bans on affirmative
action and in effect since 1998. The law
has aimed to increase diversity at Texass
public colleges by guaranteeing admission to the top ten percent of graduating
seniors from each high school, thus
opening the gates to students at lowincome-serving high schools. Examining
application rates at the states flagship
institutions, Koffman and Tienda find
that despite the admissions guarantee,

students from low-resource high schools

remain significantly less likely to apply
than their more affluent peers. The
authors stress the need to encourage lowincome students, who frequently lack support or information about the application
process, to apply to college. Their paper
is available at www.texastop10.princeton.
edu/reports/wp/ApplicantSocialClass.pdf.
Does Diversity Matter in the
Education Process?
In this March 2008 occasional paper for
the University of California-Berkeleys
Center for Studies in Higher Education,
author Steve Chatman takes up the
Supreme Courts implied challenge in
Grutter v. Bollinger to more clearly substantiate a compelling interest in the
educational benefits of diversity. Using
a survey of students in the University of
California system, Chatman illustrates
that at the University of California
(one of the most diverse higher
education systems in the country),
over 40 percent of students report
developing greater understanding

Suggestions for Additional Reading about Socioeconomic Class

Susan E. Borrego, vice president for planning and enrollment management at California State University-Dominguez Hills

Adams, M. , L. Bell , and P. Griffin , Eds. 1977.

Teaching for diversity and social justice: A sourcebook. New York: Routledge.
Adams, M. , W. Blumenfeld, R. Castaneda , H.
Hackman , M. Peters , and X. Zuniga , Eds.
2000. Readings for diversity and social justice: A
sourcebook. New York: Routledge.
Andersen, M. L. , and P. H. Collins . 2001. Race,
class, and gender: An anthology (4th edition).
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.
Archer, L. , M. Hutchings , and A. Ross . 2003.
Higher education and social class: Issues of exclusion and inclusion. New York: Routledge
Falmer.

Aronowitz, S. 2003. How class works. New

Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Borrego, S. 2003. Class matters: Beyond access to
inclusion. Washington, DC: National
Association of Student Affairs Administrators
in Higher Education.
Collins, P. 1998. Toward a new vision: Race, class,
and gender as categories of analysis and connection. In J. Ferrante and P. Brown (Eds.), The
social construction of race and ethnicity in the
United States (pp. 478-495). New York:
Addison-Wesley.
Hill, M. 1996. We cant afford it: Confusions and
silences on the topic of class. Classism and fem-

inist therapy: Counting costs [Special Issue],

Women & Therapy, 18 (3/4): 1-5.
hooks, b. 2000. Where we stand: Class matters.
New York: Routledge.
Kingston-Mann, E. 2001. Three steps forward,
one step back: Dilemmas of upward mobility. In
E. Kingston-Mann and T. Sieber (Eds.),
Achieving against the odds: How academics
become teachers of diverse students.
Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Levine, A. , and J. Nidiffer . 1996. Beating the
odds: How the poor get to college. San Francisco,
CA: Jossey-Bass.
Linkon, S. 1999. Teaching working class. Amherst,

MA: University of Massachusetts Press.

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ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES

CIVIC LEARNING FOR SHARED FUTURES

of others through interactions with
those unlike themselves. Analysis by
socioeconomic status shows that poor
and wealthy students are more likely
than middle-class students to report
interactions with those outside of their
socioeconomic class, and low-income
students are least likely of all socioeconomic groups to report feeling a sense
of belonging. To read the complete
paper, including data on race, gender,
religion, and political beliefs, visit
cshe.berkeley.edu/publications/docs/
ROPS.Chatman.Exploring.3.5.08.pdf.
Family Income and Higher Education
Opportunity 1970 to 2006
Postsecondary Education Opportunitys
June 2008 issue examines educational
opportunity by socioeconomic income
quartile and finds that students in the
upper income quartile earn more than 50
percent of bachelors degrees awarded by
age twenty-four. In fact, students in the
upper quartile have a 72 percent chance
of earning a bachelors degree by age
twenty-four, compared with only a 10
percent chance for students in the lowest
quartile. The newsletter breaks down
attainment rates by quartile from high
school graduation through bachelors
attainment, challenging the federal census
bureaus decision to discontinue the prac-

London, H. 1996. How college affects first genera-

tion students. About Campus, 9-23.

Lubrano, A. 2004. Limbo: Blue-collar roots, white
collar dreams. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and
Sons, Inc.
Metzgar, J. 2000. Striking steel: Solidarity remembered. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University
Press.
McDonough, P. 1997. Choosing colleges: How
social class and schools structure opportunity.
New York: State University of New York Press.
New York Times. 2005. Class matters. New York:
Times Books.
Oldfield, K. , and R. Johnson III , Eds. 2008.
Resilience: Queer professors from the working
class. Albany, NY: State University of New York
Press. Forthcoming.

Source: National Center for Education Statistics. 2008. Digest of Education Statistics: 2007, Table 136. Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Department of Education. http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d07/tables/dt07_136.asp?referrer=list
(accessed July 24, 2008).

tice of reporting enrollment by income

level. To access the full newsletter and
monthly archives (available by subscription only), visit www.postsecondary.org.
Window of Opportunity: Targeting
Federal Grant Aid to Students with
the Lowest Incomes
In February 2008, the Institute for Higher
Education Policy released a report on
the effectiveness of federal Pell Grants,
typically awarded to students with
annual family incomes of $40,000 or
less. Finding that Pell Grant aid has not
kept pace with rising college costs, the

Pascarella, E. , and P. Terenzini . 1991. How col-

lege affects students. San Francisco, CA: JosseyBass.

Rendn, L. I. 1992. From the barrio to the
academy: Revelations of a Mexican American
scholarship girl. In L. S. Zwerling and H. B.
London (Eds.), First-generation students:
Confronting the cultural issues (pp. 55-64). San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Russo, J. , and S. Linkon . 2005. New working-class
studies. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University
Press.
Sennett, R. , and J. Cobb . 1972. The hidden injuries
of class. New York: Knopf.
Terenzini, P. , S. Springer , P. Yaeger , E.
Pascarella , and A. Nora . 1996. First generation college students: Characteristics, experi-

report recommends policy changes to

make college affordable to students in
lower income brackets. These changes
include raising the maximum award
amount, better targeting students in the
lowest income brackets, and allowing a
negative expected family contribution.
Although recommendations may have less
application for on-campus practitioners,
data about student award allocation are
useful for anyone concerned with the
financial challenges facing students.
To download the report, visit www.
ihep.org/assets/files/publications/s-z/
Window_of_Opportunity.pdf

<

ences, and cognitive development. Research in

Higher Education, 37 (1): 1-22.
Zandy, J. 1990. Calling home: Working-class womens writings. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press.
Zandy, J. 1995. Liberating memory: Our work and
working-class consciousness. New Brunswick,
NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Zweig, M. 2004. Whats class got to do with it?
American society in the twenty-first century.
Cornell, NY: Cornell University Press.
Zwerling, L. S. , and H. B. London , Eds. 1992.
First generation students: Confronting the cultural issues. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES

VOL. 11, NO. 3

21

In Print
Tearing Down the Gates: Confronting
the Class Divide in American Education,
Peter Sacks (University of California
Press, 2007, $24.95 hardcover)
Peter Sacks cuts to the core of educational
inequity with his analysis of how socioeconomic status is the key to opportunity
in American education. Buttressing persuasive personal narrative with compelling data, Sacks brings into relief the confluence of interrelated factors (including
cultural capital, family pressures, and
economic affordability) that escort
privileged children onto the college track
while essentially shutting the doors on the
working class. The scene Sacks describes
is devastating but not intractable. Sacks
calls readers to reform American education to bring the myth of class mobility
closer to reality, beginning (as he does
with this book) by breaking the silence
surrounding the socioeconomic divide.
Realizing Bakkes Legacy: Affirmative
Action, Equal Opportunity, and Access
in Higher Education, Patricia Marin
and Catherine L. Horn, Eds. (Stylus
Publishing, LLC, 2008, $27.50 paperback)
Thirty years after Justice Lewis Powell
established the idea that diversity has
significant educational benefits in his
opinion for Regents of the University
of California v. Bakke, editors Marin
and Horn examine Bakkes enduring
legacy. The result is a collection of
essays probing Bakkes legal, social,
and educational effects and examining
the viability of Justice Sandra Day
OConnors 2003 suggestion that affirmative action will be unnecessary by
2028. Responding to recent court cases
that have challenged the Bakke ruling,
the editors suggest multiple means of
defense against attacks on progressive
educational policies. Their volume,
with its breadth of focus and specificity
of detail, represents one such tool.

22

VOL. 11, NO. 3

Privilege and Diversity in the Academy,

Frances A. Maher and Mary Kay
Thompson Tetreault (Routledge Taylor &
Francis Group, 2007, $36.95 paperback)
In this in-depth study of three major
universities (Stanford University, the
University of Michigan, and Rutgers
University-Newark), authors Maher and
Thompson explore how the terms excellence and diversity have become, to
varying degrees, interdependent rather
than mutually exclusive. Through historical and comparative analysis, Maher
and Thompson illustrate that cultural
shifts are not only possible but necessary if institutions are to become truly
outstanding. Their research explores how
privilege operates at a systemic level,
affecting an institutions ability to advance
diverse scholarship across disciplines.
The resulting volume attests to the need
to craft programs and policies that are
sensitive to local contexts when trying
to create more inclusive institutions.
Developing Intercultural Competence
and Transformation: Theory, Research,
and Application in International
Education, Victor Savicki, Ed. (Stylus
Publishing, LLC, 2008, $29.95 paperback)
American anxieties about globalization
have drawn increased attention to study
abroad as a way to prepare students for
leadership in the modern world. But
as Victor Savicki points out, educators
cannot simply send students overseas
for a semester or less and expect them to
return interculturally fluent. Savicki and
contributors urge educators to craft intentional opportunities for learning based
in experiential and reflective practices.
Combining educational theory, program
assessment, and pedagogical design,
their essays serve as a guide for educators
hoping to lead students toward transformation through intercultural exchange.

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES

CIVIC LEARNING FOR SHARED FUTURES

Resources

Opportunities

Civic Engagement at the Center

AAC&Us recently published monograph, Civic Engagement at the Center:
Building Democracy through Integrated
Cocurricular and Curricular Experiences,
shares best practices in sustained community engagement from the Bonner
Scholars and Bonner Leaders scholarship programs. Authors Ariane Hoy
and Wayne Meisel describe compelling
outcomes at seventy-seven participating
campuses, each of which strives to educate
students for active citizenship in a complex and interconnected world. To order
the monograph, visit www.aacu.org.

Diversity, Learning, and Inclusive

Excellence
AAC&Us Network for Academic
Renewal will hold its biennial
diversity education meeting on
October 16-18, 2008, in Long Beach,
California. The conference aims to
help campuses take diversity efforts
to the next level of comprehensive
action by highlighting curricular,
cocurricular, and institutional models
that foster diverse and inclusive environments. For details, visit www.aacu.
org/meetings/diversityandlearning.

Whats Race Got to Do with It?

In this California Newsreel film, producer
and director Jean Cheng chronicles one
classs semester of difficult conversations
at the University of California-Berkeley,
where students struggle to confront the
race and class divisions that persist on their
elite campus. The result is an informative
look at one groups attempt to embrace
diversity across difference, exploring questions of privilege, justice, and social responsibility. Chengs video illustrates classroom
techniques and follows students as they
struggle toward a paradigm shift. To order
the DVD, visit www.whatsrace.org.
Opportunity Matters
The Pell Institute issued the inaugural issue of its new annual journal,
Opportunity Matters: A Journal of Research
Informing Educational Opportunity
Practice and Programs, in June 2008.
The journal publishes qualitative and
quantitative research geared toward
improving educational opportunity for
underserved students, including lowincome and first-generation students,
underrepresented students of color,
and students with disabilities. To subscribe or view the call for papers, visit
www.pellinstitute.org/journal.html.

NAME 2008 Conference

The National Association for
Multicultural Education (NAME)
will hold its 18th annual international conference in New Orleans,
Louisiana, on November 12-16,
2008. Titled Beyond Celebrating
Diversity: ReACTivating the
Equity and Social Justice Roots of
Multicultural Education, the conference will encourage participants
to return to diversity educations
roots in social justice. For information, visit www.nameorg.org.
AAC&U Annual Meeting 2009
AAC&U will hold its Annual Meeting,
Ready or Not: Global Challenges,
College Learning, and Americas
Promise, on January 21-24, 2009, in
Seattle, Washington. With a focus
on liberal education as critical to
preparing students for todays global
challenges, the Annual Meeting will
provide opportunities to examine the
relationship between college learning
and society. Featured speakers will
include Peter Sacks, author of Tearing
Down the Gates: Confronting the
Class Divide in American Education.
For more information, visit www.
aacu.org/meetings/annualmeeting.

Diversity & Democracy

Advisory Board
Jos Caldern, Pitzer College
Gwendolyn Jordan Dungy,

National Association of Student

Personnel Administrators
Sylvia Hurtado, University
of CaliforniaLos Angeles
Peter Kiang, University of
MassachusettsBoston
L. Lee Knefelkamp, Teachers
College, Columbia University
Catherine Middlecamp, University
of WisconsinMadison
Jeff Milem, University of Arizona
Elizabeth K. Minnich,

AAC&U Senior Fellow

Lester Monts, University of Michigan
Indira Nair, Carnegie
Mellon University
Paul Petrequin, ChandlerGilbert
Community College
Daryl Smith, Claremont
Graduate University
Eve W. Stoddard, Saint
Lawrence University
Nancy L. Thomas,

The Democracy Imperative

Damon A. Williams,

University of Connecticut

Diversity & Democracy

AAC&U Staff
Kevin Hovland

Executive Editor

Kathryn Peltier Campbell

Editor

Laura donnelly-Smith

Associate Editor

Ann Kammerer

Production Editor

Darbi Bossman

Production Manager

AAC&U Editorial Advisors

Carol Geary Schneider

President

Caryn McTighe Musil

Senior Vice President for Diversity,

Equity, and Global Initiatives

Debra Humphreys

Vice President for Communications

and Public Affairs

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES

VOL. 11, NO. 3

23

Upcoming AAC&U Meetings

About AAC&U
AAC&U is the leading national association
concerned with the quality, vitality, and

MEETING

Diversity, Learning, and

Inclusive Excellence

LOCATION

DATES

Long Beach, California

October 16-18, 2008

public standing of undergraduate liberal

education. Its members are committed
to extending the advantages of a liberal
education to all students, regardless of
academic specialization or intended

Providence,
Rhode Island

Engaging Science, Advancing

Learning

November 6-8, 2008

career. Founded in 1915, AAC&U now

comprises more than 1,150 accredited
public and private colleges and universities

Seattle, Washington

Annual Meeting 2009

of every type and size. AAC&U functions

January 21-24, 2009

as a catalyst and facilitator, forging links

among presidents, administrators, and

General Education,
Assessment, and the Learning
Students Need

faculty members who are engaged in

Baltimore, Maryland

February 26-28, 2009

institutional and curricular planning.

Information about AAC&U membership,
programs, and publications canbe found
atwww.aacu.org.

AAC&U Associates

Enrollment in the Associate program provides an opportunity for individuals on

AAC&U member campuses to advance core purposes and best practices in undergraduate education and to strengthen their collaboration with AAC&Us Office of
Diversity, Equity, and Global Initiatives. Associates pay $60 per calendar year and
receive the same benefits as AAC&U Campus Representatives, including subscriptions
to our print publications, Liberal Education, Peer Review, and Diversity & Democracy,
electronic copies of On Campus with Women, invitations to apply for grant-funded
projects, and advance notice of calls for proposals for institutes and meetings. For
moreinformation, please visit www.aacu.org or call Renee Gamache at 202-884-0809.

From AAC&U Board Statement

on LiberalLearning
AAC&U believes that by its nature
liberal learning is global and pluralistic.
It embraces the diversity of ideas and
experiences that characterize the social,
natural, and intellectual world. To
acknowledge such diversity in all its forms
is both an intellectual commitment and a
social responsibility, for nothing less will
equip us to understand our world and to
pursue fruitful lives.

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