Reflections from the Wrong Side of the Tracks: Class, Identity, and the Working Class Experience in Academe

by Stephen L. Muzzatti, Vincent C. Samarco, Phyllis L. Baker (Contributor)

In this edited collection of narrative-based, critically situated essays, each contributor explores how class has affected his/her personal and academic lives. The collection is divided into three sections: i) narratives that critique the meritocracy; ii) narratives that trace the effects of middle class cultural capital on relatively new academics from the working class, and; iii) narratives that explore the effects of class on longtime academics from the working class. The effect of the collection will be cumulative. By choosing contributors from multiple disciplines, including both established and emerging voices, the text articulates the pervasiveness of class bias in this country and fleshes out the mechanisms that mask how class and power work. Such a text is critically important, both inside and outside academia, because it demystifies the academic world for those who have been restricted by it, but also engages critically trained academics and academics-in-waiting to understand and respond to the experiences of working class students. Finally, the authors hope this text will encourage other working class students to consider an academic career as an option.

Genres: Nonfiction, Class

256 pages, ebook

First published November 28, 2005

Reviews

[Jeannette · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has startled me. I'm currently writing a paper on diversity in academia and stumbled upon the topic of social class. This topic is seriously neglected in the library science field -- pretty much all the diversity literature is about race. All the essays I've read so far echo my experiences in academia -- I thought no one else felt this way! My theory is that Adventism is a very class-conscious subculture, and that my early social views were very influenced by this. This seems to be one of the few topics I've come across in academia that I could picture myself doing doctoral work on. Not that I want to get my doctorate...