Class Action September 2006 Book of the Month!

Beyond Silenced Voices: Class, Race, and Gender in United States Schools

Revised Edition

Edited by Lois Weis and Michelle Fine State University of New York Press

2005

As the introduction states, Beyond Silenced Voices: Class, Race, and Gender in U.S. Schools (revised edition) “rests on the belief that educators must be at the center of informing educational policy as we are the ones who are both able to listen to youth and design classrooms.” As promised, this book’s target audience is teachers and educators, but Beyond Silenced Voices is a must read for any one interested in education and education reform.

What motivates the book is a “shared belief in education that ‘could be’ and a shared worry about schools that currently reproduce class, race, and gender relations and privilege.” Written mostly by college/university affiliated students and professors, this book often gives off the vibe of writing “about” lower advantaged people without actually including them in the target audience. If you can get beyond the problematic “us/them” dichotomy that some of the chapters in Beyond Silenced Voices set up, you will be given invaluable statistics and analyses of race, class, and gender that is often missing from a discussion of education in the U.S.

As we read this book, we are asked to “bear witness and simultaneously act, as policies, politics, and practices shrink the educational horizon for so many youth.” Split into fifteen chapters, Beyond Silenced Voices provides “voices not normally heard” while “gathering respect for those on the margins.” Chapters cover a range of subjects – from graduation rates in the U.S. to the culture of black femininity in schools to access to college. Beyond Silenced Voices analyses topics from primary, secondary, and college and university level education. In Chapter Three, “Reform as Redefining the Space of Schools,” we learn about how class and race affect what level reading group you are placed into as a first grader and how that status stays with you until high school, affecting what advanced classes you can enter. In Chapter Four, “Hollowing the Promise of Higher Education,” we learn about the political economy of college educations and in Chapter Nine, “In the Bad or Good of Girlhood,” we learn how class plays a role in forming a feminine identity and how different girls from different classes interact with teachers in the classroom. What each chapter of Beyond Silenced Voices has in common is a terrific analysis of the intersection of class, race, and gender and how those affect the quality of education for students in the U.S.

But Beyond Silenced Voices is so much more than an analysis of inequalities in education in the U.S. The introduction states, “Building off serious analyses of social inequality … (Beyond Silenced Voices) offers a vision.” In this book we are given ideas for changing the inequalities present in our education system.

Class Action September 2006 Film of the Month!

Declining by Degrees

The documentary film, Declining by Degrees, takes a critical look at multiple aspects of higher education in America: from financial aid policies, to the business side of things, classroom practices, and faculty involvement. Multiple college presidents get their say, as do various types of faculty members, and a broad range of students. Four schools are examined: Amherst College (an elite liberal arts school), University of Arizona (a large public research university), Western Kentucky University (a regional state school), and the Community College of Denver. Loaded questions are asked, numerous problems are identified, but two hours, unfortunately, was not enough time to lay out many solutions.

But, why do Americans care about higher education? Declining by Degrees answers, the social contract. It all started ages ago with the G.I Bill (which allowed millions, of largely white Americans, to attend college post-WWII) coupled with (almost?) adequate federal and state funding for institutions of higher learning.

If one were to sum up the problems of today identified in Declining by Degrees, the total would equal something like “the commodification of higher education”. Higher education has turned into a business. The investors—state and federal governments from Reagan on—keep cutting back on their spending but they want to see a return on their inputs: namely, favorable graduation rates. Get ‘em in, push ‘em through, pump ‘em out (with considerable debt).

What are the implications for students? Not enough financial aid. (Ridiculously) Higher tuition rates. Anonymity. Grade inflation. Lack of skill building. Lack of critical thinking development. Rise in binge drinking.

What are the implications for faculty? Lower salaries. Part-time status. Too many students. Forced grade inflation. No tenure without published research. Less time to devote to students. Assembly line classroom approach.

Declining by Degrees points out that increasing tuition and decreasing financial aid are penalizing most people on the class spectrum. Some students are caught in a particular bind: work during college and get less financial aid or don’t work and get more aid and more debt.

Declining by Degrees interviews many students who are struggling to make the collegiate systems work. Some students, lower income and middle class, cannot afford the time, energy, and money needed to support themselves (and their families), pay tuition, and participate as students. Getting by as a full-time student with a full time job is not an easy feat. Still other students, particularly those at the elite liberal arts Amherst college, enjoy the available resources that allow for them to fully engage in higher learning.

Years ago, a high school diploma was enough to enter the middle-class job market. Today a college degree is necessary (along with the accompanying debt). High school and undergraduate education seem to be on the decline. Tomorrow will one need a graduate degree?

View previous Class Action Book of the Month selections...

August Books of the Month: Human Cargo and Gathering the Sun

July Book of the Month: The Overworked American by Juliet Schor

June Book of the Month: More Money Than God by Steven R. Leder

May Book of the Month: Global Class by Jeff Faux

April Books of the Month: Classified and Strapped

March Book of the Month: Welfare Brat, A Memoir by Mary Childers

February Book of the Month: Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

January Book of the Month: Invisible Privilege: A Memoir about Race, Class, and Gender by Paula Rothenberg

View last year's Book of the Month selections...

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