• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Donate | Subscribe

Class Action

Class Action

Bridging the class divide

  • About
    • What We Do
    • Who We Are
    • Who We Work With
    • How We Got Started
    • Job Openings
    • E-news & Program Updates
  • Trainings + Consulting
  • Programs
    • Webinars
    • Cross-Class Dialogue Groups
    • Staffing the Mission
    • Activist Class Cultures
    • First-Generation College Students
  • Resources
  • Store
  • Blogs
    • Class Action Blog
    • Voices of the Working Class, Working Poor and Poor
  • Contact

Class in Higher Education

Action on inequality: Getting class recognized as a protected category

February 1, 2013 by Traverse City Rice and Roses Human Rights Project 5 Comments

As the economic inequality gap continues to widen, students at Grand Valley State University in Traverse City, Michigan, started saying that they were tired of “talking” about economic inequality; they wanted to “do” something. We feel that there is a growing emergency. Waiting for things to get better in some far off future began to […]

Filed Under: Class in Higher Education, Classism, Classism in the Economy, Poverty Tagged With: academia, blaming the victim, classism, low-wage jobs, speaking up

Leaving the Cafeteria: an Outsider’s Perspective on Intercity Students

December 17, 2012 by David Perelman Leave a Comment

One of my greatest privileges of my high school and college education was not the fact that I went to accredited institutions, nor the fact that I was simply educated, (though the latter privilege is certainly noteworthy.) It was the fact that despite being restricted to schools that were by design socially exclusive at-face, (my […]

Filed Under: Class in Higher Education, Classism among Kids, Classism in K-12 Education, Cross-class Relationships

A story of crossing the tracks

December 11, 2012 by Celeste Harmer 6 Comments

I was born and raised in working-class Philadelphia.  Growing up I did not see myself as an underrepresented and repressed segment of society.  Certainly I saw that there were those who had more money and material goods than I did, but it was not something I dwelled on.  This was because everyone I knew was […]

Filed Under: Class in Higher Education, Classism in Everyday Life Tagged With: academia, classism, education, first generation college students, snobs, working class

Class Divide in Internships

November 3, 2012 by Ruzielle Ganuelas 2 Comments

Last summer I was hired as an intern for an education advocacy group in Seattle. It was my first time working as an intern and it took me several months to secure one for the summer. I have a year left before graduating from college. Facing a competitive job market after graduation, I decided to […]

Filed Under: Class in Higher Education, First Generation College Students, Workplace classism Tagged With: academia, debt, first generation college students, internships, low-wage jobs, money

A Small Fish in a Big Pond

October 31, 2012 by Ha Nguyen 3 Comments

Junior year of high school, I was informed, was the most crucial one in laying out the roadway towards college. As one who was raised to never even consider not going to college, I was looking forward to engaging in the preparation for higher education. From an early age, I knew that the public school […]

Filed Under: Class in Higher Education, Classism in K-12 Education, First Generation College Students Tagged With: academia, education, first generation college students, public school

A cross-class dating anecdote

October 22, 2012 by S.M. Miller 1 Comment

At Brooklyn College, part of the City of New York’s public higher education system, I began to be acutely aware of class.  I asked a co-ed for a date, she agreed and gave me her address to pick her up on Saturday.  I noted that her address was in Flatbush, a middle income community unlike […]

Filed Under: Class in Higher Education, Classism in Everyday Life, First Generation College Students Tagged With: academia, cross-class relationships, first generation college students

Cross-class College Interactions

October 15, 2012 by Lita Kurth 2 Comments

College, they tell us, is the great middle class-making machine. When I think back on my own cross-class interactions at college, I mostly feel gratitude for the worlds my wealthier friends opened up to me and the way they included and shared with me. My closer friends were solidly middle (including comfortable working-class) and upper […]

Filed Under: Class cultures, Class in Higher Education, Classism, Classism in Everyday Life, Cultural capital, First Generation College Students, Money, Poverty Tagged With: academia, debt, higher education affordability, middle class, online college, rich and poor, working class

How does financial aid affect the classism climate on campuses?

October 12, 2012 by Yeewon Nyon 2 Comments

Log on to any college or university website today, and you are almost guaranteed to find a whole section dedicated to convincing prospective students that a higher education is affordable. Financial aid has established its place firmly on the laundry list of “what a college should have,” and for good reasons, too. However, has it […]

Filed Under: Class in Higher Education, First Generation College Students Tagged With: academia, classism, financial aid

Classism in Academia

September 19, 2012 by Julie Withers 23 Comments

A little over two years ago, a student called me a ‘cunt’ in front of 38 other students. My academic employer did little to protect me and allowed a local, “progressive” paper to attack me in a newspaper/Internet article. I believe this had everything to do with my being a popular but adjunct, community college […]

Filed Under: Class in Higher Education, Workplace classism Tagged With: academia, blaming the victim, classism, working class

Is Classism a Hate Crime?

July 4, 2012 by Lita Kurth 6 Comments

Classism is the new acceptable discrimination. It’s a phenomenon I met while growing up poor and continually saw in the physical facts of life—food, clothing, housing, transportation, acne treatments and braces—all were allocated by class. Generally, so were the emotional/social facts of life: respect, admiration, popularity, participation in plays and expensive sports—those were, by and […]

Filed Under: Class in Higher Education, Classism, Classism in Everyday Life, Race and Class, Workplace classism Tagged With: academia, classism, hate crimes, racism

Dropping the C-Bomb

July 3, 2012 by Terry Easton 4 Comments

When I brought up social class advantages in my classroom at Emory University (one of the colleges that calls itself “the Ivy of the South”), my students got furious. What did I do that got such an angry response? I stated that there were students in the classroom who did not arrive at Emory based […]

Filed Under: Class in Higher Education, Cultural capital Tagged With: academia, privilege, professional middle class, Rationalizing privilege

The Dreams of Poor and Working-Class Students

May 14, 2012 by Jane Van Galen 2 Comments

I was half-listening to the radio last week when I heard an interviewer ask a question that made me pause in my work to listen.   “So”, the interviewer warmly asked, “You knew even as a small child that you wanted to be a concert cellist?”  “Oh yes”, the woman answered. “Since I was eight.” I’ve […]

Filed Under: Class in Higher Education, Classism among Kids, Classism in K-12 Education, First Generation College Students Tagged With: academia, classism, education, first generation college students, social capital, working class

Being Indebted Is My Real Wealth

April 5, 2012 by Sasha Adkins 9 Comments

I’m distressed that academic conventions seem to preclude, or at least discourage, acknowledgment that the work I will present to my dissertation committee is not, properly speaking, mine. “My” project involves spiking seawater samples with methyl mercury. My background is environmental health, not analytical chemistry. I don’t have the skills to handle methyl mercury safely. […]

Filed Under: Class in Higher Education, Spirituality and Ending Classism Tagged With: academia, gratitude

Going on Trial to Prove I Belong

March 8, 2012 by Adj Marshall 1 Comment

Soon after arriving on campus as a freshman I found myself navigating the long hallways of college almost furtively, quietly darting between the large archways of the turn-of-the-century building, afraid to cause a stir lest I be told that my acceptance to this institution had all been a mistake and could at any point be […]

Filed Under: Class in Higher Education, Classism, First Generation College Students Tagged With: education, first generation college students, money

No-degree social movement thinkers

February 18, 2012 by Betsy Leondar-Wright Leave a Comment

Who do you think of when you think of a social movement theorist? A professor? Two of the authors who have taught me the most about social movement strategy have only high school degrees: Linda Stout and the late Bill Moyer. I very rarely see either of them cited in the social movement literature. I […]

Filed Under: Class in Higher Education, Classism in Progressive Movement Groups Tagged With: community organizing, poverty, social movements

The anger of a first-generation student

January 30, 2012 by Emily Loftis

Growing up, my parents always told me that I could be and do whatever I wanted. I always believed them, but what I was never told was how angry I’d feel every day of my life. No one told me about the anger I’d feel when 90% of my class raises their hand when the […]

Filed Under: Class in Higher Education, Classism in Everyday Life, First Generation College Students Tagged With: bullying, classism, education, first generation college students, snobs

Overlooking luck

January 23, 2012 by Emily Loftis Leave a Comment

Can someone please explain to Newt Gingrich that people not wanting a job typically doesn’t cause poverty; being unable to get a job causes poverty.  I would strongly assert that very few people want to be unable to provide for themselves and their families.  People who have only experienced privilege often do not recognize the […]

Filed Under: Class in Higher Education, Classism in Politics Tagged With: blaming the victim, education, first-generation college students, poverty, privilege, public school, working class

Socializing with Ivy League elitists

October 6, 2011 by Emily Loftis 1 Comment

“But you don’t seem poor” — five words that I’ll never forget. In the fall of 2009 I arrived at Wellesley College after having spent my entire life in a small town in Ohio. Most of the kids that I had dated in high school were the same kids I played with on the playground. […]

Filed Under: Class in Higher Education, Classism in Everyday Life Tagged With: classism, first generation college students, snobs

How working at a community college is like working retail

October 6, 2011 by Julie Withers 6 Comments

Expectations are a pain in the ass. There’s an old saying, “plant an expectation, reap a disappointment.” Yep I did it, planted and am now disappointed. I teach Sociology at a rural community college; I love teaching, but I don’t love that adjunct teachers like me are temporary, at-will employees. Who knew that the working […]

Filed Under: Class in Higher Education Tagged With: adjunct professors, low-wage jobs

Schooling the system of privilege

October 1, 2011 by Pete Redington 4 Comments

This “back to school” season got me to thinking about my own formal education, and the teachers and professors I’ve known who have or have not used their positions of academic influence to challenge the status quo, especially the economic status quo. The current issue of Boston Review features Noam Chomsky’s essay, “The Responsibility of […]

Filed Under: Class in Higher Education Tagged With: academia, education, speaking up

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to page 4
  • Go to Next Page »

Footer

Bring Class Action to You

Request a training

Stay in touch

Join our mailing list

Support our work

Make a donation

We also accept donations by stock, donor advised funds, and planned giving. Please contact us for more information at office@classism.org

Contact

office@classism.org
11 Green Street

Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
(617) 477-8635

Class Action Copyright © 2022 · Site by Ajitate · Log in