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Cultural capital

Thoughts on Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope by Kristoff and WuDunn

February 7, 2020 by Will Meyer Leave a Comment

An essay adapted from Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope, the new book by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, appeared in the paper’s Sunday Review section on January 9th. Focusing on “deaths of despair” occurring in the Oregon county where Kristof has roots, the piece tries to square common tropes about how […]

Filed Under: A World Without Classism, Class in Literature, Class in the Media, Classism, Cultural capital, Dismantlng Classism

Why Do You Want to Be Poor?

July 5, 2018 by Alejandro Villa Vasquez Leave a Comment

Growing up poor on Long Island builds character. While trying to balance personal responsibilities with maintaining a GPA high enough to make myself a competitive candidate for scholarships and college admissions, I found that I could make several distinct dinner recipes from just adobo seasoning, week-old produce and recooked meat products. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was necessary. It […]

Filed Under: A World Without Classism, Class in Higher Education, Class prejudice, Cultural capital, Dealing with privilege, First Generation College Students, Poverty Tagged With: academia, class cluelessness, class cultures, classism, first generation college students, poverty, privilege, Rationalizing privilege, working class

Spring Break?

March 23, 2017 by Jade Obler Leave a Comment

When I think of spring break, I think of MTV and early 20-somethings soaking up the sun. I believe that this ideal spring break is becoming more and more mythical with the rising costs of education. Classism enables wealthy students to obtain degrees debt free while low-income and working-class students are faced with more and more debt. I […]

Filed Under: A World Without Classism, Class cultures, Class in Higher Education, Cultural capital, Dealing with privilege, Pop Culture Classism Tagged With: classism, education, middle class, spring break, working class

Risk Telling the Truth

September 29, 2016 by Abraham Lateiner 1 Comment

I thought I was going to be a career teacher. But after a decade, I hit bottom. Teaching in inner-city schools, I saw the barriers my students faced and confronted my own limits caused by my vastly different experience growing up. I had some positive, uplifting experiences, but I wasn’t very resilient, and I kept […]

Filed Under: A World Without Classism, Building Economic Alternatives, Classism in the Economy, Cross-class alliances, Cross-class Relationships, Cultural capital, Dealing with privilege, Dismantlng Classism, Money, Owning class Tagged With: classism, privilege, race and class, racism, super-rich

Changing Classes, Changing Vacations

August 25, 2016 by Class Action Leave a Comment

I was born to two African-American strivers. My dad had been born poor and my mom came from people who had “clawed their way up,” according to my maternal granddad, from “dirt poor to lower-middle-class.” Family difficulties early in her life, however, meant that Mom grew up working-class instead. My parents shared a great love – […]

Filed Under: Cultural capital Tagged With: class cultures, class mobility, middle class, privilege, working class

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

Who Counts as Poor (and who gets to talk about it)

September 27, 2012 by Lita Kurth 3 Comments

I had a bizarre and frustrating experience recently talking to an agent at a writing conference. My main interest was to pitch a novel, but when she said she wasn’t looking for fiction, I threw out a few nonfiction ideas, among them a book on what people don’t know about poverty. “What qualifies you to […]

Filed Under: Class in the Media, Class in The News, Classism, Classism in Everyday Life, Cultural capital, Poverty Tagged With: Barbara Ehrenreich, budget cuts, community colleges, homeless shelters, illiteracy intelligence book-learning, Katherine Boo, poverty, privilege, progressive journalism, speaking up, writing for change

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

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