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[unhelpful]

Just read Thomas Benton's latest piece in the Chronicle. I have always enjoyed his essays, and have to say that this is the best thing I have ever read in the Chronicle. He says everything there is to say about being a working class academic. His take on affirmative action is also very perceptive, as he says:

"In the end, I think too much of the celebration is about making privileged people feel like they care about inequality without having to really change anything."

Thank you Thomas, you said exactly what I feel.

[scarletbegonia]

Many of my memories of graduate school (at a posh, private institution very unlike my public, chronically underfunded undergraduate institutions) relate to the difficulties I had as a working-class student. I am still continually amazed at the number of people that assume that because I am educated, I must have grown up in a middle-class (or higher income) household. Hell, I'm still continually amazed that *I* am middle-class now, at least by the standards of my old neighborhood.

Benton brings up some good points. The paragraph on mimicry particularly hits home for me, as I remember mispronouncing "gorgonzola" at a dinner and my table of colleagues laughing for weeks. One of the difficult parts of "passing" for me has always been pronunciation. I have an extensive vocabulary, but it is because I read constantly. I know the words, I know their meanings and can use them in everyday conversation. But no one ever used the word "epitome" in conversations when I was growing up, so I mispronounced it for years. If the GRE tested pronunciation, I doubt I would have been admitted into graduate school.

My favorite book on class is "Where We Stand: Class Matters" by bell hooks. It wasn't until I read that book that I finally began to understand some of the experiences I had in graduate school. I still struggle with being in an atmosphere where I never feel quite like I belong. And yet I return to my old neighborhood and I don't really belong there anymore either.

[larryc]

Here is the link:

http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2007/11/2007110901c/careers.html

[iomhaigh]

Benton brings up some good points. The paragraph on mimicry particularly hits home for me, as I remember mispronouncing "gorgonzola" at a dinner and my table of colleagues laughing for weeks. One of the difficult parts of "passing" for me has always been pronunciation. I have an extensive vocabulary, but it is because I read constantly. I know the words, I know their meanings and can use them in everyday conversation. But no one ever used the word "epitome" in conversations when I was growing up, so I mispronounced it for years. If the GRE tested pronunciation, I doubt I would have been admitted into graduate school.

This cracks me up because it is so very much like me -- except that I also had sometimes heard other words but then couldn't for the life of me spell them or recognize them when written!  Segue.  I really wanted it to be segeway.  I had a prof at undergrad who used to gently and good-naturedly tease me about such things because we talked about this tendency. (I was also very good at using a similiar but not quite right word).  

There were some really good threads last spring about working class academics.  I, of course, cannot find any of them right now, but you may enjoy those if the wondrous search engine will reveal their locations to you.  

[sibyl]

I liked the essay too.  One of the things I liked best about it -- and I think (and hope) this was intentional -- was that Benton framed it in such a way that it can resonate with people who are excluded by race and gender.  Shame, otherness, betrayal -- these themes all run through race and gender concerns as well.  Benton's description of how they connect to class issues should help people feel more aware of class.

The passage I found most thought-provoking, a passage which ought to be unnerving even to a white middle-class man, was the part about serving the needs of the privileged.  Part of why I teach is because I believe in education as the gateway to self-improvement.  But, like Benton, I mostly teach privileged people, and at best I am only "complicat[ing] and soften[ing] the aggressive certainties of future elites."  Am I really helping people who need help?

I don't know.  But I do know this is a very good essay.

[daurousseau]

People who want to lend a hand in the class struggle can find ways to do so. Hand-wringing in the Chronicle isn't one of them.

[fiona]

Paul Fussell's book on class is also very good. Funny, a little snotty, but informative. He is (or was--I think he's dead) an academic. One of his points is that "class" in the United States is much less talked-about than in England and is often a matter of tastes (including pronunciations) rather than income.

My family of origin is working class, but I manage to pass now. Another family member went to an Ivy League school and came back with a preppie accent, which was a marvel to everyone.

Responding to Daurousseau's point: African American academics have always felt an ethical imperative to "give back" to those less fortunate. I think white working class academics should feel that way, too, and I've always done volunteer work (besides voluntarily shrieking at people on these fora).

The Fiona

[scarletbegonia]

The passage I found most thought-provoking, a passage which ought to be unnerving even to a white middle-class man, was the part about serving the needs of the privileged.  Part of why I teach is because I believe in education as the gateway to self-improvement.  But, like Benton, I mostly teach privileged people, and at best I am only "complicat[ing] and soften[ing] the aggressive certainties of future elites."  Am I really helping people who need help?

I think the future elites need help as much as working-class students; self-improvement should not be a goal solely for the working-class and poor. The students I taught at posh, private U often made comments to me such as "you are the first poor person I've ever met" (I can laugh about it now - I couldn't then) or in a discussion about homelessness they would admit that they would not hire someone with no ID, no fixed address/phone, no access to a shower, etc. and maybe we should look at more constructive solutions to homelessness than "they jsut need to get a job." Teaching elites to look beyond media representations of poverty can be extremely beneficial IMHO. Unfortunately, it may be hard to do, particularly if you aren't comfortable sharing personal experiences or the subject matter you teach is not amenable to dicussing those types of issues.

[iomhaigh]

The passage I found most thought-provoking, a passage which ought to be unnerving even to a white middle-class man, was the part about serving the needs of the privileged.  Part of why I teach is because I believe in education as the gateway to self-improvement.  But, like Benton, I mostly teach privileged people, and at best I am only "complicat[ing] and soften[ing] the aggressive certainties of future elites."  Am I really helping people who need help?

Everyone needs help.  The elite kids that some of us teach may not need as much help navigating the academy and overcoming piss-poor public schools, but they still need to leave college as more well-rounded students.  To me, that means exposing them as much as possible to texts that address major issues in our world (class, gender, race, etc.), exposing them to different ways of thinking, and playing up the community service component so that they recognize, one hopes, that community service requires you to examine your own prejudices about the world and, in some instances, get over them.  Different kinds of help. 

In my current justification of my existence at a school that enrolls amazingly wealthy students, I like to interpret this as introducing them to concepts that might not otherwise cross their mind and with which I am far too familiar.  Sometimes the conversation starts with something as simple as mentioning government cheese.   


And, to continue an earlier thread discussion: someone please, how on earth does one pronounce "nacht" ? 

[fiona]

And, to continue an earlier thread discussion: someone please, how on earth does one pronounce "nacht" ? 

In German it gets a more guttural _ch_ sound, but Americans can get away with pronouncing it "knocked."

The Fiona

[unhelpful]

My family of origin is working class, but I manage to pass now. Another family member went to an Ivy League school and came back with a preppie accent, which was a marvel to everyone.

I don't quite get this idea of "passing." Passing for what exactly? Why would you want to be someone else?

[rizzy]

Working at certain institutions I have also shared the feelings articulated in Benton's essay, especially the feeling that one has sacrificed so much only to teach the elite.  This is not to say that young people from wealthy backgrounds do not need a good education.  Of course they do, and this is good, world-changing work. 

But if teaching the elite rankles -- and this may be about one's own personal style as much as some kind of objective assessment of what counts as work that changes the world -- then it really rankles.  I remember this feeling from being a teaching assistant in graduate school.  It felt like I was going into massive amounts of debt and wealthy students with their consumer mentality would act like I was there to serve them. 

Inside and outside the classroom I was perpetually reminded of class difference.  At times grad school was a process of simultaneously being told in subtle ways that I had to learn how to "pass" -- to adopt the appearance of being middle class -- and then being looked down upon for my inability to do so perfectly.  It was not like that all the time, of course.  

Back then I got myself through grad school by telling myself that when I got the degree, I would try to use it to help working class students. As I suggested above, if this is a felt need then it is, and saying it is a felt need is not the same as attacking those of us who teach students who are not from working-class origins. 

Thomas Benton's writing illuminates qualities of the profession that would otherwise remain inchoate.  One possibility would be for him to find work with a population of students who are more working-class in origin.  Another possibility for him would be to go out of his way -- which he probably already does -- to mentor working class students at his school.  It's really satisfying to see working class students who are able to use the university experience to actually improve their lives.  Sometimes the university really can open the way to class mobility and the opportunity for reflection and self-awareness.

[mignon]

I'm not convinced that just having a PhD takes us out of the working class, esp. if we're working as adjuncts for low pay.  My husband and I have working class/immigrant roots, and we do all the mispronunciation stuff.  But for years, we were also hanging by a thread financially and eating government cheese.  My good, if not always accurate, vocabulary did not help me feel like a member of the elite as I shopped at Goodwill.  (Mind you, I am not complaining:  working class roots also make me feel more proud of my accomplishments than I might feel if my dad were President of Harvard . . . )

[dr_stones]

ACADEMICS WERE NEVER RICH FROM THEIR WORK AS ACADEMICS!

When academics were wealthy, it was because they came from wealth.  Or they married money.  Or they made a pile doing something else and then became academics. 

Academics are not working class because they do not "labor"in the conventional sense (manual labor).  They also have a higher degree of intellectual interest, are more articulate, polished, &c, than others.

Academics are the intelligentsia (интеллигенция), those who wrestle with complex problems and who create and disseminate knowledge and culture.

But they still feel materially poor compared to other highly educated professions. But, consider that we are the last feudal institution standing, the heirs to a bunch of monks who saved civilization.  We live and thrive based on the sponsorship of those with wealth, or those who pay for our complex instruction.

We're not working class. We defy and transcend economic class because we are something inherently different.

[namazu]

But no one ever used the word "epitome" in conversations when I was growing up, so I mispronounced it for years.

Segue.  I really wanted it to be segeway. 

1) Does anyone use "epitome" outside of academia or the magazines and nonfiction books that "well-educated" people read, like The Economist or The New Yorker?  (Neither of which I'd seen - except maybe a New Yorker in a doctor's waiting room? - until I was at least a sophomore in college.)
2) I thought it should be "segway", but now that's an electric scooter. 
3) I found it interesting to learn that education-based indices of class have predominated in U.S. circles (for people doing quantitative research, mostly), whereas in the UK occupation-based indices are more often used, for various reasons and with various implications.  (This was stuff from George Davey-Smith, Berkman and Macintyre, and others.  It's not something I've looked at in great detail, though, so if anyone loves or hates these authors or wants to put a different spin on these things, go ahead!)
4) As important as I believe it is to reach out to students whose experiences remind us of our own, it is also important to serve as role models to students whose backgrounds are very different (including students who are "privileged" in various ways).  I think this has benefits for students, in normalizing the idea that universities are places where all kinds of people can succeed, but it also has the side effect of reminding us that we belong.  (For differences that aren't apparent, I wouldn't advocate hitting people over the head with them, but there's no need to hide them, either.) 
5) There are miscellaneous other things I've been mulling over, but I have nothing coherent right now.  (Meanwhile, I figured I'd listen in on the discussion!)

Overall, I found Benton's article thought-provoking.  I agree to some extent with the quote Unhelpful highlighted; as long as we have affirmative action that relies primarily on group membership, I would support incorporating socioeconomically- or educationally-disadvantaged (e.g. 1st generation) students into these frameworks, and making available supplemental support systems (e.g. mentors, financial aid and emergency loans, bridge programs, and guidance re: expectations).  Still, even a broader conception of educational "advantage" and "disadvantage" does relatively little to change fundamental things about the national labor market, public education at the preK-12 levels, neighborhood-level pressures, etc. 

I have mixed feelings about the way Benton projects his sense of misplaced priorities onto "privileged people".  (Since it appears he now considers himself "privileged" in some ways, maybe he "generalizes" rather than "projects"?)  Part of me feels he's really hit the nail on the head.  Another part of me feels that it's a cheap shot against people who, for all their privilege, are no more powerful than he is to effect deep and lasting positive changes in the broad social domains mentioned above.  (I don't see this as a justification for being content with self-congratulation for half-hearted efforts, but rather as an argument for taking on the problem seriously, in viable chunks, and valuing incremental successes.  For example, need-blind admissions with guaranteed financial aid has been a good start in some places, though those programs obviously address only one facet of the issue of access.)

I assume (perhaps errantly) that most academics (whether or not "privileged" from birth) vote, volunteer (if not spending every waking hour working to make ends meet and pay off student loans), mentor students, and support policies and programs that support working-class students (and others) before and after college entry.  Some of us study and/or teach about these issues, or supervise service projects, but for others of us it's not explicitly part of our academic work.  What else could we - or should we - be doing to help our students succeed, and to encourage others to aim high?