WINTER 2012 - National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and ...

Kenneth Oldfield
The second episode involved Knupfer’s (1947) “Portrait of the Underdog.”
I saw her work referenced in a text I read during my doctoral studies. Out of
curiosity, I went to the library and read her paper, in which she summarizes
research findings about the everyday lives of the working class—or, as she
called them, “lower status” people. Among other things, Knupfer reported
that compared to their better-off counterparts, lower-status people had fewer
friends and acquaintances, read fewer nonfiction books and current events
magazines, were less widely traveled, were less informed about public officials
and events, and were less likely to attend Parent-Teacher Association meetings.
As I read her article, I thought she was describing my family. Besides the many
other connections, I thought of how none of my closest relatives would have
dreamed of attending a PTA meeting. It would be too awkward and intimidating
for them, just as Knupfer said. Her work struck me because of its empathetic
description of the working class as both a distinct group and one worthy of
understanding, versus condescension.
The third episode involved my PhD minor field, sociology. The professor’s
teaching method and my learning style went hand in glove. We met periodically
over several semesters to discuss books he assigned. Some of these texts were
about the sociology of sociology or the sociology of knowledge. This professor
and I often discussed how culture shapes the questions researchers pose and, in
turn, whose political interests this benefits.
Although social class was not the focus of our conversations, I eventually
turned these critical thinking lessons toward my own interests. I started reversing
various public policy questions. I wondered, for example, why we study The
Poverty Problem and not The Rich Problem; why such a small percentage of the
population—the elites who make the rules and reinforce an ideology to justify
their advantages—take far more than their fair share of the available wealth. In
turn, I wondered whose side The Bible is on when it says, “For you always have
the poor with you,” versus warning, “For you always have the rich with you.”
The fourth episode involved examining literature for my dissertation.
Although my research question did not involve social class directly, along the
way I stumbled on various readings describing how America’s formal learning
process sorts winners and losers by socioeconomic origins. Because, as noted,
these studies were not directly relevant to my dissertation question, I read most
of these materials on my own time, but it was worth it. The research showed that
contrary to the American folklore I had accepted mostly without question—
after all, here I was a kid of humble origins studying for a PhD—I was reading
study after study that contradicted the popular notion of education as The
Great Leveler (Hess, 2005, p. 26). The patterns were surprisingly dependable.
Social class origins consistently and significantly correlated with various major
educational outcomes, including who goes to college and where, whether they
graduate, whether they take an advanced degree, and so forth. Rather than being
36 Journal of Public Affairs Education