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

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Kenneth Oldfield ��Fiction: Allison’s (1992) Bastard Out of Carolina, Dickens’ (1961) Hard Times, and Steinbeck’s (1939) The Grapes of Wrath ��Nonfiction General: Ehrenreich’s (2001) Nickel and Dimed, hooks’ (2000) Where We Stand: Class Matters, and Shaw’s (1928) The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism ��Nonfiction about the Relationship between Social Class and Formal Education: Kozol’s (1991) Savage Inequalities, Lareau’s (2011) Unequal Childhoods, Mullen’s (2010) Degrees of Inequality, and Sacks’ (2007) Tearing Down the Gates CONCLUSION Despite what you might be thinking, I do not blame my professors for what they did and did not teach me about socioeconomic inequalities. This is especially true for the legitimacy of inherited advantages. My instructors were also products of a formal education system and popular culture practically blind to social class. This article details not only the unusual circumstances that coalesced to help me beat the odds and become a professor, but it describes several happenstance episodes that propelled me toward an expanding class consciousness that guides my research and writing. Ideally, that part of my narrative will prompt others to reflect on episodes related to social class from their own lives, situations they had ignored until now, and see why I say our field should pay more attention to the consequences of social class disparities, including various forms of inheritance. Successful reform movements often have three parts. First, people present evidence and arguments identifying a problem. Second, reformers, usually writers, offer a theory of change, a plan to fix the problem. Finally, activists implement the proposed solutions; they put theory into practice. Although the tactics are usually refined to fit local conditions, the reformers remain true to the theorists’ ideals. As the folk song’s lyrics say, “Keep your eyes on the prize.” I offered the preceding two sections in that spirit. I showed that PA, in both theory and practice, has been downplaying an important issue and that we need to pay more attention to the elements of classism. All the articles I have published, including this one, offer a list of suggestions for resolving the social class problem in question. Only the third step remains: Our discipline’s leading organizations and its professoriate must begin supporting and implementing these recommended reforms. If we are willing to take these bold steps, certainly other fields will follow our lead. Until we implement the proposed changes, PA programs cannot completely fulfill their self-proclaimed objectives. In that case, they will continue graduating students unprepared fully to meet their challenges and responsibilities as practitioners and academics. Our reluctance to teach about and act more on matters of social class inequalities is equivalent to the biological sciences refusing to acknowledge the theory of and evidence for evolution, pretending Darwin’s (1859) On The Origin of Species never happened. 44 Journal of Public Affairs Education
Admittedly, it will be difficult to overcome a national mythology that insists we are all created equal and that with enough Horatio Algeresque effort, even those starting from far behind can win the race. Maybe someday we will appreciate structural nepotism as much as we have come to recognize other dysfunctional isms. I see Knupfer’s work playing out around me every day, episodes that remind me of how much class mattered and matters. I see it in my local newspaper when I notice how many of the college scholarship winners were born of comfortable circumstances. I see it in general empirical terms when I read Hart and Risley’s (1995) Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children, and when Kevin Kniffin (2007) sends me a reprint of his “Accessibility to the PhD and Professoriate for First-Generation College Graduates” in The Uneven Road to College Opportunity. Finally, friends, former students, and colleagues constantly send me materials to feed my habit with titles such as “EEGs Show Brain Differences between Poor and Rich Kids,” an article with an ominous warning: This is a wake-up call. . . . It’s not just that these kids are poor and more likely to have health problems, but they might actually not be getting full brain development from the stressful and relatively impoverished environment associated with low socioeconomic status: fewer books, less reading, fewer games, fewer visits to museums. (Sanders, 2008, quoting Knight) Class Rooms Why am I so interested in the effects of social class inequalities? After all, I am a paradigm of social mobility. I beat the odds, earned a PhD, and spent most of my life breathing the rarified air of academe. I never buy lottery tickets, because the chances of winning are too long. States advertise lottery winners, not those who purchase innumerable tickets yet never claim a prize, or at least receive enough money worth noting. I view my life that way. I am an anomaly who found his way through the academic maze notwithstanding the probabilities against it happening. Many things broke in my direction, including a heavy dose of “government intervention” in the form of a publicly supported higher education system that granted me assistantships and fellowships and then a lifetime job in a public university. My family, professors, and friends helped smooth the way. My grandmother’s laissez-faire parenting style paid off in the end. She anchored me in rich soil with both a silent commandment never to disappoint her and an unchaperoned childhood that taught me self-discipline. Still, if only a few things had fallen the other way, I would not have received that lucky lottery ticket. Ideally, the discussion and reforms this paper presents will be an invisible audience encouraging all PA students, faculty, and practitioners to include social class inequalities among their diversity concerns. Unless and until more of us join this effort, our field will never reverse the classism and structural nepotism that got us into this fix in the first place. Journal of Public Affairs Education 45
Page 1 and 2: JPAE VOLUME 18 NUMBER 1 JOURNAL OF
Page 3 and 4: Journal of Public Affairs Education
Page 5 and 6: FROM THE EDITOR In the symposium in
Page 7 and 8: NASPAA Presidential Address Annual
Page 9 and 10: Leading by Example: Modeling Global
Page 15 and 16: FROM THE GUEST EDITOR FROM THE GUES
Page 17 and 18: FROM THE GUEST EDITOR A SYMPOSIUM I
Page 19 and 20: on other fronts, certainly it can h
Page 21 and 22: Picasso, P. (1937). Guernica. Pictu
Page 23 and 24: A View from the 50th Street Gate on
Page 25 and 26: Reflections of a Working-Class Acad
Page 31 and 32: Reflections of a Working Class Acad
Page 33 and 34: Reflections of a Working Class Acad
Page 35 and 36: Class Rooms Kenneth Oldfield Univer
Page 37 and 38: Class Rooms although I did, but not
Page 39 and 40: Class Rooms GRADUATE SCHOOL I was u
Page 41 and 42: Class Rooms the odds this appointee
Page 43 and 44: Class Rooms The Great Leveler, too
Page 45 and 46: Class Rooms of higher learning and
Page 47 and 48: ook (Oldfield & Johnson, 2009). The
Page 49: Didactic Changes Class Rooms Pedago
Page 53 and 54: hooks, b. (2000). Where we stand: C
Page 55 and 56: Shaw, G. B. (1928). The intelligent
Page 57 and 58: What’s a Girl Like You Doing in a
Page 59 and 60: What’s a Girl Like You For exampl
Page 61 and 62: What’s a Girl Like You and operat
Page 63 and 64: What’s a Girl Like You captured t
Page 65 and 66: What’s a Girl Like You full-blown
Page 67 and 68: What’s a Girl Like You inside). I
Page 69 and 70: What’s a Girl Like You and collea
Page 71 and 72: What’s a Girl Like You toward ser
Page 73 and 74: Blue-Collar Teaching in a White-Col
Page 75 and 76: Blue-Collar Teaching Half of my fam
Page 77 and 78: Blue-Collar Teaching from physics.
Page 79 and 80: Blue-Collar Teaching lifelong dream
Page 81 and 82: Blue-Collar Teaching Before him, in
Page 83 and 84: Blue-Collar Teaching One may argue
Page 85 and 86: Blue-Collar Teaching graduation in
Page 87 and 88: Blue-Collar Teaching advantages oth
Page 89 and 90: Carrizales, T. (2010). Exploring cu
Page 91 and 92: Oldfield, K. (2010). Socioeconomic
Page 93 and 94: Moving Forward by Looking Back Gary
Page 95 and 96: Moving Forward My father married my
Page 97 and 98: Moving Forward became apparent that
Page 99 and 100: Moving Forward to Duane, because he
Page 101 and 102:
Moving Forward by this contaminant.
Page 103 and 104:
Moving Forward quite by chance to b
Page 105 and 106:
Moving Forward Federalist 51 detail
Page 107 and 108:
Moving Forward their profession, in
Page 109 and 110:
Moving Forward as the study shows,
Page 111 and 112:
REFERENCES Ashwander v. Tennessee V
Page 113 and 114:
Techniques in Teaching Statistics:
Page 115 and 116:
Many researchers have explored the
Page 117 and 118:
LITERATURE REVIEW Techniques in Tea
Page 119 and 120:
Techniques in Teaching Statistics b
Page 121 and 122:
Techniques in Teaching Statistics T
Page 123 and 124:
Techniques in Teaching Statistics l
Page 125 and 126:
Techniques in Teaching Statistics i
Page 127 and 128:
Table 1. Downloads of Papers at Sel
Page 129 and 130:
Figure 2. Expanded Model of Researc
Page 131 and 132:
Techniques in Teaching Statistics o
Page 133 and 134:
Figure 3. Expanded Model of Researc
Page 135 and 136:
Techniques in Teaching Statistics L
Page 137 and 138:
Techniques in Teaching Statistics o
Page 139 and 140:
Felbinger, C. L., Holzer, M., & Whi
Page 141 and 142:
Snee, R. D. (1993). What’s missin
Page 143 and 144:
Are They Connected? Exploring Acade
Page 145 and 146:
Exploring Academic and Social Netwo
Page 147 and 148:
Page 149 and 150:
Page 151 and 152:
Figure 2. Career Advice Network Fig
Page 153 and 154:
Table 1. Descriptive Statistics of
Page 155 and 156:
network density, and network recipr
Page 157 and 158:
Figure 5. Academic, Career Advice,
Page 159 and 160:
Page 161 and 162:
Page 163 and 164:
Open Access Digital Repository: Sha
Page 165 and 166:
Sharing Student Research with the W
Page 167 and 168:
Table 1. Downloads of Papers at Sel
Page 169 and 170:
Table 2. Top 10 Most Downloaded App
Page 171 and 172:
Page 173 and 174:
Page 175 and 176:
Analysts also determined the number
Page 177 and 178:
Topical categories. As shown in Tab
Page 179 and 180:
negative impact on ARP downloads (
Page 181 and 182:
Page 183 and 184:
Page 185 and 186:
Page 187 and 188:
Page 189 and 190:
Knowledge and Skills for Policy Mak
Page 191 and 192:
Stories from Local Public Managers
Page 193 and 194:
Page 195 and 196:
Page 197 and 198:
and writing the proposal for the co
Page 199 and 200:
Another echoes: Stories from Local
Page 201 and 202:
I think communication is one of the
Page 203 and 204:
Page 205 and 206:
Page 207 and 208:
Page 209 and 210:
Page 211 and 212:
Page 213 and 214:
Page 215 and 216:
Creating Quality Online Course Desi
Page 217 and 218:
Page 219 and 220:
Page 221 and 222:
Page 223 and 224:
Page 225 and 226:
Page 227 and 228:
Page 229 and 230:
Page 231 and 232:
Page 233 and 234:
it was achieved. The assessment of
Page 235 and 236:
Fulbright Program for Foreign Stude
Page 237 and 238:
Page 239 and 240:
Page 241 and 242:
Page 243 and 244:
Page 245 and 246:
Review of Moral Controversies in Am
Page 247 and 248:
application of those foundations to
Page 249 and 250:
Journal of Public Affairs Education
Page 251 and 252:
Information for Contributors The Jo
show all

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

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?