via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker
There is some truth to the American ideal of meritocracy. But there’s a lot of myth, as well.
Biologist Danielle Lee describes her experience coaching poor kids in St. Louis on science fair projects – an activity that often becomes a stepping stone to a career in the sciences. But, for the kids Lee met, intelligence and a good idea aren’t enough to overcome the institutional barriers working against them.
This is how discrimination happens.
It’s not simple and easy to fix and it isn’t pretty to watch.
Hazel’s comment:
Fans of my weekend miscellanies will readily recognise the writer of this Boing Boing blog post. I sometimes wonder where I would be without her!
This one, however, linked in my mind with something I posted only yesterday about UK poorer students losing their aspirations of university by the time they were 14.
Showing posts with label poor_students. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poor_students. Show all posts
Tuesday, 5 February 2013
Thursday, 21 June 2012
The Precarious Nature of Social Class-Sensitivity in Literacy: …
A Social, Autobiographic, and Pedagogical Project
an article by Mark D. Vagle and Stephanie Jones The University of Georgia, Athens, USA) published in Curriculum Inquiry Volume 42 Issue 3 (June 2012)
Abstract
Using Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s (1947/1964) phenomenological notion of the threads of intentionality that tie subject and object together meaningfully and Pierre Bourdieu’s (1986, 2000; Bourdieu & Waquant, 1992) reflexive sociology and constructs of habitus, field, capital, and nomos, we theorize social class-sensitivity in literacy education as a social, autobiographic, and pedagogical project; a recognition of the powerful unnamed context of middle-class normality; and an illumination of the precarious ways in which working-class and poor students are positioned in schools.
We assume that although issues related to race, gender, and sexuality intersect in complex ways with class, social class issues in classroom pedagogy are too often ignored and under-theorized. Therefore, there is a need to spend concerted time considering social class specifically.
We close by asking pedagogues to think seriously about the reality that working-class and poor students enter classrooms each day saturated in precariousness; to not label students and families as the problem; and to be the ones to take responsibility for alleviating the precarious positions in which working-class and poor students and families live while in educational institutions.
an article by Mark D. Vagle and Stephanie Jones The University of Georgia, Athens, USA) published in Curriculum Inquiry Volume 42 Issue 3 (June 2012)
Abstract
Using Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s (1947/1964) phenomenological notion of the threads of intentionality that tie subject and object together meaningfully and Pierre Bourdieu’s (1986, 2000; Bourdieu & Waquant, 1992) reflexive sociology and constructs of habitus, field, capital, and nomos, we theorize social class-sensitivity in literacy education as a social, autobiographic, and pedagogical project; a recognition of the powerful unnamed context of middle-class normality; and an illumination of the precarious ways in which working-class and poor students are positioned in schools.
We assume that although issues related to race, gender, and sexuality intersect in complex ways with class, social class issues in classroom pedagogy are too often ignored and under-theorized. Therefore, there is a need to spend concerted time considering social class specifically.
We close by asking pedagogues to think seriously about the reality that working-class and poor students enter classrooms each day saturated in precariousness; to not label students and families as the problem; and to be the ones to take responsibility for alleviating the precarious positions in which working-class and poor students and families live while in educational institutions.
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