Social mobility carries with it a sense of loss. To be socially mobile is to move from one place, economically, culturally, personally, to another. One consequence of that loss, sometimes, is immobility--a paralysis brought on by the violent, forceful, uncertain rush of social mobility itself. The immobility of fear, the feeling stuck, the not…

In this paper, the author describes his own understanding of the process on how he moved from being a working-class boy who experienced school as a digression from his real interest--sports--to someone who had made education his life work. In particular, he describes his own changing gender, race, and class identity within the context of an…

Investigated 40 working-class and 40 middle-class parents' beliefs about the meaning of schooling by conducting in-depth interviews. Results indicated that middle-class parents tended to value schooling more for the credentials schools offered, whereas working class parents tended to value schooling more for the learning opportunities (applied and…

In an effort to explore how racial and class oppressions intersect, the authors use their autobiographical narratives to depict cultural and experiential continuity and discontinuity in growing up white working class versus Chicano working class. They specifically focus on "racializing class" due to the ways class is often used as a copout by…