This article seeks to introduce a new historical explanation as to why left-wing working-class women engaged in liberal, middle-class organisations during the first wave of feminism. The article specifically deals with middle-class associations and clubs that had educational purposes. Instead of focusing on the larger explanatory scheme of the…

This qualitative case study explored working class individuals' perceptions of social mobility in a changing the community. The explored community was traditionally a working class community. It was near a metropolitan area that was growing more prosperous. Many residents commuted to the metropolitan area and the community started turning into a…

In 1960s Rio de Janeiro, the Brazilian white middle class embraced the samba music written by working-class blacks as a source of authentic national culture. Cultural mediators, or individuals that bridged sociocultural spheres and negotiated the terms in which work was produced and circulated, were essential to samba's mainstream acceptance. This…

Popular rhetoric suggests that the future of post-industrialized regions is dependant in part on young people's engagement. If so, school and community educators will do well to work with youth to better understand influences on how they envision engagement--both historical and present-day--and assumptions on which they are premised. They then may…

American families and workplaces have both changed dramatically over the past half-century. Paid work by women has increased sharply, as has family instability. Education-related inequality in work hours and income has grown. These changes, says Suzanne Bianchi, pose differing work-life issues for parents at different points along the income…

The escalating crisis in capitalist relations around the world demands a variety of responses that unmask the confusing structures that perpetuate asymmetrical power relations, while reframing what is truly in the interests of the majority of people. Industrial unions in the U.S. have at times aspired to such an advocacy role, but currently offer…

In Central America the Cold War support of the elites by the United States was designed to ward off the communist threat. At the same time social and economic demands by the working and middle classes created revolutionary movements in the face of rigid and violent responses by Central American governments. Issues of social justice pervaded the…

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…

Explains that in order to write a book on the Progressive Era that can compete with the plethora of books already on this topic, the author combined two common strategies used when approaching his book: (1) examining the politics of the period; and (2) analyzing the people and their experiences with social change. (CMK)

Offers a lesson plan in which students examine the concerns expressed by Progressive Era reformers about working-class leisure activities. Uses dance hall reform as a case study of the problems that interested reformers and provides an example of the types of solutions they proposed. Includes three handouts. (CMK)

Current sociological theory, in which students are viewed as comprising a "new class," is discussed. "Student consciousness," an analogue to "class consciousness" in the Marxist social change model, is viewed from the aspects of dress, life style, taste, its common fate of dependence on academia and the aggregation of members in and around the…