There are many reasons for pursing a higher education. For most persons, a significant, maybe even the dominant reason, for going to college is that it supposedly will improve one's prospect of acquiring a good job. In a sense, a college degree has long been considered a ticket to the middle class--an adult life with a good income and relatively…

This article assumes that literacy practices are social practices. Based on the New Literacy Studies (Street, 2005) this view of literacy provides an understanding that the ways a person reads and writes change, depending on that person's identity, the type of texts that are involved and the context in which those texts and identities are located.…

This paper highlights the importance today of the spatial dimension within the analysis of parents' education strategies concerning their school choices at the secondary school level. This study is based on the 2 dimensions of the concept of spatial capital (Levy, 1994): position capital and situation capital. It explores sociospatial schooling…

Starting with the observation that attitudes towards death cannot be divorced from attitudes towards life, the author proceeds with a critical and reflective look at American society's poor management of death, both in terms of the dying person and the bereaved. Denial is the mechanism used to protect ourselves from facing the fact of death, and…

Identifies a number of the major aspects of social class that freshman composition addresses in its aims of enabling students to think and write in ways that will make them good citizens of the academic (and larger middle class) community and viable candidates for good middle class jobs upon graduation. (TB)

This study explored how multi-generational, middle-class, fifth-graders from Latino families responded to classroom discussions of social issues--particularly discrimination--and draws upon sociocultural views of culture, educational theory, and sociological perspectives of immigration to provide insight into the learning experiences of one group…

For recent high school graduates, life is tough. In the past year, one in four young high school graduates was unemployed and over half were underemployed. In the past decade, recent high school graduates' wages have fallen by 12 percent to just $19,400 annually in 2011, below the poverty threshold for a family of four. The downward plight of high…

This paper is part of broader ongoing attempts to demonstrate that shifts in educational policy can be understood as mutually constitutive with the changing nature of contemporary cities, including changes in urban policy. In this paper, the author wants to explore one aspect of these broader attempts, namely the relationships between education…

In this study, I investigate the beliefs of privileged adolescents about their obligations to those contending with hunger and poverty as well as the impact of "trolley problems" upon these adolescents' beliefs. To consider the attitudes of the young adults in this study, I draw upon their student writing from a course on social issues…

Stratification is a central issue in family research, yet relatively few studies highlight its impact on family processes. Drawing on in-depth interviews (N = 137) and observational data (N = 12), we extend Melvin Kohn's research on childrearing values by examining how parental commitments to self-direction and conformity are enacted in daily…

The impact of a difference in social class on the therapeutic relationship has received less attention than other differences between counsellor and client, such as gender, race and sexual orientation. In this qualitative research study six clients who identified as working class were interviewed about their experience of a therapeutic…

This article reveals the findings of a participatory ethnography with post-secondary students enrolled in a large West Coast University in British Columbia who had previously been identified as "learning disabled" and thus, the "recipients" of special educational policy interventions. Instead of starting from the official meanings of the special…

A recent flurry of announcements from some of the wealthiest and most competitive private colleges brought welcome news to lower- and middle-income families. Many Ivy League institutions, along with dozens of smaller colleges that also attract high-achieving students, unveiled student-aid plans that will significantly lower the cost of attendance…

New College was an experimental and demonstration undergraduate teacher education program, founded in 1932 at Teachers College Columbia University, only to be shut down by the administration eight years later. Described as an "unorthodox venture," New College promised to be an alternative route to teacher education at a time when the…

As with the collapse of the subprime lending industry, the showdown between for-profit colleges and the government shows how the aspirations of the underserved, when combined with lax regulation, make the rich, richer and the poor, poorer. For-profit colleges provide high-cost degree programs that have little chance of leading to high-paying…