Reflections From the Wrong Side of the Tracks: Class, Identity, and the Working Class Experience in Academe
Author(s): Stephen L. Muzzatti (Author), Vincent C. Samarco (Author), Phyllis L. Baker (Contributor), Jennifer Beech (Contributor), Bonnie Berry (Contributor), Julie Harms-Cannon (Contributor), Lyn Huxford (Contributor), David Kauzlarich (Contributor), Donna Selman-Killingbeck (Contributor), Donna LeCourt (Contributor), William Macauley (Contributor), Daniel D. Martin (Contributor), Mike Presdee (Contributor), Dawn Rothe (Contributor), Kent Sandstrom (Contributor), Michael Shott (Contributor), Livy A. Visano (Contributor), Janelle Lynn Wilson (Contributor)
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Publication Date: November 28, 2005
Language: English
Print length: 256 pages
ISBN-10: 0742535126
ISBN-13: 9780742535121
Book Description
In this edited collection of narrative-based, critically situated essays, each contributor explores how class has affected his/her personal and academic lives. The collection is divided into three sections: i) narratives that critique the meritocracy; ii) narratives that trace the effects of middle class cultural capital on relatively new academics from the working class, and; iii) narratives that explore the effects of class on longtime academics from the working class. The effect of the collection will be cumulative. By choosing contributors from multiple disciplines, including both established and emerging voices, the text articulates the pervasiveness of class bias in this country and fleshes out the mechanisms that mask how class and power work. Such a text is critically important, both inside and outside academia, because it demystifies the academic world for those who have been restricted by it, but also engages critically trained academics and academics-in-waiting to understand and respond to the experiences of working class students. Finally, the authors hope this text will encourage other working class students to consider an academic career as an option.
Editorial Reviews
Review
This collection is quite effective in capturing a representation of the diversity, including the similar and dissimilar experiences, of those aspiring and successful academics from a working class background. (Barak, Gregg)
This is a relevant and emotionally compelling collection of essays. The authors delve deeply into to the issues of class conflict and ambivalence, the tension between the professional-managerial class and the working class, and the obstacles to social mobility. Recommended…. (Charles Varano)
This is a relevant and emotionally compelling collection of essays. The authors delve deeply into to the issues of class conflict and ambivalence, the tension between the professional-managerial class and the working class, and the obstacles to social mobility. Recommended. (Charles Varano)
About the Author
Stephen L. Muzzatti is Assistant Professor of sociology at Ryerson University, Toronto. C. Vincent Samarco is Associate Professor of American literature and creative writing at Saginaw Valley State University. He also teaches creative writing at the Saginaw Correctional Facility.
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