Journal Article

FORUM; Is class eclipsed by other considerations of identity?

Kingston-Mann, Esther, Zandy, Janet, Lott, Bernice, Johnston-Robledo, Ingrid, Albrecht, Lisa

2003

Overview

As far as one's individual identity, I would argue that it is impossible to extricate the influence of one social marker from others. Race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and any other demographic variable associated with social status are all intertwined. They work in concert to shape identity, life circumstances, and others' responses to us. It becomes difficult to argue that class is eclipsed by other social markers when it is impossible to separate classism from other forms of oppression. However, individuals may view other social markers, such as race or sexual orientation as far more central to their identity than social class. One could also attempt to conceal one's social class or pass as a member of another social class. For example, it is an interesting phenomenon that many Americans, whether they be working class or upper middle class, label themselves middle class. Yet the middle class is one of the levels of social class occupied by the fewest people. What motivates such a heterogenous group of people to identify with this label? Furthermore, social class is somewhat fluid. Unlike ethnicity and gender, social class is subject to change. People strive to improve their socioeconomic status and all of us are vulnerable to a downward shift. People also have a tendency to attribute others' social class to internal variables such as motivation and effort. This fluidity, vulnerability, and sense of personal responsibility may contribute to the tendency to consider class less central to identity, particularly for those at lower levels of social status. Consider first the young people we don't teach. Millions of low-income children -- disproportionately racial and ethnic minorities -- suffer stunting deprivations in nutrition, housing, and healthcare that cause them to drop out of school; or they attend destitute schools that don't prepare them for college; or they aspire to college but cannot surmount the financial obstacles. According to a report prepared by the staff of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (See \"Beyond Percentage Plans: The Challenge of Equal Opportunity in Higher Education,\" November 2002), federal programs serve only a fraction of the low- and middle-income students they were designed to assist (on the government's unrealistic definition, their families have, respectively, annual incomes under $25,000 and $25,000-$74,999). The TRIO programs, which help students prepare for and complete college, are so underfunded that they serve only 7 percent of the 9.6 million eligible students (94, 96). The Pell Grants Program is so chronically underfunded that its purchasing power has declined precipitously. In 1975 the maximum grant covered 84 percent of the total cost of attending a 4-year public college; in 2001 it covered 39 percent of tuition only (102, 106). Instead of pumping up this grants program, conservative administrations expanded student loan programs. To complete four years at a public college, a low-income student's average debt soared to $12,888 in 1999 and the family's average contribution gobbled up 25 percent of its annual income in 2001 (106). How many can afford to pay that price? What about progressive scholarship? I would argue that most of it doesn't influence policymakers and citizens for several reasons. First, it isn't designed for deployment in nonacademic arenas, a point made by Donna E. Shalala when she was Secretary of Health and Human Services. Academic research on welfare, she wrote, was not useful to the Clinton administration's effort to reformulate welfare policy because it didn't address the issues that concerned policymakers, produced contradictory findings, and was too slow in coming out (\"Welfare Reform: We Must All Assume Responsibility,\" Chronicle of Higher Education, 4 October 1996, B5-B6). Second, social problems must be constru(ct)ed in ways that rouse citizens and compel policymakers to respond (see Barbara Nelson's Making an Issue of Child Abuse). To be politically effective, we have to weld academic knowledge to social activism that targets the laws, policies, and customs which in turn order the nation's processes and resource flows.

• Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press
• Subject: Abused children / Academic Achievement / Activism / Aspiration / Child abuse & neglect / Child poverty / Children / Citizens / Civil rights / Class identity / Classism / College students / Colleges & universities / Discrimination / Education / Educational programs / Equal opportunities / Equal opportunity / Ethnic groups / Ethnic identity / Ethnicity / Families & family life / Females / Gender / Grants / Health care / Health services / Higher education / Housing / Human services / Ideology / Interpersonal Relationship / Labeling / Loanwords / Middle class / Minority & ethnic groups / Minority groups / Motivation / Nutrition / Oppression / Policy making / Public schools / Race / Racism / Reference Groups / Resistance (Psychology) / Responsibility / Self concept / Sex discrimination / Sexism / Sexual orientation / Sexuality / Social Class / Social classes / Social problems / Social status / Socioeconomic status / Tuition / Urban Schools / Working class / Youth