The Working-Class Student in Higher Education

Reviews / Votes

For the past 25 years, scholars have focused discussions of social class in higher education on the experiences of working-class academics and the needs of working-class students. The Working-Class Student in Higher Education offers an important shift in focus, examining how cultural assumptions about class shape the way faculty-especially the community college faculty who teach the majority of undergraduates from the working class-view and treat their students. -- Sherry Linkon, Georgetown University This is a well-referenced examination of an important topic that concludes with a list of workable recommendations for increasing completion rates among working class students attending community colleges. Four-year colleges should adopt these proposed reforms as well. If successfully implemented, the suggested changes would raise social class awareness among students, faculty, and administrators throughout higher education, a long overdue and laudable objective.? -- Kenneth W. Oldfield, University of Illinois, Springfield Terina Lathe's new book will be an important addition to the growing library of working class studies. In particular, she addresses the insights and struggles of students and faculty from community colleges, the social location that so many working-class people pass through on their trek into the unknown and unexpected cultural terrain of the professional middle class. She deftly describes the challenges both students and faculty face, in all of higher education, that are often invisible on both sides. Further, she gives us a thorough and thoughtful treatment of differing approaches to defining class in America. She is both personal and professional, she is steeped in the literature-providing an excellent review of it, and she also has her own perspective to add to the field. I strongly recommend this book. -- Barbara Jensen, University of Minnesota