Comments on: Passing Class http://www.roughtheory.org/content/passing-class/ theory in the rough Wed, 10 Mar 2010 04:56:21 +1100 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: N Pepperell http://www.roughtheory.org/content/passing-class/comment-page-1/#comment-24632 N Pepperell Thu, 31 Jan 2008 03:43:51 +0000 http://www.roughtheory.org/content/passing-class/#comment-24632 Hey Joe - Apologies for the long delay in responding. I was mired in a chapter draft, and then needed to catch up on some sleep. I didn't "hear" in the original post a sort of advocacy of "passing" or a commitment that students must choose some particular path to social mobility. I know that personally I work with students all the time, though, who struggle with the immense <em>social</em> differences between their backgrounds, and the environments they are currently trying to navigate - and run into brick walls because the ability to mobilise certain kinds of knowledge and certain modes of behaviour is naturalised, such that inability to mobilise such things can be crippling. These knowledges and aptitudes can be demystified at least to the point that they become less significant barriers. There is a difference between this form of explicit demystification and wielding normative notions of "middle classness" against which students' behaviours are then assessed (the latter, in fact, is often what happens in practice when students <em>aren't</em> working with someone aware enough of the issue to know that "passing" can be an active problem...). Of course there is no comfortable solution - it's just that nothing I saw in the original post suggested otherwise to me. Hey Joe – Apologies for the long delay in responding. I was mired in a chapter draft, and then needed to catch up on some sleep. I didn’t “hear” in the original post a sort of advocacy of “passing” or a commitment that students must choose some particular path to social mobility. I know that personally I work with students all the time, though, who struggle with the immense social differences between their backgrounds, and the environments they are currently trying to navigate – and run into brick walls because the ability to mobilise certain kinds of knowledge and certain modes of behaviour is naturalised, such that inability to mobilise such things can be crippling. These knowledges and aptitudes can be demystified at least to the point that they become less significant barriers.

There is a difference between this form of explicit demystification and wielding normative notions of “middle classness” against which students’ behaviours are then assessed (the latter, in fact, is often what happens in practice when students aren’t working with someone aware enough of the issue to know that “passing” can be an active problem…).

Of course there is no comfortable solution – it’s just that nothing I saw in the original post suggested otherwise to me.

]]> By: Joseph Kugelmass http://www.roughtheory.org/content/passing-class/comment-page-1/#comment-24520 Joseph Kugelmass Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:32:31 +0000 http://www.roughtheory.org/content/passing-class/#comment-24520 NP, I am also deeply saddened by the way this discussion has progressed, including in the comments and responses at Reassigned Time. As a result, I suspect my ability to continue responding on the matter will be limited, but I can perhaps address the point about the pace of change. In my post from last night, I wanted to foreground the point that change does not happen instantaneously, and so we have to teach an extremely complicated situation. That's why I write at the end that there is presently no way to "settle the matter comfortably." In other words, it's not a question of pretending as though the social reality is other than it is. Rather, it's a question of recognizing that utopian accounts of class mobility do not work any better than utopian visions of radical action. Trying to inform students about both responses to hardship strikes me as a desirable <i>ad hoc</i> solution. NP,

I am also deeply saddened by the way this discussion has progressed, including in the comments and responses at Reassigned Time.

As a result, I suspect my ability to continue responding on the matter will be limited, but I can perhaps address the point about the pace of change.

In my post from last night, I wanted to foreground the point that change does not happen instantaneously, and so we have to teach an extremely complicated situation. That’s why I write at the end that there is presently no way to “settle the matter comfortably.”

In other words, it’s not a question of pretending as though the social reality is other than it is. Rather, it’s a question of recognizing that utopian accounts of class mobility do not work any better than utopian visions of radical action. Trying to inform students about both responses to hardship strikes me as a desirable ad hoc solution.

]]>