Education and Class

Education professor Jane Van Galen, co-author of Late to Class: Social Class and Schooling in the New Economy, brings the timely and under-discussed issue of education and class to the blogosphere in her blog Education and Class.

Van Galen brings not only an academic background and passion for the issue, but also a willingness to share personal stories to illustrate points. One post discusses the issue of how middle- and working–class parents view educational change:

I think of my own parents who, from the moment of my birth, had aspirations that I would be "better" than them. I think of how they knew, at some level, that I was headed for situations in which being tough and tenacious would serve me infinitely better than would coming to understand myself as a gently unfolding flower.

She pivots from this story to implore educators to better understand working-class parents and how their views on child-rearing are influenced by institutions such as schools.