There is one question that animates the sociology of education more than any other: how do we explain and predict the difference in outcomes among black and white students in the post Civil Rights era of greater equality of opportunity? Sure, we talk about Hispanic and Asian students but really they are often deployedRead More “The Limits of Education Reform: A Road Paved With the “Best Intentions”?”
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How I Read “Between The World and Me”
Editors at The Atlantic invited me to review Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “Between The World and Me”. It’s a three week book club. Today marks the second week. The invitation came in on a Thursday, I think. The first review was to go live on the following Monday. I’m a few months out of grad school readingRead More “How I Read “Between The World and Me””
Everything But The Burden: Publics, Public Scholarship, And Institutions
Institutions are inherently conservative. They are built to last. One way that institutions last is by diffusing threats to the status quo across org charts, rules, forms, email chains and meetings. Lots and lots of meetings. That is why it is ridiculous to expect college institutions to be radical. But, that is the claim thrownRead More “Everything But The Burden: Publics, Public Scholarship, And Institutions”
A Nasty Piece of Cornbread: Chait, Coates, and White Progressivism
I once set out to write a book of southern aphorisms. It was going to be a serious treatment of (mostly) black (uniquely) southern “mother wit” as philosophy. Then, grad school and so on and so on. If I were to undertake a project today I would start with a favorite handed down to meRead More “A Nasty Piece of Cornbread: Chait, Coates, and White Progressivism”
The Trigger Warned Syllabus
Apparently universities are issuing guidelines to help professors consider adding “trigger warnings” to syllabi for “racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, cissexism, ableism, and other issues of privilege and oppression,” and to remove triggering material when it doesn’t “directly” contribute to learning goals.” One example given is Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” for its colonialism trigger. ThisRead More “The Trigger Warned Syllabus”
The Audacity: Thrun Learns A Lesson and Students Pay
Sebastian Thrun, founder of Udacity, one of the most high-profile private sector attempts to “disrupt” higher education discovered inequality this week. Thrun has spent the last three years dangling the shiny bauble of his elite academic pedigree and messianic vision of the future of higher education before investors and politicos. He promised nothing short ofRead More “The Audacity: Thrun Learns A Lesson and Students Pay”
The Logic of Stupid Poor People
We hates us some poor people. First, they insist on being poor when it is so easy to not be poor. They do things like buy expensive designer belts and $2500 luxury handbags. To be fair, this isn’t about Eroll Louis. His is a belief held by many people, including lots of black people, poorRead More “The Logic of Stupid Poor People”
Story Behind The Story: Does HIgherEd Know Its Neediest Students During the Shutdown?
This week’s column at Counter Narrative picks up on the national discussion about the federal government shutdown. As a highered person I have kept an eye on how the shutdown will affect students. I’m not the only one. But by day two of the media coverage it did seem that I was the only oneRead More “Story Behind The Story: Does HIgherEd Know Its Neediest Students During the Shutdown?”
When You Forget to Whistle Vivaldi
Last week Johnathan Ferrell had a horrible car crash. He broke out the back window to escape and walked, injured, to the nearest home hoping for help. Ferrell may have been too hurt, too in shock to remember to whistle Vivaldi. Ferrell is dead. Social psychologist Claude Steele revolutionized our understanding of the daily contextRead More “When You Forget to Whistle Vivaldi”
When Your (Brown) Body is a (White) Wonderland
This may meander. Miley Cyrus made news this week with a carnival-like stage performance at the MTV Video Music Awards that included life-size teddy bears, flesh-colored underwear, and plenty of quivering brown buttocks. Almost immediately after the performance many black women challenged Cyrus’ appropriation of black dance (“twerking”). Many white feminists defended Cyrus’ right toRead More “When Your (Brown) Body is a (White) Wonderland”