From the Guest Editor Public Administration Professors from the Working Class

Abstract

This paper introduces a journal symposium. Five Public Administration professors raised in poverty or working class circumstances by parents who never attended college recount their journeys from humble origins to their current positions as university faculty, including many social, financial, and cultural challenges they faced along the way. This introduction details the project's genesis and offers a sampling of published studies showing how academic public administration has mostly ignored the importance of class and socioeconomic origins for determining major life outcomes. This discounting of the profound effects of class inequalities stands against the field's supposed commitment to social equity and diversity. These authors' writings are intended to animate the quantitative characterizations others have offered about the strong connection between socioeconomic background and educational opportunities, outcomes, and socialization. Ideally, the personal narratives in this symposium will encourage academic public administration to consider broadening its interpretation of social equity and diversity to include class concerns.