Leadership learning through the lens of social class.

Abstract

This issue derives both from our academic interests as well as our personal backgrounds. We grew up in farming communities and working-class families, with Sonja in Louisiana and Kathy in Illinois. As children we watched our families work tirelessly, provide for us and others, serve the community through various volunteer roles, and connect with people across race, class, and gender. They may not have had fancy titles or positions situated at the top of organizational charts, but they were active citizens and leaders, pure and simple. We became the first people in our families to pursue and complete higher education degrees and went on to earn doctorates. Through that process, we have been exposed to various definitions of leadership that were sometimes diametrically opposed to what we grew up considering as leadership, and we now navigate the world as social class straddlers (Ardoin & martinez, 2019) and academics who study leadership. Who we are shapes why we were drawn to edit this issue, because we know and have seen leadership within the poor and working-classes and we want to honor that by inviting conversation about how social class can shape one's understanding and practice of leadership? Additionally, we want to encourage our leadership educator and academic colleagues to consider how the historical and present-day structures within higher education, generally, and leadership learning, specifically, can create barriers for students from poor and working-class backgrounds who hope to grow their leadership knowledge and practice during their time in college. All of these elements of life deemed forms of capital and wealth in academic literature (Bourdieu, 1986; Yosso, 2005), comprise the holistic influence of social class identity. These are ways we showcase our social class to others and the methods by which people perceive our social class; as such, these components are called social class markers. Sometimes people use these markers as a way to mask their social class. Attempts to conceal one's social class—across the spectrum from poor to affluent—is likely related to one's feelings about this aspect of their identity. Social class can evoke pride, guilt, resentment, shame, ambivalence, and a wide range of other emotions. Compounding the internal ways individuals feel about social class are the implicit and explicit messages that it is considered a taboo topic and should be avoided; thus, the exploration of this identity aspect can be stunted for many individuals, particularly if they reside in homogenous communities. Any category of social class can remain largely unexamined if one lacks the language to understand it. For example, if a child grows up in an affluent community, attends well-resourced schools, is told not to talk about their wealth, and never interacts with people of other social classes, they will likely grow up with limited ability to understand how affluence shapes their life and ability to engage in cross-class interaction. This leads to ignorance, misunderstanding, and stereotyping of people from other social classes—such as who can engage in leadership and how leadership should be practiced—and creates challenges in engaging in cross-class conversations and relationships (Martin, 2015; Rice et al., 2017). For many students, their first significant interactions across social class occur when they enroll in college. Buckley and Park (2019) explored these types of interactions and found that some students pretended they did not have differences across social class, others preferred to focus on building within-class relationships, and some strove for social mobility, or the shedding of their class background and adoption of beliefs and practices of a different—usually considered “higher”—social class (e.g., middle and upper class). All of this is important to the process of leadership learning because if we cannot engage students across class (and social identities generally), we will not be able to enact our mission of educating active citizens. Rather, we will be reaffirming existing inequities. Thus, we are remiss if we do not critically examine the ways we are offering leadership learning to determine whether we are favoring leadership from a specific social class lens and how we might consider the varying ways leadership is developed and practiced across the social class spectrum. Assumptions about social classes and limited experiences with cross-class interactions have hampered the recognizing and addressing of class-based issues and classism in higher education. Institutional administrators largely ignored social class as a component of diversity for many years. It was assumed if students arrived at college that they either had what they needed or could figure out how to get it (as others before them had done), and that as long as student engagement and leadership learning opportunities existed that was doing enough. These kinds of beliefs are laced with downward classism (Liu, 2011). Although some higher education professionals understand the dire social class circumstances that poor and working-class students may face, including factors such as consistent access to basic needs like securing food, housing, transportation, healthcare, and childcare, there are still board of trustees, administrators, and faculty who are still cautious around social class topics. A few higher education professionals fear reputational risk from offering these kinds of supports, some do not believe it is their responsibility to provide basic needs, and others may not have the resources to enable adding these supports. However, there is a growing movement across many US higher education institutions to learn more about poor and working-class students’ experiences and realities and to offer basic needs supports as part of their student success efforts. This is evidenced through the work of individual campuses and collective endeavors of organizations such as the College and University Food Bank Alliance and The Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice at Temple University. Campus food pantries, clothing closets, temporary housing programs, emergency aid funds, and transportation vouchers are all examples of how institutions are paying more attention to, at least, the financial dimensions of social class related to college access and success (Broton & Cady, 2020; Goldrick-Rab, 2016; Martin & Ardoin, 2021). These efforts are certainly a start, and this should only be the beginning of our work toward reducing classism and advancing class equity on campuses. There is also deep learning to do around cross-class interactions, which influence students’ sense of worth and belonging; leadership identity, capacity, and efficacy; and retention and completion (needs cite). This issue centers social class influences and cross-class interactions in leadership learning and practice. The chapters offer frameworks and lenses through which leadership educators can conduct critical class-focused examination and suggest methods by which leadership educators can offer more social class equity through leadership learning. Part I offers constructs for understanding the broad nature of social class and how social class identity can, and does, influence one's knowledge and practice of leadership. The chapters incorporate critical perspectives and name barriers that prohibit poor and working-class students from accessing and engaging in leadership development experiences. Part II examines the layering of social class with additional minoritized identities—focusing on race, gender, and intersectionality broadly—to honor that social class does not have a monolithic influence on leadership learning. Rather, leadership identity, capacity, and efficacy are influenced by the combination of social class alongside other dimensions of identity. Part III identifies how particular leadership learning contexts can harbor or defy middle- and upper-class expectations and narratives. Identifying advocacy work, traditional "student leader" positions, fraternities and sororities, outdoor programs, experiential learning opportunities, and graduate and professional school organizations as sites where leadership learning happens, chapter authors highlight class-based barriers in these contexts and recommend strategies to advance social class inclusion and equity in these leadership spaces. Finally, in Part IV, the editors synthesize key ideas presented by authors in this issue to consider social class as influence on leadership development and discuss future directions on social class and leadership conversations. Overall, the issue invites readers to continue broadening their conceptualization of what leadership is, how it can be practiced, and by whom. The societal issues we face cannot be solved by a few, individual leaders or by the narrow, dominant leadership narratives that often inform leadership development programs. It is the collective and pluralistic ability across our diverse perspectives … that is needed to solve our seemingly intractable social issues. (p. 6) As editors, we have critical hope that in fostering leadership learning across social classes—and corresponding identities—we can make progress toward dismantling classism, advancing social class equity, and transforming society through the practice of leadership. Sonja Ardoin (she/her) is a learner, educator, facilitator, and author. She is a proud first-generation college graduate from a rural, working-class background and a higher education scholar–practitioner, currently serving as an assistant professor of student affairs administration at Appalachian State University. She studies social class identity, college access, and success for first-generation college students and students from rural areas, student and women's leadership, and career preparation and pathways in higher education and student affairs. Sonja is co-author of Straddling Class in the Academy, co-editor of Social Class Supports, and the author of several book chapters exploring social class and leadership. Kathy L. Guthrie (she/her) is associate professor in the higher education program at Florida State University. She serves as director of the leadership learning research center and co-ordinator of the undergraduate certificate in leadership studies. She currently serves as associate editor for the New Directions in Student Leadership series, was co-author of The Role of Leadership Educators: Transforming Learning and the co-editor of Changing the Narrative: Socially Just Leadership Education. Kathy's research focuses on leadership learning outcomes, environment of leadership and civic education, and technology in leadership education. Her working-class background and first-generation college graduate identity is critical to her own leadership development.