White Middle-class Students Research Articles

The DIY careers of young classical musicians in neoliberal times

This article seeks to deepen our understanding of the do-it-yourself (DIY) careers of a younger generation of classically trained musicians in the context of the neoliberal transformation of higher music education and music labour markets. Drawing on 46 interviews with white middle-class students and graduates of the three public, state-funded higher music education institutions in Austria, we examine how these artists seek to advance their careers as orchestral musicians, soloists or chamber musicians and manage the entrepreneurialism, competitiveness and precariousness that underpin the classical music labour market. Our study shows that the musicians cultivate an entrepreneurial ethos, but also adopt alternative cultural practices that promote collectivity, solidarity and care for one another. In these processes, the DIY ethos takes on a double meaning: It is adapted by the young musicians to neoliberal rationality, while also being fundamental for initiating, organising and managing small DIY music projects, festivals and cultural initiatives.

Discourses of volunteer/service work and their discontents: Border crossing, construction of hierarchy, and paying dues

This article examines four discourses of volunteer/service work—charity, leisure, citizenship, and border crossing—in terms of how they construct relationships between those who serve and those who are served. Specifically, it analyzes the discourse of border crossing, which assumes White middle-class students crossing a border to work in underprivileged minority communities. Reanalyzing three case studies that show meaningful service work done without crossing borders, this article argues that the discourse reinforces the stereotype of those who serve and those served and privileges White middle-class people’s work while erasing others’. By arguing that all four discourses reproduce hierarchical relationships between those who serve and those served, this article also suggests a new discourse—of paying dues—that frames all of us as participating in systems that create unequal distribution of resources and thus as responsible for ameliorating these systems’ effects through volunteer/service work and ultimately stopping their reproduction.

Constructing multiculturalism at school: Negotiating tensions in talk about ethnic diversity

Recent trends in British education policy have led to an increased focus on promoting ethnic diversity in schools, as well as greater parental involvement in school choice. This combination has led some schools to actively market diversity as a selling point in order to attract more minority ethnic students, as well as attract White middle-class students seeking a more ‘diverse’ educational experience. This article analyses how students attending such a school in England engage with discourses of multiculturalism. I identify three themes that characterise talk about multiculturalism at school: (1) multiculturalism-as-beneficial commodity, (2) claims of ‘reverse racism’ in provision for minority groups, and (3) denial of racism and constructing the school as a tolerant environment where everybody gets along. Through an analysis of discourse strategies and positioning tactics, I demonstrate how students negotiate tensions between the existence of racism and the construction of an inclusive and anti-racist educational environment.

Is Integration a Dream Deferred? Students of Color in Majority White Suburban Schools

Since the Brown v. Board of Education Topeka Kansas I and II rulings (Brown, 1954, 1955) proponents of racial justice have pushed for racially integrated schools to improve the quality of education for students of color (Bell, 1975, 2005; Delgado & Stefancic, 1995). Initial support for integrated schools, where formal and informal learning and activities occur in racially mixed settings, was based on the argument, or as Derrick Bell named it, the siren song (2005), that only when students of color inhabit the same educational spaces as White students would they be able to reap the benefits of resource-rich White educational spaces. As time progresses and researchers study the outcomes of integrated spaces, a more complex, but no less problematic, view of students of color evolves. The discourse of integrated schools has morphed into conversations about the types of social and cultural capital held by White middle class students, and not held by students of color. Deficit discourses of communities of color have become further instantiated because students of color are seen as reliant upon White students to access both rigorous academic curricula and the hidden curricula of college readiness (Delgado & Stefancic, 1995).The ideological illusion (Lawrence, 1983), that integrated spaces are race neutral, prompts researchers to blame communities of color for cultivating less-academically oriented students, rather than to design research studies that explore institutional accountability for students' academic success (Diamond, 2006). Therefore, If Blacks fail under similar treatment, it must be because they are somehow inferior (Lawrence, 1983, p. 850). Yosso (2002) linked the colorblind contexts of racism and inequality in education and discourses to student achievement when she stated,It is important to address the inequality embedded in school curriculum before addressing unequal educational outcomes. Indeed, one of the first mistakes most often made by many educators and policy makers is to look at the inequalities of student outcomes and blame students without looking at the conditions, such as the curricular structures, processes and discourses that create unequal outcomes, (p. 94)Because of the prevailing discourse of racially integrated schools as a primary course of action to create equitable schooling environments for students of color, the uneven outcomes of integrated schools, as derivatives of institutional policies and adult practices, have not been fully explored. To further conversations about the merits and detractors of integration, and to call for a re- assessment of integration as a definitive solution for producing equitable education, the author analyzes the uneven adult-student relationships between teachers, counselors, and students of color in a study of majority White suburban schools.Changing Landscape of Suburban SchoolsThe racial landscape of suburban schools has drastically changed in the past decade. Suburbs are defined as districts outside the city center with a substantial population of residents commuting to the metropolitan center for employment. Suburbs most often have school districts that are independent of the larger metropolitan district. Unlike earlier decades, today's suburban schools are no longer always located in racially homogenous, high-income communities. Instead, the suburbs of the 21st Century often represent the frontier of racial change in America (Tefera, Frankenberg, Hawley, & Chirichigno, 2011, p. 1). In the past 20 years, the suburban population has grown by 20 million new residents, many of whom are families of color (Orfield & Luce, 2012). Changes in suburban racial demographic patterns vary due to neighborhood tax bases, proximity to the metropolitan area, history of racial stability, and economic and political capital (Orfield, 2002; Orfield & Luce, 2012). Across all suburbs, the changes in racial composition were most dynamic regarding the growth of Latino families. …

Privilege, Power, and Public Health Programs

The Association of Schools of Public Health has identified "diversity and culture" as 1 of 7 crosscutting competencies that public health students are expected to achieve. This competency is traditionally incorporated into the curriculum through a community service-learning (CSL) component that aims to expose students to racial/ethnic health disparities. However, this model of CSL is problematic because although students are directly engaging with community members, it does not ensure long-term sustainable changes or benefits for the host community. Moreover, academic institutions have developed significant critiques of traditional CSL models where white middle-class students engage with low-income clients and communities of color, potentially reinforcing Eurocentric power and privilege. As such, public health programs require a shift in both pedagogy and curricula that more directly addresses underlying institutional racism in health disparities. Consistent with the principles of public health, a social justice framework is imperative in teaching cultural competency and should facilitate discussion of racial injustice and privilege in the students' own lives. This brief presents an autobiographical personal narrative of my experiences with CSL as a racial/ethnic minority student in a California graduate school of public health. Although autoethnography is inherently limited, this brief highlights my observations of the limitations of the service-learning model to adequately educate students on the intersection of racism and health outcomes. In addition, the brief includes suggestions for creating inclusive curricula that critically examine issues of privilege, oppression, and power dynamics related to race/ethnicity.

Here I am Now! Critical ethnography and community service-learning with immigrant and refugee undergraduate students and youth

Here I am Now! is the title a multi-ethnic group of immigrant and refugee undergraduate students and neighboring urban Vietnamese and Cambodian refugee youth gave to their participatory photography installation. The exhibit was the culmination of undergraduate students’ participation in a series of Community Service-Learning (CSL) courses offered through CIRCLE (Center for Immigrant and Refugee Community Leadership and Empowerment) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. While CSL has become an established educational practice at most US universities campuses, little research has been conducted viewing the educational impact of this pedagogy on diverse student populations. The majority of the scholarship focuses on the experiences of white middle-class students engaged with communities from unfamiliar and different socio-cultural, racial, ethic and economic backgrounds. This paper examines how immigrant and refugee undergraduate students understood their participation in a creative community service-learning experience where they mentored youth from familiar and similar ethno-cultural contexts. To understand this meaning-making process I employed critical ethnographic approaches and analyzed student narratives and interviews. Through the prisms of critical pedagogy, situated learning theory, and funds of knowledge concept, I viewed the higher education context, analyzed the situation under study and developed an emerging framework for CSL pedagogy with diverse communities. These theories inform the view that culturally relevant pedagogy emphasizing peer-learning, critical thinking, artistic potential and community resources offers diverse undergraduate students alternative and creative spaces of critique and possibility in their higher education and community service-learning experiences.

Military and Civilian Undergraduates: Attitudes Toward Women, Masculinity, and Authoritarianism

The influence of civilian and military college environments and undergraduates' sex on gender role attitudes and authoritarianism was investigated. Three hundred thirteen male and 69 female, primarily white middle-class students at the United States Naval Academy, United States Air Force Academy, Reserve Officer Training Corps, and a civilian university participated. Approximately 7% were Hispanic, 6% African-American, and 5% Asian-American. Military students had the most traditional authoritarian beliefs and gender role attitudes. When men only were analyzed, USNA males were the most traditional in their attitudes toward women and in antifemininity attitudes. ROTC men were the most traditional in authoritarianism and in status beliefs. All military-affiliated men held more traditional toughness attitudes than did civilian men. USNA men had the most traditional attitudes toward women as compared to the USNA females and civilian females and males.

The Impact of Women in Advertisements on Attitudes Toward Women

The present study extends existing research showing a link between images of women in advertisements and sexual attitudes. We examined also the impact of seeing sex image and progressive advertisements on attitudes toward feminism and the women's movement. Ninety-two undergraduate academic and technology white middle-class students were assigned to one of two conditions: rating either sex image or progressive advertisements. All participants then completed four subscales of M. R. Burt's [(1980) “Cultural Myths and Supports for Rape,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 38, pp. 217-230] Sexual Attitudes Survey and R. E. Fassinger's [(1994) “Development and Testing of the Attitudes Toward Feminism and the Women's Movement (FWM) Scale,” Psychology of Women Quarterly, Vol. 18, pp. 389-402] Feminism and Women's Movement Scale. Major findings include replication of previous data showing a relation between viewing sex image advertisements and reporting attitudes supportive of sexual aggression. Those seeing sex image advertisements also showed lower acceptance of feminism. It is suggested that continuous presentation of such advertisements undermines women's striving for equality.

Teaching History in Libertyville

to be struck by how little the reforms of the past twenty-five years have affected the secondary schools there, nor, despite significant differences in resources and population, how similar are the experiences of students in public, parochial, and private schools. Routine, repetition, and drudgery, punctuated by isolated moments of excitement, challenge, and wonder, still characterize most classrooms. This unhappy observation emerges from extensive visits to classes and talks with teachers and administrators in Libertyville. My focus throughout was on the nature and quality of classroom experiencethe ways students interact with teachers, peers, and subject matterfor this experience determines to a large extent how students view the humanities, history, school, and themselves. The perspective I have chosen ignores many factors that shape the impact of schooling, but it permits an emphasis on teaching, which is, after all, the core of the schooling process. What follows are more specific impressions culled from what I saw in Libertyville's classrooms and some implications for change that derive from these observations. One immediate observation is that the student bodies of public, parochial, and private schools differ sharply. The public schools, having witnessed an exodus of white middle-class students, serve a largely minority poor population and have high rates of absenteeism and dropout (individual classes ordiiarily enroll thirty students and often dwindle to fifteen). The parochial schools serve a predominantly white lower-middle-class population, and although they would like to reach out to minority students, they lack the scholarship funds to do so. The stronger attendance rate at the parochial

Comparative Study of Negro and White Attitudes Associated with Educational-Occupational Aspirations

Studies of educational and occupational aspirations and expectations generally reveal sex and racial differences. Dreger and Miller' found Negroes to hold unrealistically high aspirations, while their specific plans are more pessimistic and realistic than whites. However, Antonovsky2 found that white middleclass students have higher occupational aspirations than Negroes. Regarding sex differences, Negro females have consistently higher aspiration levels.3 Although congruent with opportunities, this could also be influenced by the matricentric family structure of the Negro sub-culture. Gist and Bennett4 included a measure of this assumption by comparing Negro and white parental influence on adolescent