Missing Class

1
Missing Class?

• Raising Awareness of Social Class Issues in
  Advising Poor and Working-Class Undergraduate
  Students

2
Introduction

• Peter Middleton and Karmen Berger
• Academic Advising Center
• University of Iowa
• Todays Session
• University of Iowa as context
• Motivation/Theory/Research
• Discussion Social Class and Advising

3
University of Iowa

• 20,000 undergraduates (4289 1st yr-1st semester)
• 9 underrepresented ethnic minority
• 7 entire state
• Centralized advising center
• 40 advisers
• 8000 students advised in the center
• 95 of entering students

4
Working Definition of Social Class

• Social class is fundamentally about peoples
  differing access to and control over resources
  that are needed in order to survive and succeed
  (Acker)

5
Pierre Bourdieu Cultural Capital

• Specific knowledges / skills (including language
  skills), which are tied to differing levels of
  status/ achievement/ prestige

6
Class-specific Parenting Models (from Annette
Lareau Unequal Childhoods)

• Middle-class
• concerted cultivation
• Kids involved in adult-supervised, for-fee
  activities
• Reasoning and negotiation common between
  adults/kids
• Parents intervene for kids in institutions

7
Class-specific Parenting Models(Lareau cont)

• Working-class and poor accomplishment of
  natural growth
• Kids involved in unstructured, peer-based
  activities
• Extended family networks important
• Parent to child directives common
• Parents defer somewhat to institutional
  authorities

8
Language Use as Cultural Capital(Lareau cont)

• Middle-class reasoning and negotiation a sense
  of entitlement
• Working-class and poverty directives
• an emerging sense of constraint

9
Conclusions for My Advising

• My responsibility
• be alert to the hidden/subtle/complex aspects of
  social class
• be responsible for creating inclusiveness by NOT
  automatically rewarding only middle-class
  cultural capital

10
Examples from My Advising

• Academic Advising and
• Student Resource Inventory
• ex Lets talk about how students can go to their
  professors office hours.
• ex What kind of work do you do? What have you
  learned? Who did you work with?

11
Romero Jalomo and Laura Rendón

• Non-traditional student
• Low income, first-generation students, with below
  average grades or those who have been out of
  school for some time
• Expanded definition includes White and non-White
  students from low-income backgrounds

12
College as a new Culture

• Validation Model
• Advisers as initiators of engagement
• Encouragement through in- and out of- class
  activities
• Providing motivation and support

13
Misidentification

• Institutional invalidation
• Treating the norm as natural
• Misidentification of behavior
• Traditional v. Nontraditional

14
Advising roles

• Mediator
• Members of mainstream
• allies
• Translator
• Recognized shared background
• Trusted source of information
• Role Model
• Members of the peer group

15
Cultural Mediator

• Embracing the complexities

16
Comments? Questions?