Working-Class Women in the Academy: Labourers in the Knowledge Factory - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0870238353 ISBN 13: 9780870238352

Publisher: University Massachusetts Press, 1993

Synopsis

My mother still wants me to get a 'real' job. My father, who is retired after 44 years in the merchant marine, has never read my work. When I visited recently, the only book in his house was the telephone book. ""I do not know that my mother's mother ever acknowledged my college education except to ask me once, 'How can you live so far away from your people?'"" Thus write two of the 20 women from working-class backgrounds whose voices are heard in this collection of essays. Each of the women has lived through the process of academic socialisation - as both student and teacher - and each has thought long and deeply about her experiences from an explicitly feminist perspective. The editors ask: what are the issues - pedagogical, theoretical and personal - that affect the professional and private lives of these women; how do they resolve tensions between their roles as middle-class professionals and their roots in working-class families; how do class and gender intersect in the academy? The volume begins with a dialogue on class between Kate Ellis and Lillian S. Robinson. The next four sections contain essays on belonging by Saundra Gardner, Donna Langston, Valerie Miner and Joanna Kadi; on individual experiences by Bell Hooks, Laura H. Weaver, Patricia Clark Smith, Jacqueline Burnside and Suzanne Sowinska; on teaching by Pam Annas, Cheryl Fish, Elisabeth J. Johnson and Rose Zimbardo; and on language and cultural politics by Pamela A. Fox, Sharon O'Dair, Pat Belanoff, Elizabeth A. Fay and Hephzibah Roskelly. The book concludes with an epilogue by Michelle M. Tokarczyk.

About this title

Product Description

Working-Class Women in the Academy "In this stunning and often heartfelt collection of essays, 20 female academics from working-class backgrounds address the personal, pedagogical, and ideological issues raised by their experiences as teachers and students". -- Publishers Weekly Full description

About the Author

Elizabeth A. Fay is assistant professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

Edition details

• Publisher: University Massachusetts Press
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0870238353
• ISBN 13: 9780870238352
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352
• Editor: Tokarczyk Michelle M., Fay Elizabeth A.