Archive: Working-Class Perspectives
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WCP: Real Government Help for Working-Class People
n the wake of the Great Recession, many analysists have come to praise current unemployment statistics, but unemployment numbers do not represent underemployment. In this week’s Working-Class Perspectives, Michelle M Tokarczyk argues for the creation of a federal jobs program designed to place recent college graduates, especially graduates from working-class communities, into jobs that reflect their education.
Category: Visiting Scholars
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WCP: Black Working-Class Voices Doing It for Themselves
For many working-class people of color it can be difficult, if not impossible, to find mainstream narratives that reflect their experiences. In Working-Class Perspectives, Adjoa Wiredu explores her experiences growing up in an environment lacking these narratives, and describes the work being done to create and popularize independent black narratives.
Category: Visiting Scholars
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WCP: Iowa’s Next Election: Bridging the Urban-Rural and Class Divide
Since the 2016 election of Donald Trump, many pundits have speculated about exactly what role rural and working-class voters had in his victory. In Working-Class Perspectives, Christopher R. Martin examines those theories in his home state of Iowa, and explores how education, income, and geography are correlated with counties that turned towards Trump in 2016.
Category: Visiting Scholars
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WCP: This Is Your Daughter’s Labor Movement
As the challenges facing the labor movement continue to change, so does the composition of the labor movement itself. In this week’s Working-Class Perspective’s, Lane Windham discusses how women are leading the labor movement and creating innovative strategies to address the movement’s future.
Category: Visiting Scholars
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WCP: Relocating the Dream: Working-Class History as History and Spectacle
As affordable urban housing becomes increasingly inaccessible for working-class families, working-class housing can be portrayed as a thing of the past. In Working-Class Perspectives, David Nettleingham investigates the case of the Robin Hood Gardens to illustrate how placing once iconic working-class housing in museums relegates the ideal of affordable housing to the past, rather than a goal for the future.
Category: Visiting Scholars
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WCP: Class at the Forefront: 2018 Working-Class Studies Association Awards
Popular media often portrays working-class identities without the nuance and depth inherent to working-class lives. In Working-Class Perspectives, Michele Fazio highlights the works from multiple disciplines that earned the 2018 Working-Class Studies Association Awards.
Category: Visiting Scholars
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WCP: We Need a Working-Class Ranking System
College rankings such as the ones produced by U.S. News play an outsized roll in the college selection process, yet these lists mainly reward elite schools and neglect the interests of working-class families. In Working-Class Perspectives, Allison L. Hurst builds the case for an alternative model, one that weighs information like college affordability and the support given the first-generation college students.
Category: Visiting Scholars
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WCP: The Future of Working-Class Studies
With nearly a decade and a half since the last publication of a working-class academic collection, it is time for an update on the field. In this week’s Working-Class Perspectives, Tim Strangleman, Michele Fazio, and Christie Launius discuss the Routledge International Handbook of Working-Class Studies, their upcoming collection of working class academia, specifically edited to showcase the history of working-class activism, the broad diversity within working-class studies, and potential paths forward given the challenges facing the current generation of working-class activists and academics.
Category: Visiting Scholars
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WCP: The Royal Family and Their Working-Class Fans
Americans and Britons alike often enjoy reveling in the pomp and fanfare of the British Royal Family, despite the Royal Family’s distance from working-class citizens. In Working-Class Perspectives, Sarah Attfield argues that instead of glamorizing the royals, we ought to be paying more attention to the labor and struggles of the working-class.
Category: Visiting Scholars
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WCP: Class, Politics, and the Return of Roseanne
The reboot of 1990s sitcom Roseanne brought with it a staggering number of viewers, indicating a strong demand for working-class representation in television and media. In Working-Class Perspectives, Kathy Newman highlights the need for shows like Roseanne while critiquing the disconnect between the people the show is meant to portray and the public actions of its lead actress, Roseanne Barr.
Category: Visiting Scholars