“Thirty Years Old and I'm Allowed to be Late”: the politics of time at an urban community college

Within recent years scholars in both sociology of education and curriculum studies have explored what it is about the school that reproduces class, race and gender relations that maintain an unequal social structure. While it has long been recognized that school outcomes differ along these lines, the role that the school plays in creating differential outcomes and forms of consciousness that sustain fundamental inequalities and antagonisms has been largely ignored. This is as much true for scholars like Bowles and Gintis as it is for earlier functionalists.

This article begins to fill this void by focusing on the relationship between the ‘hidden curriculum’ and student culture. Data presented here were gathered as part of a larger study on the ‘lived culture’ of lower class black students in a community college (which I call Urban College) located in a large northeastern city in the United States. I argue that, rather than ‘determine’ student culture in any simple sense, the hidden curriculum and student culture emerge in relation to one another. Each creates aspects of the other and neither can be discussed or analyzed separately. The way in which elements of the hidden curriculum combine in a concrete culture to produce aspects of student consciousness is also discussed.     

Faculty perspectives and practice in an Urban Community College

This article explores faculty perspectives and practice at one Urban Community College in the United States. Data were gathered as part of a larger ethnography on the culture which lower class black students produce in an urban institution. My goal here is to describe elements of faculty culture, explore reasons why faculty culture takes the shape and form that it does, and discuss the ways in which this culture may be linked to institutional outcomes. In so doing. I offer a framework through which the structural genesis of faculty-student conflict and the relationship between faculty culture and institutional outcomes may be viewed.     

“工厂的阴影”——兼论质性研究的实践与应用

全球化条件下急剧变化的经济结构给不同的社会群体带来冲击,一项关于一群生活在美国后工业化城镇中的中学生的前后跨度为15年的民族志追踪研究,揭示了如何从日常生活实践的角度理解阶级变迁过程,以及在去工业化时期,失去原有工作的白人工人群体如何在特定的社会结构与历史条件下,将自身重塑为一个独特的阶层。全球化时代的阶级重构过程与性别关系以及族群身份认同等因素之间存在极其错综复杂的关联。只有将社会群体置于具体的历史条件以及相邻群体关系中考察,才能深刻理解这些过程,这就是构图式分析法(compo-sitional study)。这一研究思路应当适用于不同国家与背景下的社会人群研究,而在全球化过程中受益的新兴国家如印度和中国开展类似研究,尤为重要。     

Partnering with the Public Library for Health Care Education: An Evaluation of Affordable Care Act Messages

Despite implementation of most of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by 2014, the public still has questions about the health care law. To assess the potential of using the library as a hub for ACA education, we tested existing and new culturally relevant messages about the health care law with twenty-seven community members. Participants discussed the message prototypes, including the visual components and promotional content, and provided advice to modify content and design to best reach target audiences. Future research can follow this example to engage libraries and community members in developing and evaluating culturally relevant health messages.     

Without dependence on welfare for life: Black women in the community college

This paper extends my previous analysis of data gathered in a year-long ethnographic investigation of a community college (Weis, 1985). Here, gendered subjectivity is explored through three themes: (1) motivation for attending Urban College, (2) perceived behavior of women and men within the institution, and (3) academic outcomes. The paper closes by positing why black female culture takes the shape and form that it does, and why the community college fails to promote social mobility for black females.     

Are separate room test accommodations effective for college students with disabilities?

Abstract

College students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and/or learning disabilities are frequently allowed to complete examinations in a separate, distraction-reduced setting. Although separate room test accommodations are believed to provide students with equal access to testing and thereby improve performance, little experimental research has examined their effects on actual test scores. We randomly assigned college students to complete a high-stakes Spanish language placement examination in either a group or separate room setting. Then, we categorized students based on their (1) disability status, (2) history of test accommodations, and (3) self-reported history of test anxiety. Results showed a significant setting x disability status interaction. Contrary to expectations, all students performed equally well in the group setting, but students with disabilities earned significantly lower scores than their classmates without disabilities when tested in a separate room. Similar results were found when we restricted our analyses to students with a history of test accommodations. Separate room testing had no effect on the scores of students with test anxiety. Altogether, our findings suggest that separate room testing does not mitigate the effects of ADHD, learning disabilities, and/or test anxiety on performance and, in some cases, may actually lower test scores.     

“We Need to Come Together and Raise Our Kids and Our Communities Right”: Black Males Rewriting Social Representations

This article excavates the voices of urban black males as they speak their name (Belton, 1996) in a society that denies them this right. Based on data gathered in a large-scale ethnographic interview study of urban America, the authors traverse the spoken lives of these men, as they weave stories about neighborhood and state violence, opportunities denied and missed, and the current power of black men's groups in the church. Through their day-to-day lives urban black men challenge social representations about them in racist America, constructing an alternative hegemonic masculinity revolving around relationships, fatherhood, and dignity.Professor of Sociology of Education at the State University of New York at BuffaloCompleted her Ph.D. at the State University of New York at Buffalo and is now a practicing psychologist at Claremont CollegesCurrent graduate student at CUNY