scholarly journals Class and Parents' Agency in West Virginia: Between Choices and Rights

2013 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Sherfinski
Keyword(s):  
Head Start ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
West Virginia ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Educational Practice ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
Choice Making ◽  
Part Time ◽  
Teachers And Parents

Universal pre-kindergarten (UPK) is a popular reform in West Virginia, offering part-time readiness-oriented instruction for four-year-olds and some three-year-olds with special needs. The reform joins public school sites and community partners (private preschool and/or Head Start resources) in the goal of pre-kindergarten for all eligible children, and has targeted the struggling lower-middle class. UPK may position parents between choices and rights by providing discrepant public and private choices for families who do not qualify for the Head Start strand while naming access “universal”. In this case study, I examine the context of access in relation to the discourses and politics of neoliberal globalism. Neoliberal globalism has shaped West Virginia’s UPK policy towards producing particular childhoods and roles for teachers and parents in service to the economic growth of the state. Specifically, I analyze the role of social class dynamics among lower-middle class parents who sought readiness opportunities in one UPK community. The results indicate that Bourdieu’s theory of social reproduction is relevant. Lower-middle class parents were active and instrumental choosers within the hybrid market system. Given two groups of lower-middle class participants (RMC-recent members of the lower-middle class descended from the middle class and HMC-historical members of the lower-middle class), RMC advantageously engaged resources traditionally designated for poor and working class families while HMC used  social networks built locally over time to support their choice-making. In order to re-think West Virginia UPK’s position towards cultural pluralism and social justice, I suggest several possibilities in the areas of policy, community deliberation, and educational practice.

scholarly journals Just Mothering: Amy Coney Barrett and the Racial Politics of American Motherhood

Laws ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
H. Howell Williams
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Political Development ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
White Family ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
History Of ◽  
Republican Motherhood ◽  
A Site ◽  
Confirmation Hearings

Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination and confirmation featured frequent references to her role as a mother. This article situates these references within the trajectory of American political development to demonstrate how motherhood operates as a mechanism for enforcing a white-centered racial order. Through a close analysis of both the history of politicized motherhood as well as Barrett’s nomination and confirmation hearings, I make a series of claims about motherhood and contemporary conservatism. First, conservatives stress the virtuousness of motherhood through a division between public and private spheres that valorizes the middle-class white mother. Second, conservatives emphasize certain mothering practices associated with the middle-class white family. Third, conservatives leverage an epistemological claim about the universality of mothering experiences to universalize white motherhood. Finally, this universalism obscures how motherhood operates as a site in which power distinguishes between good and bad mothers and allocates resources accordingly. By attending to what I call the “republican motherhood script” operating in contemporary conservatism, I argue that motherhood is an ideological apparatus for enforcing a racial order premised on white protectionism.

scholarly journals Between field and home: notes from the balcony

2021 ◽  
pp. 147447402110205
Author(s):  
Shruti Ragavan
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Dairy Farms ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Liminal Space ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
The Past ◽  
Urban Village ◽  
The City

Balconies, windows and terraces have come to be identified as spaces with newfound meaning over the past year due to the Covid-19 pandemic and concomitant lockdowns. There was not only a marked increase in the use of these spaces, but more importantly a difference in the very nature of this use since March 2020. It is keeping this latter point in mind, that I make an attempt to understand the spatial mobilities afforded by the balcony in the area of ethnographic research. The street overlooking my balcony, situated amidst an urban village in the city of Delhi – one of my field sites, is composed of middle and lower-middle class residents, dairy farms and farmers, bovines and other nonhumans. In this note, through ethnographic observations, I reflect upon the balcony as constituting that liminal space between ‘field’ and ‘home’, as well as, as a spatial framing device which conditions and affects our observations and interactions. This is explored by examining two elements – the gendered nature of the space, and the notion of ‘distance and proximity’, through personal narratives of engaging-with the field, and subjects-objects of study in the city.

Peran UMKM Dalam Mengurangi Tingkat Pengangguran Masyarakat dan Strategi UMKM Ditengah Pandemi Covid-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-107
Author(s):  
Nida Alfi Nur Ilmi
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Unemployment Rate ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Financial Assistance ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
Qualitative Descriptive ◽  
Descriptive Approach ◽  
The Government

ABSTRACT This paper tries to explain and describe the position of UMKM in the Kepuh, Boyolangu Village, Banyuwangi, as an effort to reduce the unemployment rate, especially in the lower middle class and to see how the strategy of the UMKM founders in maintaining their position in all conditions. So it is hoped that readers can find out and analyze UMKM within the scope of the region as an effort to minimize unemployment and increase living standards. This paper use qualitative research method with a qualitative descriptive approach. Establishing UMKM is certainly not an easy thing, because the large number of workers does not guarantee UMKM, who is determined by the appropriate expertise and strategy. In addition, the Government has not been maximally perfect in overcoming problems and financial assistance for community UMKM which in reality is able to absorb many new workers, and has an impact on reducing the unemployment rate.

scholarly journals West Virginia Farm Direct Marketing: A County Level Analysis

2006 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 575-584 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheryl Brown ◽  
Jesse E. Gandee ◽  
Gerard D'Souza
Keyword(s):  
West Virginia ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Direct Marketing ◽  
Vegetable Production ◽  
County Level ◽  
Housing Value ◽  
Close Proximity ◽  
Part Time ◽  
Direct Market ◽  
Level Analysis

To understand the factors that influence farm direct marketing, a linear regression model is estimated to test the relationships between county-level direct market sales and socioeconomic, agricultural production, and location characteristics for West Virginia. The results show that higher median housing value, increased population density, a younger population, a greater number of direct market farms, more diversity of fruit and vegetable production and closer proximity to Washington, D.C., increase direct market sales. The results have implications for other states with a large proportion of small and part-time farmers, many of whom are located in close proximity to metropolitan areas.

The Lower Middle Class as Historical Problem

1975 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 409-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arno J. Mayer
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Lower Middle Class

scholarly journals Lebanese Students’ Attitudes toward English: An Exploratory Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 20
Author(s):  
Ghada M. Chehimi
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Exploratory Study ◽  
English Language ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
School Students ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
Students Attitudes ◽  
Selection Of

This is a study of high school students’ attitudes toward the English language in Lebanon. The purpose of this research is to assess the extent of use of English inside and outside the schools taking into consideration the attitude towards the language. Two schools were selected, one upper middle class and one lower middle class. This selection of different social classes aims at finding whether a student’s socio- economical background affects his/ her attitude toward the English language. The sample of respondents returned 52 questionnaires from the two schools. Although this sample was a modest one, it highlighted the differences in attitudes towards the English language, but these attitudes did not relate much to the socioeconomic class as much as personal preferences. However, what was salient in this research is how students from the lower middle class were more inclined to use English to raise their social status and both groups agreed that English is essential to their progress in life.

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