This Fine Place So Far from Home: Voices of Academics from the Working Class [Paperback]

C.L. Dews (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 19, 1995

These autobiographical and analytical essays by a diverse group of professors and graduate students from working-class families reveal an academic world in which "blue-collar work is invisible." Describing conflict and frustration, the contributors expose a divisive middle-class bias in the university setting. Many talk openly about how little they understood about the hierarchy and processes of higher education, while others explore how their experiences now affect their relationships with their own students. They all have in common the anguish of choosing to hide their working-class background, to keep the language of home out of the classroom and the ideas of school away from home. These startlingly personal stories highlight the fissure between a working-class upbringing and the more privileged values of the institution. C. L. Barney Dews is visiting Assistant Professor of American Literature in the English and Foreign Languages Department, University of West Florida. Carolyn Leste Law is a Doctoral Candidate in English at the University of Minnesota.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A collection of essays by faculty members and several graduate students, this book provides [a] glimpse of the class system in the United States and how it plays out in colleges and universities...[This] is a moving book, beautifully written." --Contemporary Sociology

From the Publisher

Affecting stories of faculty and graduate students from working-class on their struggles in academia --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 341 pages
• Publisher: Temple University Press (April 19, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566392918
• ISBN-13: 978-1566392914
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #181,519 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Voices to be heard, May 2, 2001

By 

Carol Lee (Ohio) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: This Fine Place So Far from Home: Voices of Academics from the Working Class (Paperback)

I read a selection from this book for a class, which prompted me to read the rest of the book. Really interesting narratives written by a number of first generation university students from a number of races and cultures, all from working class backgrounds.

A common theme is the feeling of living in two worlds - home and school - worlds which seldom intersect. Students speak of trying to fit in with peers who were more well off, explaining why they didn't have money to go out on the weekend, or why they couldn't attend various events or spring break flings because they had to work.

Entitlement - not quite feeling like they belonged at the university... watching peers walk around like they owned the place and were born to it.

Identity - being changed by the college experience, and wondering how the experience would change their relationship with family/community who seemed, by comparison, so unchanged. Several spoke of becoming bi-lingual - speaking one way at the university and another at home. Communication styles that were vital to being understood and accepted both places.

The irony of higher education being such a point of pride for the family, who made huge sacrifices for the student to be the first in the family - not knowing that the college experience would potentially pull the student away from identifying with that family/community working-class culture.

University values - While schools are at least talking about racial unity, there was less attention given to class unity. Many struggled with the idea that the whole purpose of getting a university education was to "get a brighter future", a "better opportunity", to "escape" having to work a blue collar job. If blue collar is who I am and who my famliy is, why is that something to escape? These were conflicting messages for many... be inclusive and sensitive to differences, but the white collar world is a higher, more worthy pursuit.

The only reason I gave it 4 out of 5 stars is the length of the book. The narrative format is engaging, but I felt the collection was a little lengthy to hold my interest through the entire book because the themes were repeated quite often in each narrative. Still worth the read, this perspective needs to be heard!