Class Consciousness Among Undergraduate Men

1. Class Consciousness Among Undergraduate Men Ryan P. Adserias Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis University of Wisconsin-Madison

2. Introduction -Why class? -Why class consciousness? -Why undergraduates at 4 year institutions? -Why men? Ryan P. Adserias - Class Consciousness Among Undergraduate Men - July 2011

3. Background -Why did I pick this area? -What is the theoretical basis for this work? Ryan P. Adserias - Class Consciousness Among Undergraduate Men - July 2011

4. Theoretical Framework Erik Olin Wright Class Counts (1997) Ryan P. Adserias - Class Consciousness Among Undergraduate Men - July 2011

5. Wright’s Class Consciousness Model Wright (1997) defines consciousness as “a particular aspect of the mental life of individuals, namely, those individual’s own awareness (author’s own emphasis),” and is “…counterposed to ‘unconsciousness’ – the discursively inaccessible aspects of mental life,” (p. 383). Ryan P. Adserias - Class Consciousness Among Undergraduate Men - July 2011

6. Data Sample -16 college-age males, 15 of whom are included. -Attending 4 year Wisconsin System Campuses. -Pell-eligible. -Most of whom are first-generation students. Ryan P. Adserias - Class Consciousness Among Undergraduate Men - July 2011

7. Results The Average Man in the Sample Was Fairly Class Conscious Ryan P. Adserias - Class Consciousness Among Undergraduate Men - July 2011

8. Results It is important to me to have a better job than my parents. -3/4 of the men agreed with this statement. I want to equally as well in life as my parents -50% disagreed, indicating they wanted to do better in life than their parents. I want to achieve a higher level of education than my parents. 85% agreed with the statement Ryan P. Adserias - Class Consciousness Among Undergraduate Men - July 2011

9. Results Tou:“…it just introduces you to a whole other level that you thought that you were poor when you were small. Like when I was small I mean there was so much kids not much income, we live in a duplex like my uncle and them live downstairs we live upstairs it took both families just in order to pay for one house and then what we eat was always rice. Rice with nothing maybe, rice with water, rice with maybe a little pepper, stuff like that but I mean I go to Salvation Army and you see people who don't have...don't eat anything at all.” Ethan: “Yeah. ‘cause like well like we all work pretty much and like if me and my brother didn’t work we probably wouldn’t have like as much of the things like in our house as we should and likesometimes I see her struggling and it just kind of like hurts me to see that. So, like ever since then I was just like, you know, I want to go to college and kind of do better… (Mom) would always like talk to us and say like ‘you better go to college… Ryan P. Adserias - Class Consciousness Among Undergraduate Men - July 2011

10. Results Noah: “We weren’t wealthy but we weren’t bad. well off. And now all of a sudden, my family is dirt poor. We have nothing. We don’t even own our own house.” Tyler: “We were virtually like poormy whole life. You know what I’m saying? People for Christmas didn’t get a sweet TV or an X-Box or something like that.We’d get a Packer jacket and be happy.” Ethan:“Yeah, a lot of my friends from home don’t go to college, so when I do go home to visit and stuff, and I talk about college and stuff, it kind of makes me feel like I’m better than them or something.” Troy:“I mean, I just want to get farther in life. I mean, I’m not... I don’t want to be a farmer or I don’t want to be doing a low wage job for the rest of my life that’s hard labor in a factory, or something.” Ryan P. Adserias - Class Consciousness Among Undergraduate Men - July 2011

11. Implications -Students from the working class are generally aware of the class status in comparison to their peers. -Working class college students have very different life experiences coming into college. -Working class students come with different developmental issues than their middle & upper class peers. Ryan P. Adserias - Class Consciousness Among Undergraduate Men - July 2011

12. Areas for Future Inquiry -Class consciousness among women. -Intersecting identities. -Developmental models. -Trajectories of class conscious students. -Differences in consciousness between working, middle, and upper class students. -Class consciousness among students at 2 year colleges. -Analyze the data through other theoretical lenses. Ryan P. Adserias - Class Consciousness Among Undergraduate Men - July 2011

13. Thank You Ryan P. Adserias - Class Consciousness Among Undergraduate Men - July 2011