My HUB Affiliate project is deeply rooted in my work on the College and University Pantries (CUP) Research team. Through this work, I’ve come to understand that college, which is often thought of as a bastion of opportunity where low-income and working-class students can improve their social and economic outcomes, actually exacerbates inequality. Economically privileged students can participate in unfunded internships and research opportunities, and they often have increased and more valued social and cultural capital, which helps them navigate college. In contrast, less privileged students cannot forgo paying jobs in the community (or caregiving responsibilities at home) for unpaid research opportunities on campus, and they often have lower levels and less valued types of social and cultural capital. These disparities lead to differential outcomes upon graduation. COVID-19 is making this outcome gap worse. Furthermore, difficulties in college differ by multiple risk factors with first-generation college students, racial and ethnic minority groups, and LGBTQ students experiencing higher rates of food insecurity and homelessness while in college than their peers.
In the Fall of 2017, the CUP Research team paid for the University of Michigan-Dearborn to participate in a campus-wide basic needs survey through the HOPE Center for College, Community, and Justice. By participating in this survey, our campus contributed to a larger study by the Hope Center, which reported on findings from 43,000 students at 66 institutions in 20 states and Washington D.C. Although the response rate among our UM-Dearborn undergraduate student population was low (721 students; our response rate was similar to other participating higher ed institutions), the results are important. Some key findings from UM-Dearborn include:
- Almost a third of respondents were food insecure in the previous year.
- A third of respondents were housing insecure in the previous year.
- Almost 1 in 10 respondents had experienced some form of homelessness in the previous year.
- About 6 in 10 black students surveyed were food and housing insecure, which was twice the rate compared to white students.
- Respondents not identifying as heterosexual were more basic needs insecure than their heterosexual peers.
- Female students tended to report higher levels of housing and food insecurity than male students.
In addition, we know that COVID-19 has exacerbated food and housing insecurities among students (so these data from 2017 might look different now). I am happy to discuss our campus data more with anyone interested, please do reach out.
My goal for my Affiliate project is to build on the excellent work already happening at UM-Dearborn (see for example, Experience+ and the Foundations Program), to help us rise up to meet the demographics of our student body, and to become well-known as a working-class friendly campus with a working-class friendly curriculum. My focus for this Affiliate project is specifically on pedagogy.
As bell hooks noted in Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (1994) class is “more than just a question of money, that it shaped values, attitudes, social relations, and the biases that informed the way knowledge would be given and received” (p. 178). Also according to hooks, instructors are more willing to confront issues of class in the content they teach rather than in their pedagogical practices. Peter Callero explains in The Myth of Individualism: How Social Forces Shape Our Lives (2018) that middle- and upper-class youth feel at-home in school as the “styles of interacting and expectations of teachers” are “familiar and comfortable,” however, for poor and working-class students school is “unfamiliar and confusing” (p.106).
So why are classroom expectations familiar for middle- and upper-class students and why are instructors less likely to interrogate their pedagogical practices from a class lens? Both Callero and hooks suggest that this is a result of instructors themselves coming from middle- and upper-class backgrounds. This then begs the question: how has your class background influenced your teaching practices? Stay tuned for a tool to help you reflect accordingly. In addition, it’s worth exploring pedagogical practices that advantage (or disadvantage) working-class students. This goes beyond a basic needs security statement or link to our campus food pantry on your syllabus. For example, how can we go beyond a single story and value the cultural capital of poor and working-class college students in the classroom?
The future of my HUB Affiliate project focuses on 1) building a tool to help instructors self-reflect on their own class background as it relates to teaching practices and 2) reviewing specific pedagogical practices with harm reduction and class-based lenses. I know there is a lot of synergy on campus related to this topic, if you are interested in chatting or partnering with me then please reach out!
A special thanks to Autumm and Sarah for their guidance on this project.
Feature photo by Paola Sanchez from Pixabay.
Carmel is an Associate Professor of Sociology and an Affiliate Faculty of the Center for Arab American Studies and the Women and Gender Studies programs at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.