On Cultural Capital

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Amos 7:7-15
Ephesians 1:1-14
Mark 6: 7-13
Psalm 85 or 85:7-13

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Cultural capital has been on my mind lately, as I think about Rev. Lisa's recent post on the misuse of reproductive power. It has also been on my mind as I think of another book I just got from a publisher, and one I already have--the images are above. Rev. Lisa spoke of the ways in which reproductive power can be misused and even lead to detrimental results: having children out of wedlock can lead to greater disadvantages to the children born into less than ideal circumstances. It can also mean greater disadvantages to women who might already be in financially precarious situations becoming at risk for greater disadvantages as they are the sole providers for children but themselves are low-income.

So how does this relate to cultural capital: link?

Here are some key phrases from the linked article:

Cultural capital is the knowledge, experience and or connections one has had through the course of their life that enables them to succeed more so than someone from a less experienced background.

Cultural deprivation is when children don't have the right attitude or interest for education. Parents may also have no interest in the child's education. This mainly occurs in working class families.

Material deprivation is when working class children don't do as well because they lack the money needed to buy educational resources like books and computers and are not able to go on educational school trips, for example.

I have been thinking about cultural capital in light of immigrants who come to the U.S., with the hope that their children will do better in the future. It is every immigrant's dream for themselves and their families. For many people, children are their gift to themselves, a legacy for their future, and improving their children's future is part and parcel of that.

The overarching question, though, is whether all immigrants are imbuing their children with the necessary cultural capital that will help them reach their goals, or whether the cultural capital given to them by their parents or even cultivated by the children themselves, will enable the progress they hope for?

Immigrants to the U.S. can come for a variety of backgrounds, for example, dirt poor, working class, lower middle class, upper middle class and upper class.

Those coming from a dirt poor and working class background might find it harder for their children to reach the upper middle class, ie., to become degreed professionals like doctors and lawyers. It might take more than one generation. For example, the grandparents might have been working class farmers who eked out a living from the land and barely survived, but who had values: faith, discipline and hard work that they used in raising their children to think, plan ahead and delay gratification as they pursued their goals.

Their children's advancement meant becoming reasonably well-educated civil servants who used their family's cultural capital to take advantage of opportunities like scholarships that enabled their progress into the lower middle class, ie., becoming government workers, ie., nurses and government clerks. The ones who were the smartest could have been propelled immediately into the upper middle class when they got scholarships to go to medical school.

These working class/lower middle class ones could have been the ones to immigrate; drawing upon their cultural capital and their abilities to navigate successfully the society they entered into (they had had previous experience with navigating institutions), they maintained their class status and ensured their children did even better, perhaps by becoming educated themselves but definitley by providing their children opportunities to become even better educated and thus further entrench an upper middle class stature.

So what happens then, if the cultural capital provides a different inheritance, ie., the working class family does not have the means to ensure their children can enter the lower middle class or the upper middle class? The hopes of upward mobility might be there, but there is no means for the children to reach it. The cultural capital might result in the family's class stature remaining the same: the working class/lower middle class immigrants' children might themselves retain their parents' class stature.

What of the child who falls backward?

How might that falling backward happen? We hear of the stories all the time, we might know of these stories in some of our families. The working class/lower middle class/upper middle class parents' child falls into a wrong crowd while in high school, doing drugs and dropping out. S/he might not even do drugs; s/he might just drop out and "get a job," a job that might be a working class one that is a dead-end in terms of mobility and advancement. Instead of waiting to have children upon marriage and their economic circumstances have improved, they have children out of wedlock and at a young age, which limits their opportunities for advancement. What legacy will they pass on?

Once upon a time, working class meant middle class. With the collapse of working class industries--manufacturing as an example--in the US that enabled that middle class status, what does working class mean today? It seems to me that working class in on its way to meaning working poor in today's service industry that draws numbers of low-income workers who provide low-cost services, but who no longer make the products that might do a better job at fueling local industry and provide a high standard of living.

The traditional view is that racism and prejudice stymies the advancement of the children of immigrants of color, as they become more "American" than immigrant in succeeding generations. But is that necessarily true, or is it that the values and mindsets of the immigrant generation become more distant over time? A bit of both? Earlier generations of blacks, immigrant or otherwise, dealt with a lot more that prevented their advancement. Are subsequent generations taking advantage of the improvements in society that might alleviate those?

The ideal is to be aware, of course, of the possibility of racism, but at the same time, to draw upon the values of the earlier immigrants: persistance, dedication to uplift, in combination with the family values that made them stronger--the disciplined, sober living that enabled them to save, work hard, delay gratification and plan for the future, theirs, and their children's. This is what enabled them to advance and cultivate their cultural capital.

Failing Children: Failing Schools or a Failing Culture?

An editor sent me a copy of a book that has just come out; it asks the perennial question today: are children failing in school because their schools are failing them or are their cultural values the culprit? The image is located above.

I can't help but think that there are more people employed in fields that focus upon black people's apparent dysfunction than there are those employed in fields that do not: social work, the criminal justice system, public education, some fields within academia, etc.

What I find striking about this book are the types of arguments that were developed by school reform activists like Jonathan Kozol or the critiques of Derrick Bell. Brown v. Board of Education was supposed to erase inequality in schooling, but that was not the reality of what happened. Should improving the schools been about equal funding rather than equal access to the resources of white schools?

It is ironic that once equal access to the resources of white schools came about through busing, as an example, the schools became more black and Latino, which is where they were before, as families moved out or put their children in private schools.

Bell once argued, the struggle should have been about equal funding for the black schools staffed by black staff and administrators, because that appears to be the real problem. Wealthy school districts have better access to a higher tax base. Poorer districts do not. Those in the poorer districts, which are overwhelming black and Latino, are populated by teachers and staff who are overwhelmed, underqualified and who can be uncaring. If anything, the culture in some of the schools is hostile. Staff seem to want the children to fail, to leave, to drop out. For too many, a life of crime follows upon dropping out of school.

Getting a good education is only the beginning; it can give someone a step up, but in today's world, there are no guarantees.

News reports over the past few days have been talking about the current unemployment rate. Some have been arguing that the reported rate is actually lower than it is, because it does not take into account those who are working part time, who are "consulting," or who have given up work altogether.

There is no safety net. I saw older workers interviewed--these were primarily well-educated men working in the hardest hit sectors: the financial, manufacturing and construction sectors. The fields that have not been hit as hard are the fields dominated primarily by women--education and health care. How do these men manage when they can't find employment? Do they downscale, rely on their wives, other relatives?

Another group being interviewed were the ex-cons, again, primarily men, but this time around, black men were seeking to transition into work. I wonder, why no interviews with black men and women in the former group, the one guaranteed to garner more sympathy? Among the convicts, one young woman had spent 18 months in jail on a drug charge. She was looking for work in a coffee shop owned/managed by a black woman. The young woman did not get the job; an experience shared by many ex-cons. They can't find work. What is their safety net? Do they turn back to crime?

I could not help recall the stories in magazines like Essence, that encourage black women to consider prisoners and ex-cons as partners, out of some perception of "black unity," as though these men are like modern-day political prisoners, the usual view that black men suffer more than black women, and so black women must step in and rescue. They can heal and redeem. The men can change. I asked myself, where are the black men's magazine articles that talk about men rescuing women? Are they even there?
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Link.

Our Schools Suck
Students Talk Back to a Segregated Nation on the Failures of Urban Education
Gaston Alonso, Noel S. Anderson, Celina Su and Jeanne Theoharis

"Our schools suck." This is how many young people of color call attention to the kind of public education they are receiving. In cities across the nation, many students are trapped in under-funded, mismanaged and unsafe schools. Yet, a number of scholars and of public figures like Bill Cosby have shifted attention away from the persistence of school segregation to lambaste the values of young people themselves. Our Schools Suck forcefully challenges this assertion by giving voice to the compelling stories of African American and Latino students who attend under-resourced inner-city schools, where guidance counselors and AP classes are limited and security guards and metal detectors are plentiful—and grow disheartened by a public conversation that continually casts them as the problem with urban schools.

By showing that young people are deeply committed to education but often critical of the kind of education they are receiving, this book highlights the dishonesty of public claims that they do not value education. Ultimately, these powerful student voices remind us of the ways we have shirked our public responsibility to create excellent schools. True school reform requires no less than a new civil rights movement, where adults join with young people to ensure an equal education for each and every student.

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I was chatting with a cousin, J, who lives in NYC, and who has a parent's view of this very situation--various of the contributors to the volume did research on NYC schools. Like me, this cousin went to Catholic school. Although I went only for junior high, his parents (my godfather and his wife) sent him and his sister to Catholic school for elementary, junior high and high school.

He is among the black men whom I admire and cherish: an "old school" black men like my dad and other black male relatives and family friends, including J's dad. Married for 12 years, J has a black stay-at-home wife (an old-school African American woman from the Midwest) and three beautiful black children. I love their old school family values and how they raise their children.

He refuses to send his children to public school. In his words, the black kids in public school, too many of them have no home training, and the white kids have no discpline.

But it is getting more expensive to send the children now, and he has lost half of his compensation due to the downturn: he has his base salary, but his bonus and stock options have been diminished. I can't figure out how in the world they are managing. If I suddenly earned half of what I am currently earning, there would be trouble. They just must not be able to save anything now. And yet, this academic year starting up, it will cost $35,000 to send his oldest to her elite primary school and the youngest to a Catholic school.

They considered home schooling, and would pursue it if things really hit the fan. That money, he explains, can be put aside for their college education. Heck, I would home school now, if only to save that kind of money!

"Prophets are not without Honor..."

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Ezekiel 2:1-7
2 Corinthians 12:2-10
Mark 6:1-6
Psalm 123

Mark 6:1-6

Jesus left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, "Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him. Then Jesus said to them, "Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house." And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.

Then he went about among the villages teaching.

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I can't help but think of this story in light of those who would oppose women's leadership/ministry in whatever form--secular or religious: Who does she think she is? She can't lead, teach, be a minister, etc., etc., etc.

In their own communities, among people who know them, they can't get support. Sometimes, they have to go outside of their communities to get respect and recognition of their gifts.

Thus, I'm glad to be part of tradition that enabled a woman like Mpho Tutu, Desmond Tutu's daughter, to study ministry and become ordained: link, or link, or, link, and link. Her picture is located above.