entering class

Today's Chronicle features an interview with education researcher Michael T. Nettles who, along with Catherine M. Millett of ETS recently conducted a massive study of what it takes to get a PhD, interviewing over 9,000 PhDs from 21 PhD granting institutions. The least surprising finding of the study is something I've been thinking about and talking about with John and Elizabeth for awhile now, and it's best rendered as a quote from the article's interview:

-----------------------

Q. Are humanities students more or less satisfied than those in the sciences?

A. The humanities students were distinctive in the fact that they were the highest socioeconomic class of doctoral students. Doctoral students in general are of higher socioeconomic class than the general population. But humanities students had the parents who were more likely to be postbaccalaureate-trained professionals. They also came from higher-income families.

-------------------------

I imagine there exist subtle differences across fields within the humanities; for example, scholars in rhetoric and composition don't tend to bear the same class markers as literary scholars; this is likely because ivy schools don't have rhet/comp programs. Nevertheless, these class distinctions bear out even in the course of one's daily institutional life.  When I first arrived at this R-1 university, a new acquaintance excitedly told me that his colleague, a cultural anthropologist, was dying to meet me since I was such a rare specimen (my word) with my three degrees, all from--gasp!--state schools.

You see, Illinois tends to hire from the ivies, where those from upper-income families tend to go. I know there are exceptions. A colleague of mine who is in fact one of those exceptions complains that we tend to hire people who are a lot alike, and that colleague is kind of right: lots of our colleagues have ivy on their degrees, some even have professor parents. The English department is doing a pretty good job hiring from underrepresented groups and noticing that the number of women full professors needs to be raised, but here's my question, inspired by convos with the ever class-conscious John: why does diversity as an institutional (and laudable) goal frequently overlook class? If class diversity is assumed to be 'covered' by minority or international scholars, that assumption, in the academy particularly, is frequently dead wrong.

At this point, as the study suggests, faculty hiring is the place where class manifests itself most by not manifesting itself at all. And while I'm all for making sure we have individuals from a variety of institutions in our final applicant pools, the problems of course seem to hatch much earlier, at the level of grad admissions or recruitment, or even earlier, at the undergrad admissions level. Hell, it probably all starts with expensive, competitive, straight-to-PhD preschools. But let's think about admission to grad school. Perhaps the Nettles-Millett study has data that would support the anecdotal evidence from a friend at another Big 10 school who noticed during his tenure as Director of Graduate Studies that applications from ivy league undergrads were noticeably on the rise. I'm sure this is a mark of extreme competition for graduate school in bad economic times--these students can no longer just switch to another ivy for their PhD but must go to the next tier down, their 'backup' schools, and the schools where their labor comes in handy--and the implications are huge. Perhaps a PhD in the humanities is a Bourdieuian question of taste--those who grow up with lots of books in their house migrate to libraries out of cultural habit. But it might also be that middle- and working-class graduates who develop scholarly inclinations, however accidentally, may slowly get squeezed out.

[update: This Chronicle first person piece does a nice job cutting to some of the issues I was trying to raise with this particular entry.]

Comments

[Hermione's Mom]

I couldn't agree more with John's assessment that a series of (what come to be presumed) visible markers of diversity (race, gender, sexuality) tend to stand in for (presumed to be invisble) class difference. And I do think there are countless subtle ways in which academia operates on the assumption (at least in the humanities) that professors come from upper-middle-class, well-educated homes. As I and another colleague of mine have often discussed (both of us having come from lower-income backgrounds), there is a demeanor that the academic is expected to have, a cultural facility, that comes out of a particular class background (for example: an expected ability to speak of one's travels in Europe. I regularly drop jaws when I reveal I have never been to Italy.)

I think that these subtle modes of class distinction are only going to become more entrenched and obvious as the humanities drop off the radar of the increasingly corporate University. We don't make money for the University, which means it will become increasingly tight-fisted, making graduate education more and more an option viable only for those with other financial resources. I remember in graduate school leaving the financial aid office in tears: my stipend was not enough to support me in NYC, but I did not qualify for much in terms of loans. I finally broke down and told the financial aid officer that she seemed to be operating on the assumtion that I had some secret family money, but that this was not the case: my parents weren't rich; I had no trust fund; I paid for my own plane tickets home. She looked at me with a blank stare: clearly I was uncalculable for her, which meant that the burden of calculation (what could I afford to spend on food? on books? on rent?) fell squarely on my shoulders.

My own sense is that the humanities needs to take this problem seriously, not only for the sake of class diversity amongst its faculty, but also for the sake of the relevance of our work altogether. With undergraduate students who all seem to be working at least one job, I think we're going to have to start having better answers to their questions about why reading literature (for example) still matters, and matters as something other than just what one does in one's leisure time (itself an understanding of literature loaded with class assumptions: let me go get my smoking jacket before I settle into my leather arm chair). I know some people have these answers. I don't (and so I'm headed to law school!).

Sorry to rant--class stuff gets me going, but also I'm just avoiding grading papers. Work, shmwork: I'm all about my leisure time! Now, where *is* my smoking jacket?...

[JM]

"With undergraduate students who all seem to be working at least one job, I think we're going to have to start having better answers to their questions about why reading literature (for example) still matters, and matters as something other than just what one does in one's leisure time...."

Because literature has something to tell them about what it means to work at a job, as well as about many other strategies for living in this awful little world we've built for ourselves. Or, if strategies are few and far between, literature at least offers insight into or consolation for that awful little world, which are sorts of stategies themselves. There are few other places in our cultural life where they can get any of that.

At least that's what this Doubting Marxist tells himself.

[spencer]

"... why does diversity as an institutional (and laudable) goal frequently overlook class? If class diversity is assumed to be 'covered' by minority or international scholars, that assumption, in the academy particularly, is frequently dead wrong."

I've been thinking about this a lot, lately, and getting so frustrated by embedded and widely circulated assumptions that educational quality is tiered within our edu.system with Ivy-ed located at the top.

But is class so fixed and inflexible, impermeable to the socializations and symbolic accumulations of grad school? The (reproductive) engines of our graduate institutions seem to me to initiate/produce us all as classed workers with linguistic markers, consumer habits, taste, and social capital that, despite class backgrounds and ongoing connections, locate Ivy or non-Ivy PhD holders as relatively similar in terms of class structure.

Quarrelling with you here, I see a larger responsibility for Ivy-fever and the subsequent flattening of diversity students at schools like UIUC encounter at the front of their classrooms on the economic star system (where we work, as you know, the lowest-level faculty member makes about one third of what the highest-level star does) that functions in part by garnering status on degrees from elite institutions. The star system is a classed star system, no doubt (relying on the valuation of Ivy-upper-class-ed as the shit) but I just don't see the argument that the classed body emerging from Kansas State is notably different within the class structure from the classed body emerging from Yale.

Oh no wait: now I'm thinking of a real-world example (using Kansas State and Yale) and thinking you're right. Anyhoo ...

[JM]

The research cited above suggests that the class origins of those who get Ph.Ds in the humanities is more homogoneous than in other disciplines. And those who do not come from that typical class background doubtlessly learn to get by on borrowed cultural capital. Debbie is suggesting that there's yet another order of distinction within that category, though, which sorts by degree-granting institution. Both sorts of distinctions can be in effect at once. Indeed, it would be remarkable if they were not: one of the things one learns in the course of earning a Ph.D is that other, supposedly better or lesser institutions also grant Ph.Ds.

Or: I have this cool t-shirt with a picture of Thorstein Veblen on it.

[dhawhee]

Ha. I do think your comment, Spencer, broadens the scale interestingly. And I did wonder if what I'm talking about is a pretty minute difference. But I don't think it is. A parvenu academic is still a parvenu. Or something like that.

[spencer]

"Both sorts of distinctions can be in effect at once."

Yes for sure, JM.

Also in the mix is the belief that quality of education (and intellect, and likelihood of compelling future scholarship) is reflected in the status-tiering of institutions, thus continuing to enforce and work with (not against) the tier.

[dhawhee]

Ayep.

[Aspasia]

Haven't read the study yet. But I'm here to testify from ignorance anyhow (a style absorbed from listening to mainstream media). Thanks in part to its lowly status in English departments, Rhet/comp may be one of the few academic disciplines in which people from nowhere can be heard (at least this used to be the case). I was so innocent (backward if you like) that I wasn't aware of the internal university class system until after grad school, if you can believe that, and I wasn't wholly aware of the peculiar scent of ivy snobbery until I taught at Big 10 schools. But when I showed up at committee meetings there, or during chance encounters at bars or coffee shops, boy howdy was it made apparent to me in ways large and small that my beliefs, values, even my tastes and body language were somehow not up to snuff.

[dhawhee]

Oh yeah, and just for kicks: try being from the South.

It's astonishing how many very smart people can't/don't want to register that Tennessee and Kentucky are really two different places. Many people think I came here knowing my colleague who's from Kentucky, like I would have met her at a revival.

[dhawhee]

And Aspasia, Socrates just didn't realize you were a more or less a deity in woman's clothing.

[katka]

I want to suggest (perhaps unsurprisingly for me) that part of the reason that the humanities is so class-based is the unspoken elevation of the English language in which the inquiry is conducted. And I have to come out here as an Ivy League fac brat to make this point: I did notice that my father's astronomy students were mostly people who had to bite, kick, and scratch their way out of mainland China, Lithuania, and other such places. They would not be winding up in an English departments where their accents would be even less tolerated than in the math department at UIUC.

I also want to point out that rhet/comp faculty seem more likely to date/partner with non-academics. Just saying...

[spencer]

... annnnnd not only the "elevation of the English language in which the inquiry is conducted," but each isolated person's illocutionary capacity/merit/style, however judged, in verbal encounters like defenses, oral MLA interviews, and job talks. I totally agree: it is in part through language ideologies and assessments that these values remain entrenched.

... but I got nuttin on the whole dating thing. Just _not_ saying ...

[jeff]

Even though I am the product of two state schools (Indiana, Florida), I am still not convinced of the Ivy value. In fact, I remember when I once tried to transfer into an Ivy at the undergrad level and a prof who wrote for me asked: "WHY?" Now I understand his "why?" Why indeed. Some of the most interesting work in rhetoric, cultural studies, technology, and writing is not happening in the Ivy depts. Lit? Even that I'm not sure of.
Sorry, Yale. Your time in the sun is over.

The analogy is college b-ball. The time of the big school's is ending. Mid-majors are striking their claim to good work.

[katka]

Jeff,
I think there are two kinds of value here (as there always are). You seem to be talking about "use value," like, what's the use to you of an Ivy education, whereas the issue seems to revolve more around "exchange value." Therein lies the value of a Harvard education, let's say, because your chances of getting on Supreme Court without Harvard somewhere in your cv (or a couple of other Ivies, plus Stanford) are minimal.

Harriet Miers

[dhawhee]

Oh Jeff, you're just gloating over Florida's rather decisive victory. And yah, as Katka is intimating, it depends on which sun we're talking about. In a big English department, the one eclipses any others. Though I think katka might not have been finished with that post, unless she's now signing her comments Harriet Miers. heh

[katka]

I was done (in).
HM

[Z]

Wait, I came to this discussion late. Is UIUC hiring Harriet Miers?

[jeff]

Yeah, Jenny and I have had this debate. I think for a lot of disciplines the "exchange value" of the Ivy education has lost steam. For law, maybe not. For the Humanities, I think it has. For English, no question.
And not to diss my Ivy colleagues in my own institution who work in the Humanities - there are many and many are brilliant. But more brilliant than those who did not go to an Ivy? No. Not at all.

[Z]

You're saying that for English hiring, an "Ivy education has lost steam" in exchange value?? Wow. I can't agree with that at all. I think it's very clear that, for better or worse, the "best" students in literature are still considered to come from a very few places: in my field (Renaissance), you've got Columbia, Penn, Harvard, Yale, Stanford (honorary Ivy), formerly Duke, back when it was Duke. Now, that's not to say, of course, that those students really are the best/smartest/most interesting or that search committees don't try sometimes to think outside that box--at UIUC we've hired people from Rutgers and SUNY Buffalo who are obviously brilliant and outclassed many people who applied from those schools I listed above. But there's no way that's the norm. The "top 5" grad schools still have a real advantage, I think.

Another thing that hasn't been discussed and that goes beyond the symbology of exchange value is the real advantage in networking that students at those "top 5" kind of schools get. The cultural distinction is passed down from advisor to PhD. And that sort of generational "aura" is really important in academia, I think--at least it is in my field, which is the part of academia I know best. The first question people ask about a recent PhD is not so much, "Where did she get her PhD?" but "Who did she work with?" You hear less "He comes from Stanford" than "He's an Orgel student."

[spencer]

So, even if we're not all in agreement about in what way having a Golden Ticket Degree and Big Name Sponsorship within the economy of the Star System ("an Orgel student," e.g.) affects exchange value, we do seem to agree that having a Golden Ticket Degree does not mean one is more brilliant and well prepared than one with a Regular Ticket Degree.

So what tactics can upset the belief that Golden Ticket Degrees, enmeshed in the structure of Social Class Debbie brought up, are perfect markers of Supreme Competence? And if such tactics could upset the belief that having a Golden Ticket Degree means one is Supremely Competent, would that upset the status some programs associate with hiring folks wih Golden Ticket Degrees?

[jeff]

Z
Then you (or we) speak of two exchange values at play:
1.The image ("we want to hire an Americanist from Duke or Yale!")
2.The actual exchange (of ideas, collaboration, contribution, teaching) that takes place in the institution. What actually is the given Americanist (or whoever) working on?

I don't doubt the continued currency of the first exchange when we speak of the Ivies. I doubt the second (that only Ivy grads have this kind of value). After teaching in three universities, after working and speaking with a number of folks from different backgrounds and areas of study, I find the Ivy league grad no better than any other. No worse either. The playing field is equaling out (or, I think, has equaled out for many areas of study).

But! If the image is all that matters and thirst is nothing, then, of course, the first exchange will dominate.

As far as "tactics," as Spencer calls for, they often happen in the working environment. When/if your colleagues from the non-Ivy are outperforming the Ivy colleagues, you see how the exchange values are shifting.

[Z]

Jeff--Ah, ok, I was taking exchange value throughout this discussion to mean roughly your point #1.

Spencer--as for encouraging meritocracy, why doesn't the MLA have a policy stating that all journal submissions should be double-blind (or do they?). Making article submission double-blind seems to me the only really ethical way to run a journal, but very few journals do this. And it's one very easy way to ensure more of a meritocracy. I suspect strongly that if readers for journals didn't know who wrote the article, you'd see a much wider spectrum of names (both personal and institutional) on the table of contents.

All this said, however, I don't think it explains why humanities PhDs are so homogeneous in terms of class. I think that's explained much more by factors affecting entry to grad school and by material ability to finish the dissertation (my grad school offered no summer funding when I was there, and a stipend that was about half the cost of living, so if you didn't have extra funds, you had to spend summers working at a job, which is when dissertating needs to get done)--much more than it is by factors affecting exit from grad school into the professoriate. I suspect that a big part of why so many English PhDs are of a particular class is that, more and more, only people of that class and with the habitus inculcated by that cultural position actually see much purpose to getting a PhD in English. Low pay, little material productivity, highly attenuated social impact (if you want to teach to affect social change, surely you're better off in primary or secondary education in the US), low prestige.

[dhawhee]

Right, Zack, which is why my big concern centered on the question of grad school and grad admission, and surely compensation for grad labor is an issue too. John and I sometimes talk about setting up endowments (you know for when we die rich) for first generation college kids--maybe these can be for grad school too. Sadly, though, that type of endowment could be the one that sits around and collects interest because no applicants matching that description can be found. And then the people managing the endowments will talk annually about what lunatics the benefactors were.

[Z]

>>>>>>>>
John and I sometimes talk about setting up endowments (you know for when we die rich) for first generation college kids--maybe these can be for grad school too. Sadly, though, that type of endowment could be the one that sits around and collects interest because no applicants matching that description can be found.
>>>>>>>>

I know one. I'm sure retroactive cash grants will be gratefully accepted.

[Hermione's Mom]

Just for the record: I'm a first generation college kid, and first generation grad school kid, so there are those of us out there (and I know of one other off the top of my head: a colleage who goes by the name of Mr. Henry James), and I am more than willing to take a retroactive cash grant, with no hard feelings for the disbursement delay.