School-smart and Mother-wise: Working-Class Women's Identity and Schooling

by Luttrell,Wendy

• ISBN13: 9780415910125
• ISBN10: 0415910129
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781317959090
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1997-05-21
• Publisher: Routledge
• More Book Details

Summary

School-smart and Mother-wiseillustrates how and why American education disadvantages working-class women when they are children and adults. In it we hear working-class women--black and white, rural and urban, southern and northern--recount their childhood experiences, describing the circumstances that led them to drop out of school. Now enrolled in adult education programs, they seek more than a diploma: respect, recognition and a public identity. Drawing upon the life stories of these women, Wendy Luttrell sensitively describes and analyzes the politics and psychodynamics that shape working-class life, schooling, and identity. She examines the paradox of women's education, particularly the relationship between schooling and mothering, and offers practical suggestions for school reform.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix	(4)
Preface	xiii
One Becoming Somebody	1	(12)
Two Stories From The Field	13	(10)
Three Schoolsmart and Motherwise	23	(14)
Four Childhood Ambitions	37	(16)
Five Storied Selves and School Mission	53	(20)
Six Teachers and Their Pets	73	(18)
Seven Schools and Mothers	91	(16)
Eight The Push and Pull of School	107	(6)
Nine Lessons from the Women's Stories	113	(14)
Notes	127	(20)
References	147	(14)
Index	161