Tag: colby king

Roundtable discussion of the Routledge International Handbook of Working-Class Studies

Join us for a roundtable discussion of the new Routledge International Handbook of Working-Class Studies on April 16, 2021 at 11 am – 12:15 pm EST via Zoom.

Advance registration is required.

Register here.

The Routledge International Handbook of Working-Class Studies is a timely volume that provides an overview of this interdisciplinary field that emerged in the 1990s in the context of deindustrialization, the rise of the service economy, and economic and cultural globalization. The Handbook brings together scholars, teachers, activists, and organizers from across three continents to focus on the study of working-class peoples, cultures, and politics in all their complexity and diversity.  

Panelists include contributors:  

Sherry Linkon, Georgetown University  

Colby King, University of South Carolina Upstate  

Simon Lee, Texas State University  

Allison Hurst, Oregon State University  

And co-editors Michele Fazio, Christie Launius, and Tim Strangleman  

Moderated by Jack Metzgar, Professor Emeritus, Roosevelt University  

WCSA Members Writing on Workers and the Working Class in the COVID-19 Economy

Amidst the ongoing spread of COVID-19 and the dramatic changes in work, Working-Class Studies Association members have been writing about circumstances for workers and the working class.

At the Working-Class Perspectives Blog, Sherry Linkon wrote about how the move to online instruction is highlighting class disparities in higher education. Most recently, Sarah Attfield wrote about how working-class people “hold society together.” And a week earlier, Kathy Newman wrote about class, capitalism, and coronavirus at Disney’s newest attraction.

At the Everyday Sociology Blog, Colby King wrote about how the working class and service industry workers are on the front lines of the COVID-19 economy. 

How are you seeing the pandemic changing circumstances for workers and the working class? If you’ve got writing out about how the pandemic is reshaping work and life for the working class, let us know. Share links to your writing at @wcstudies on Twitter, or at wcstudies@gmail.com and we will share it here.

First-Generation Students

WCSA members Colby King, associate professor of sociology, and Sean McPherson, assistant professor of art, (both of Bridgewater State University) contributed to an article on understanding the needs of first-generation students on campus. “New Territory: Ensuring First-Generation Students Feel at Home and Succeed on Campus” appeared in Bridgewater Magazine.

King will start a new position in the fall as assistant professor of sociology at the University of South Carolina at Upstate.  Click here to read his views on what the next generation of working-class Americans will look like.

 

JWCS June 2019 now available

The June 2019 issue of The Journal of Working-Class Studies includes a series of reviewed articles, a creative piece, a student essay pod, and book reviews.

Click here for the latest issue.

New Sixth Edition of The New Urban Sociology

 

 

NUS6

A new Sixth Edition of The New Urban Sociology has been published by Routledge. The widely recognized text is organized around Gottdiener’s sociospatial perspective and examines the role played by social factors including race, class, gender, economics, and culture on the development of metropolitan areas, while also integrating social, ecological, and political economy perspectives and research throughout.

Randolph Hohle and Mark Gottdiener, along with WCSA member Colby King, co-authored revisions to the sixth edition, which features a major overhaul and expansion of the previous editions. This edition is packed with new material including an expansion of the sociospatial approach to include the primary importance of racism in the formation of the urban landscape, the spatial aspects of urban social problems, including the issues surrounding urban public health and affordable housing, and a brand new chapter on urban social movements. There is also new material on the importance of space for social groups, including immigrants and the LGBTQ community, as well as the gendered meanings embedded in social space.

Working-Class and Female Students in STEM Discussed at PKAL

Working-Class Studies Association Steering Committee member Colby King, alongside colleague Dr. Laura Ramsey, an Associate Professor of Psychology at Bridgewater State University, presented a Faculty Plenary “Exploring Class and Gender in STEM” at the 2018 Winter Massachusetts PKAL Regional Network Meeting.

This session explored how gender and class shape students’ experiences in STEM fields and in particular, how the culture of STEM disciplines may be mismatched with the cultural expectations of women and working-class students, creating barriers to these students’ success and motivation in STEM. The session highlighted research, by each presenter and others, on gender and social class related to STEM education.

Members of Working Class Academics Section of WCSA Join ASA Task Force on First-Generation and Working-Class Persons in Sociology

This past spring, sociologists and members of the WCSA’s Working-Class Academics Section Allison L. Hurst, Colby R. King, Jenny Stuber, and Deborah M. Warnock proposed that the American Sociological Association (ASA) form an ASA status committee for first-generation and working-class people in sociology. The ASA responded enthusiastically, and has formed a 14-member Task Force chair by Vincent Roscigno of the Ohio State University.

Among other efforts, the Task Force is charged to “Solicit feedback from first-generation/working-class persons in sociology (at every level, from graduate student through full professor status) regarding issues or concerns related to their status within the profession,” and to “Make recommendations to ASA Council as to how the Association can best address the challenge of integrating this population into our discipline in a way that maximizes equity.”

WCSA members Allison L. Hurst, Deborah M. Warnock, and Colby R. King are among the Task Force members.

King and Co-Authors Publish on Supporting Working Class College Students in Teacher-Scholar

WCSA Steering Committee member Colby King, along with colleagues Jakari Griffith and Meghan Murphy, recently published an article in Teacher-Scholar: The Journal of the State Comprehensive University describing outreach efforts in support of first-generation and working class college students at Bridgewater State University (BSU), a state comprehensive university where a majority of students come from first-generation or working class backgrounds. The article describes programming organized by Class Beyond the Classroom (CBtC), a faculty and staff group at BSU, in which CBtC members share their stories about going to college as a first-generation and/or working class college student. The article discusses how these events validate first-generation and working class students, encourage students’ sense of belonging, and supports the success of all students by fostering their development of social, cultural, and psychological forms of capital.

WCSA at ASA’s

Class cultures were a hot topic at the American Sociological Association conference a couple of weeks ago, not just because Michele Lamont is the new ASA president and she made “Culture and Inequalities” the overall conference theme, but also because 3 Working-Class Studies Association members worked to increase awareness of WCSA and all of our opportunities among the sociologists.

Jessi Streib, Allison Hurst, and Betsy Leondar-Wright (and their publishers) gave out many copies of a Class Cultures Caucus flyer with information about WCSA and the newly formed Class Cultures Caucus.

These three also organized a get-together over dinner which was well-attended. Some WCSA members and attenders came (including Lisa McKenzie, Colby King, Debbie Warnock, Jenny Stuber), but also people new to our network, including Joan Williams, author of White Working Class.

In the spirit of WCSA Treasurer Ken Estey’s encouragement to “go forth and multiply,” participants went out and encouraged interested sociologists to get involved with WCSA! The organizers gathered a list of over 30 people newly interested in WCSA. Jessi shared an inspiring description at the dinner for how great the WCSA conferences are, and we hope we may see some new people come to Stony Brook next year as a result.

Besides info on the next WCSA conference, the journal, the blog, the Caucus, Working-Class Academics and Class Action, participants also shared a call for papers that other WCSA members might be interested in. This CfP is for a mini-conference on Class and Culture convened by Annette Lareau and Elliot Weininger at the Eastern Sociological Society in February in Baltimore.

The Class Cultures Caucus founders (Barb Jensen, Jack Metzgar and Jeff Torlina as well as sociologists Jessi, Allison, and Betsy ) will come be working on plans to encourage some of those new folks to get more involved with WCSA. In the meantime, please continue to encourage other folks to get more involved with WCSA.

Fazio returns to Bridgewater State University for several events

WCSA President Dr. Michele Fazio visited Bridgewater State University for several events last month. The visit was organized by BSU’s Class Beyond the Classroom (CBtC), along with BSU’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Honors Program, and the Service Learning and Civic Engagement Initiative, with the support of BSU’s Promoting Diversity Grant.

Dr. Fazio shared her story as a panelist for an Our Stories event with other CBtC members, including Cynthia Svoboda and Dr. Christine Brandon. The panel discussion was moderated by Dr. Colby King, and involved each panelist sharing their story of going to college as a working-class and/or first-generation college student with an audience of more than 50 students.

Dr. Fazio also led a service-learning workshop titled “Class, Community, and Culture: Documenting Southeastern Working-Class Life in the Service-Learning Classroom,” hosted by Dr. Christy Lyons, in which she discussed her multi-semester oral history service-learning project on archiving the work histories of the Lumbee Tribe.

Later that day, Dr. Fazio led a Pizza and Professors discussion hosted by Dr. Teresa King and the Honors Center, during which she discussed her experience teaching an Honor’s course on social justice, inequality, and migrant farmworkers. She provided an overview of students’ service-learning projects currently in progress to promote National Farmworker’s Awareness Week, and discussed her current research project on labor radicalism and Italian American working-class culture.

The visit to BSU was particularly noteworthy because Dr. Fazio is an alum of BSU.our-stories-feb-21-2017