Kirjahaku

The ethical and emotional tolls paid by disadvantaged college students seeking upward mobility and what educators can do to help these students flourishUpward mobility through the path of higher education has been an article of faith for generations of working-class, low-income, and immigrant college students. While we know this path usually entails financial sacrifices and hard work, very little attention has been paid to the deep personal compromises such students have to make as they enter worlds vastly different from their own. Measuring the true cost of higher education for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, Moving Up without Losing Your Way looks at the ethical dilemmas of upward mobility—the broken ties with family and friends, the severed connections with former communities, and the loss of identity—faced by students as they strive to earn a successful place in society.Drawing upon philosophy, social science, personal stories, and interviews, Jennifer Morton reframes the college experience, factoring in not just educational and career opportunities but also essential relationships with family, friends, and community. Finding that student strivers tend to give up the latter for the former, negating their sense of self, Morton seeks to reverse this course. She urges educators to empower students with a new narrative of upward mobility—one that honestly situates ethical costs in historical, social, and economic contexts and that allows students to make informed decisions for themselves.A powerful work with practical implications, Moving Up without Losing Your Way paves a hopeful road so that students might achieve social mobility while retaining their best selves.

The dilemmas faced by disadvantaged college students seeking upward mobility and what educators can do to help these students flourishUpward mobility through higher education has been an article of faith for generations of working-class, low-income, and immigrant college students. While this path usually entails financial sacrifices and hard work, little attention has been paid to the personal compromises such students make as they enter worlds vastly different from their own. Measuring the true cost of higher education for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, Moving Up without Losing Your Way looks at the ethical dilemmas of upward mobility—the broken ties with family and friends, and the loss of community and identity—faced by students as they strive to earn a successful place in society. Drawing upon philosophy, social science, personal stories, and interviews, Jennifer Morton reframes the college experience, factoring in not just educational and career opportunities but also essential relationships. She urges educators to empower students with a new narrative, one that might allow them to achieve social mobility while retaining their best selves.

The study focuses on the tension teachers face between the demand that they hold high expectations for their students and the reality that they face when they confront the evidence at their disposal. The author argues that this tension is not easily avoided; there are good arguments for both optimism and evidentialism. We can recast this tension when we recognize that expectations are noisy signals of more fundamental underlying factors. High expectations often signal to us that the teacher is committed to doing her job well. It is that commitment that matters to us. A teacher with keen sensitivity to the evidence impresses us because we take it to mean that she is effectively attuned to her particular students’ needs. If a teacher arrives at an expectation without contextualizing the evidence, paying attention to her specific students, or based on stereotype and prejudice, it fails to engage in the kind of responsive inquiry essential to good teaching. The author writes that the tension facing teachers can be recast by reflecting on the inquiry at the heart of teaching.