Sometime this spring (actually a lot of times this spring) I went to the dentist. The last time I went, my dentist explained to me all the reasons poor people deserve to be poor & he deserves the success he's had, and inequality is a fundamental natural feature of society that we can't change unless we kidnap children (more or less - see rough transcript below). Since the class I taught this semester was all about how social class advantages are passed down to kids/reproduced, with a side helping of how levels of inequality are products of laws and policies, not nature, I offered my students a chance to do an extra-credit assignment responding to some of those problematic claims. The assignment & my reconstruction of my conversation with The Dentist are below, I'll post my students' blog posts one by one after this. Dentist Extra Credit – You can do up to 3, all are due by May 4th at midnight to me by email. I will not accept any after then. Write a blog post with links to our readings and/or other relevant sources (e.g. things we’ve tweeted), countering any 1 or 2 of The Dentist’s claims, or any other problematic/inaccurate argument/claim someone has really made about class, inequality, or social mobility (start with link to that claim). Post should be around 500 (i.e. 400 – 600 or so) words, written somewhat informally for a general audience. The central argument should be *empirical* not political. I’ll post any I get on a blog; you can choose to have your name attached or be anonymous. For full credit, you must have at least 3 links in your post. You can do up to 3 posts, each one will be the equivalent of bumping one quarter of your total course grade up by a 1/3rd grade/3.3 points (e.g. converting a B- on the 2ndpaper to a B), or replacing your lowest quiz grade with a 100, whichever helps you more. The Dentist: what've you been up to? |
Me, saying things >