Underprivileged School Children and the Assault on Dignity ─ Policy Challenges and Resistance

Every day, children living in low-income communities have no choice but to grow up in a climate where they experience multiple unending assaults to their sense of dignity. This volume applies theoretical and historical insights to think through the increasingly undignified realities of life in economically marginalized communities. It includes examples of curricular challenges that low-income students in the US confront today while attempting to learn. Curricular challenges are analyzed as material texts that emerge out of student lived experiences in the economically disposed neighborhoods in which schools are located, and the dynamics of the schools and classrooms themselves. Attention is also paid to educators and students who push back against these forces in an effort to reclaim voice, identity and dignity.

Julia Hall is Associate Professor of Sociology at D’Youville College, USA. Her research considers the experiences of low income, culturally marginalized urban youth in the context of a rapidly changing economy. She is likewise focused on the cultures of violence and silencing experienced by dispossessed females and forms of resistance and effective policy change.