Interests and opportunities : race, racism, and university writing instruction in the post-civil rights era / Steve Lamos.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lamos, Steve, author.

Series:

Pittsburgh series in composition, literacy, and culture.

Pittsburgh series in composition, literacy, and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English language--Composition and exercises--Study and teaching--United States.

English language.

Racism--United States.

Racism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (229 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania : University of Pittsburgh Press, [2011]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In the late 1960s, colleges and universities became deeply embroiled in issues of racial equality. To combat this, hundreds of new programs were introduced to address the needs of "high-risk" minority and low-income students. In the years since, university policies have flip-flopped between calls to address minority needs and arguments to maintain "Standard English." Today, anti-affirmative action and anti-access sentiments have put many of these high-risk programs at risk. In Interests and Opportunities, Steve Lamos chronicles debates over high-risk writing programs on the national level and, locally, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Using critical race theorist Derrick Bell's concept of "interest convergence, " Lamos shows that these programs were promoted or derailed according to how and when they fit the interests of underrepresented minorities and mainstream whites (administrators and academics). He relates struggles over curriculum, pedagogy, and budget, and views their impact on policy changes and course offerings. Lamos finds that during periods of convergence, disciplinary and institutional changes do occur, albeit to suit mainstream standards. In divergent times, changes are thwarted or undone, often using the same standards. To Lamos, understanding the past dynamics of convergence and divergence is key to formulating new strategies of local action and "story-changing" that can preserve and expand race-consciousness and high-risk writing instruction, even in adverse political climates.

Contents:

The development and evolution of high-risk writing instruction

The late 1960s and early 1970s: Coming to terms with racial crisis

The mid-1970s: literacy crisis meets color-blindness

The late 1970s and early 1980s: Competence concerns in the age of Bakke

The late 1980s and early 1990s: culture wars and the politics of identity

The late 1990s to the present: the end of an era?

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (pages 193-211) and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780822977407

0822977400

OCLC:

830023847