School-Smart and Mother-Wise: Working-Class Women's Identity and Schooling

By Wendy Luttrell

Book Overview

School-smart and Mother-wise illustrates how and why American education disadvantages working-class women when they are children and adults. In it we hear working-class women--black and white, rural and urban, southern and northern--recount their childhood experiences, describing the circumstances that led them to drop out of school. Now enrolled in adult education programs, they seek more than a diploma: respect, recognition, and a public identity. Drawing upon the life stories of these women, Wendy Luttrell sensitively describes and analyzes the politics and psychodynamics that shape working-class life, schooling, and identity. She examines the paradox of women's education, particularly the relationship between schooling and mothering, and offers practical suggestions for school reform.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0415910129
• ISBN13: 9780415910125
• Release Date: July 1997
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 180 Pages
• Weight: 0.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"