Educational Problems Division Newsletter of the Society for the Study of Social Problems Volume 12 Issue 1 A Message from the Chair… Thanks to all of our members who made our meetings in Denver such a success. I would like to extend a special thanks to the organizers and presiders of the Educational Problems Division sponsored and co-sponsored sessions and their presenters. While the laws of physics prevented me from attending all of the sessions, the ones I did get a chance to attend were great! Kudos to you all. Congratulations again to Anna R. Haskins of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her paper, “Unintended Consequences of Mass Imprisonment: Effects of Paternal Incarceration on Child School Readiness,” won our Student Paper Competition. We had several excellent submissions this year! We hope to see more of the same when this year’s Student Paper Competition gears up. Earlier this year, I sent out an appeal to our division membership. Our division’s success is really a collective effort. With that said, one of you heard and answered my cry for help this fall. For her hard work in putting together this newsletter, I would like to acknowledge Margaret Austin Smith. The division is fortunate to have you as a member. Speaking of cries for help, there are still many ways you can help the division this coming year. First, we need someone to Chair this year’s Graduate Student Paper Prize Selection Committee. If you are interested, please let me know. Given the deadline for submissions is January 31st, I would like to have a Chair, as well as the rest of the committee, selected no later than February 1st. Second, my term as Chair expires in the fall of 2013. I would really like to encourage all of you to consider nominating someone you know will do a good job of leading this division – even if that person is yourself! Finally, as some of you may recall from our meetings in Denver, membership is down in virtually all of the SSSP divisions. The Educational Problems Division is looking for fresh ideas on how to attract new members as well as keep current members involved and excited! Anyone interested in being our new Minister of Innovation, or in simply sharing new ideas, please contact me. I believe the following year will bring many changes to the educational landscape in this country, and not all good. What do we have to look forward to? The Supreme Court will be ruling once again on the practice of affirmative action. Many colleges and universities that once had a policy of needs blind admissions have had to revamp this policy due to financial losses experienced during the Great Recession. How will this affect class diversity in higher education in the coming years? States who were recipients of No Child Left Behind waivers will get a chance to demonstrate that their innovative solutions to educational disparities actually promote learning and academic growth. And how will Right to Work legislation affect America’s K-12 teachers? I’m hoping that we have the chance to discuss and debate these and many more pressing issues related to education and educational justice over the next year. In the meantime, best wishes to all for a healthy and happy end of semester, happy grading, and happy holidays! Leslie R. Hinkson, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Sociology Georgetown University Division Chair 2011-2013 2013 Graduate Student Paper Competition Call for Papers Deadline 01/31/13 The Educational Problems Division announces its 2013 Graduate Student Paper Competition.  Papers must address a contemporary educational problem and may be empirical or theoretical in nature.  Authors must be current graduate students or recent graduates with conferral dates no earlier than January 2013.  Only unpublished, single-author papers will be considered.  Papers must not exceed 30 double-spaced pages (excluding notes, references, tables and figures).  All papers must include a 150-200 word abstract and be prepared for anonymous review with the author’s name and institutional affiliation appearing only on the title page.  Winners will receive a small stipend, student membership in the SSSP, conference registration to the 2013 SSSP annual meeting, and a complimentary ticket to the awards banquet at which all winners will be recognized.  The recipient will also have the opportunity to present the paper at the 2013 SSSP conference held in New York, NY.  All papers must be submitted electronically (as an attachment) to the Division Chair, Dr. Leslie R. Hinkson at lrh27@georgetown.edu, with subject line: SSSP-Edu. Probs. Div. Student Paper Competition.  Please include your name, institutional affiliation and contact information in the body of your email.  The paper should be submitted no later than 11:59pm (EST), January 31, 2013. Educational Problems Division Sponsored & Co-Sponsored Sessions 2013 Annual Meeting All papers must be submitted by midnight (EST) on January 31, 2013 in order to be considered. Papers may be submitted through the following link: http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/509/fuseaction/ssspsession2.publicView 1) Title: "Equalizing Educational Outcomes: New Approaches to Old Educational Problems.” Sponsor: Educational Problems Organizer: Sonya Conner Organizer contact info: sconner@worcester.edu 2) Title: "College for All?: Challenges to Providing Higher Education for the Masses.” Sponsor: Educational Problems Organizer: Fiona Pearson Organizer contact info: pearsonaf@mail.ccsu.edu 3) Title: "The ‘End’ of Education: The Changing Role of Education in the 21st Century." Sponsor: Educational Problems Organizer: Stephanie Southworth Organizer contact info: southwo@clemson.edu 4) Title: "Schools, Communities, and Inequality: The Significance of Place and Space in Perpetuating Unequal Opportunities and Outcomes.” Co-Sponsors: Educational Problems, Community Research and Development Organizer: Chase Billingham Organizer contact info: c.billingham@neu.edu 5) TITLE: “RIGHTS, WRONGS, AND IN-BETWEENS: DISABILITY AND THE POLITICS OF INCLUSION Co-Sponsors: Educational Problems, Disabilities Organizer: Mark D. Sherry Organizer email: markdsherry@yahoo.com 6) Title: "The Social Organization of Health Professional Education." Co-Sponsors: Educational Problems, Institutional Ethnography Organizer: Fiona Webster Organizer contact info: fiona.webster@gmail.com 7) Title: "Educating the Poor: Pedagogy, Social Integration, and Social Justice.” Co-Sponsors: Educational Problems, Poverty, Class, & Inequality, and Family Organizer: Kristina Llewellyn Organizer contact info: kllewellyn@uwaterloo.ca   8) Title: "Diminishing Returns: Assessing the Impact of Education on Social Mobility.” Co-Sponsors: Educational Problems, Poverty, Class, & Inequality Organizer: Autumn Green Organizer contact info: greenau@bc.edu 9) Title: "New Approaches to Racial Integration in Education: Thinking Beyond Affirmative Action and ‘Diversity’.” Co-Sponsors: Educational Problems, Racial and Ethnic Minorities Organizer: Jill M. Smith Organizer contact info: jmsmith@brandeis.edu 10) Title: "The Social Construction of Educational Merit: Linking Theory and Practice.” Co-Sponsors: Educational Problems, Social Problems Theory Organizer: Margaret Austin Smith Organizer contact info: margaretaustinsmith@gmail.com Revisiting Our Division Mission Statement The mission statement of the Educational Problems Division has not been updated since 2007 despite the fact that it should be revisited every 2 years. Below is the text of our current mission statement as put forth by our former Division Chair Billie Gastic. Once again, I invite all members to carefully review the text and consider any changes you believe the Division should consider for the upcoming calendar year. The field of education is ever changing, as are the challenges to educational justice. Please consider this as you peruse the statement. Any recommendations for revision should be sent to lrh27@georgetown.edu. All suggestions will be documented and incorporated into a revised mission statement, to be posted on the SSSP website starting January of 2013. Educational Problems Division Mission Statement 2007 Billie Gastic* Temple University  The pursuit of educational justice is fundamental to the mission of the Educational Problems Division. Through our research, teaching and practice, we critically examine how educational and learning practices are shaped and shaped by social contexts and conditions. We are a diverse community whose members are engaged in the creation of new knowledge and are committed to vitalizing linkages across and between theories and practices. Our vision of a just world reflects our belief that the value of education transcends its economic function. While critical basic skills, such as numeracy and literacy, remain systematically denied to large segments of our population, they represent only one – albeit significant – type of learning that merits our attention and care. An educated populace is not only one that can compete in the global economy; it is also one in which learning is valued as the means by which culture is lived and shared and by which communities are nurtured and strengthened. Education has many purposes – many of which cannot and should not be met by formal institutions, such as schools. Conversely, schools are sites of kinds of learning that cannot be adequately replicated elsewhere. Our Division is committed to bringing attention to the myriad purposes that are pursued and intended by the teaching and learning that is (and is not) going on in our communities. These varied educational goals and purposes deserve careful consideration to determine which societal principles, needs and constituencies are being represented and which are excluded. We must also assess how and the extent to which these aims are being achieved across communities and sites of experience. The current political climate of educational accountability – most prominently articulated by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and the Spelling Report – reinforces a devastatingly narrow idea of what education is and how we assess learning. Legislation and other efforts to improve current and future outcomes for youth and our communities will continue to fail to reach their full potential as long as they are based in a shallow and compartmentalized views of education. Many existing programs and initiatives are helping to create the conditions for positive change in the educational lives of children, adolescents and adults. These local, regional, national and international efforts promote self-efficacy while also building integrated networks of stakeholders whose successes are magnified through collaboration. These programs also recognize the intrinsic connections between health, education and well-being and treat individuals and communities holistically. Examples include UNESCO’s Literacy Initiative for Empowerment (LIFE), the National School Lunch Program, the Federal Work-Study Program and Head Start. We also applaud the Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Health and Human Services and Justice, for supporting school districts as they work to build partnerships and collaborations within their communities to better serve the needs of students, families and neighborhoods. We are doing this important in a time of great turbulence and despair in many parts of our world. We must be resilient and overcome our own fears, prejudices and distrust to work together – across difference – to bring about a better world. Recommended Reading Apple, M.W. (1982). Education and power. Boston: Ark Paperbacks. Delpit, L. (1995). Other people’s children: Cultural conflict in the classroom. New York: The New Press. Ferguson, A.A. (2000). Bad boys: Public schools in the making of Black masculinity. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Fullinwider, R.K., & Lichtenberg, J. (2004). Leveling the playing field: Justice, politics, and college admissions. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Kumashiro, K. (2002). Troubling education: Queer activism and antioppressive pedagogy. New York: RoutledgeFalmer. Lareau, A. (2003). Unequal childhoods: Class, race, and family life. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lugg, C.A. (2003). Sissies, faggots, lezzies and dykes: Gender, sexual orientation and the new politics of education. Educational Administration Quarterly, 39(1), 95-134. Orfield, G., & Eaton, S.E. (1996). Dismantling desegregation: The quiet reversal of Brown v. Board of Education. New York: The New Press. Trifonas, P.P. (Ed.) (2000). Revolutionary pedagogies: Cultural politics, instituting education, and the discourse of theory. New York: Routledge Falmer. Tyack, D., & Cuban, D. (1995). Tinkering toward utopia: A century of public school reform. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. * Chair, Educational Problems Division, 2005-07 News and Announcements Division Member Achievements Mary Hollowell, author of The Forgotten Room and Professor of Education at Clayton State University, has received a 2013 Fulbright Teaching Scholarship to China.  She will be teaching American Educational Policy at Shaanxi Normal University in Xi'an, China. 2013 Annual Meeting and Call for Papers The Call for Papers for the SSSP 2013 Annual Meeting is now live! View the Student Paper Competitions and Outstanding Scholarship Awards announcement and submit a paper or nominate a scholar! We are very excited about our 63rd Annual Meeting, to be held August 9-11, 2013 at The Westin New York at Times Square in New York City. This year's theme selected by President R.A. Dello Buono is Re-imagining Social Problems: Moving Beyond Social Constructionism. Please visit the following links for more information and forward to others who may be interested. You will also be receiving a poster in the mail shortly.     2013 Call for Papers: http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/509/fuseaction/ssspsession2.publicView   2013 Student Paper Competitions and Outstanding Scholarship Awards: http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/pageid/1436    2013 Hotel Reservation Information: http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/516/    2013 Renew Your Membership: http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/255/fuseaction/ssspmember.portal/userid/-1 Other Announcements NOMINATIONS FOR EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS DIVISION CHAIR (2013-2015) The Educational Problems Division of the Society for the Study of Social Problems announces a call for nominations for the position of Division Chair. The position has a term of two years (effective in 2013 at the Annual Meeting and ending at the 2015 Annual Meeting when a new Chair’s term will begin). Nominees must be current members of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. The Division encourages all members to either consider service in this position or to nominate other members they feel would serve the Division well. All current Educational Problems Vision members will be eligible to vote in the Division Chair election. Please send your nominations to the current Division Chair by February 15, 2013: Leslie R. Hinkson, PhD Assistant Professor of Sociology Georgetown University Division Chair 2011-2013 lrh27@georgetown.edu Call For Media Reviews: Humanity and Society Recognizing the multiple modalities of communication and how these presentations enhance our sociological understanding of the complex realities of the 21st century, Humanity and Society , the journal of the Association for Humanist Sociology, announces the introduction of media reviews. We invite reviewers of sociological messages in photography, web-based art, websites, popular films and documentaries, radio broadcasts, and multimedia presentations. We also invite suggestions for media reviews. Please note that book reviews can be sent to our book review editor at RJ-Hironimus-Wendt@wiu.edu. As a generalist journal, Humanity & Society publishes media reviews on a wide variety of topics. We are particularly interested in media presentations that are relevant to humanist sociology. Humanist sociology is broadly defined as a sociology that views people not only as products of social forces but also as agents in their lives and the world. We are committed to a sociology that contributes to a more humane, equal, and just society. The journal welcomes reviewers from diverse backgrounds and with diverse perspectives, including activists, graduate students, and practitioners in fields other than sociology. Potential reviewers are also encouraged to contact the Editor with suggestions for reviews in their areas of interest and expertise. Agreement to prepare a review for Humanity & Society assumes that the reviewer has no substantial material or personal connection to the material or to the producer.  Reviews in violation of this guideline will not be published. Written submissions should not exceed 1000 words. Reviews should also include your: Name: Position: Media Outlet: Mailing Address: Email Address: And the titles and dates published, along with URLs for electronic and multimedia presentations. If you think any additional contextual information would be useful, please include it with your submission/review. To review for Humanity & Society, or to offer suggestions for reviews, please contact our Media Editor, Pamela Anne Quiroz, with a brief summary of your chosen review (paquiroz@uic.edu). We look forward to hearing from you and Thank You for your contributions! Social Problems Editorial Search Call for Applications The Editorial and Publications Committee of the Society for the Study of Social Problems is soliciting applications for the position of Editor of the Society’s journal, Social Problems. The Editor’s three-year term will begin with the operation of the new editorial office at mid-year 2014. The new editor will be responsible for editing Volumes 62-64 (years 2015-2017). Applicants must be members or become members of the SSSP by the time of their application and for the duration of their tenure as editor. The Editor is responsible for managing the peer review process for approximately 300-400 submitted manuscripts per year, and preparing four issues of the journal (approximately 650 printed pages) annually. The editorial office manages the review process using the on-line services of ScholarOne/Manuscript Central and also has responsibility for copy editing and proofreading in accordance with customary publishing standards. The committee seeks editorial candidates with distinguished scholarly records, previous editorial experience (e.g., service as journal editor or associate editor, editor of scholarly editions, etc.), strong organizational and management skills, and the ability to work and communicate well with others. A familiarity with, and commitment to, Social Problems and the SSSP are essential. The SSSP supports the operation of the editorial office with an annual budget and provides a modest stipend and travel expenses for the Editor. Support is also expected from the host institution. This may include office space, utilities, the use of computers and other office equipment, tuition waivers for office personnel (if appropriate), faculty release time, and other basic expenses. Each year the Editor will be expected to submit a budget to the SSSP to cover operating expenses that the host institution does not support. Individuals interested in applying for the editorship should submit their curriculum vitae with a cover letter detailing their relevant experience, a preliminary operating budget, and a letter from their Department Chair, Dean, or other authorized university administrator confirming the institutional support referenced above. Guidance in the preparation of applications is available from the Editorial and Publications Committee Chair as well as the current Social Problems Editor, the Executive Officer, and the Administrative Officer, if necessary. Please direct all questions, inquiries, nominations, expressions of interest, and application materials to: David A. Smith, Chair, SSSP Editorial and Publications Committee, Department of Sociology, University of California-Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-5100. (949) 824-7292. Email: dasmith@uci.edu. For more information on the position, please see Section V and Section VIII of the SSSP Operations Manual. Deadline for applications is February 1, 2013. OP-ED Eileen Moran, CUNY Why Pathways: A Proposal for Austerity Higher Education at City University of New York is Everyone’s Fight for Quality Higher Education Pathways, a hastily drafted, top-down revamping of CUNY’s core curriculum undermines both faculty governance and the quality of the education CUNY’s 400,000 students will receive. The elected faculty bodies charged with curriculum development were ignored during the development and implementation of Pathways as administrators sought to develop core courses that would ostensibly facilitate student transfers from CUNY’s community colleges to its senior colleges. Instead of a real solution to the problem of transfer, what emerged were diluted courses and reduced requirements to speed up completion rates on the cheap. Pathways will eliminate five-credit science courses and four-credit language and English composition courses, and narrow the diversity of courses in its general education curriculum. Students could complete their education without a single history or foreign language course. With its three-credit limit for all courses, Pathways leaves no time for basic science to be taught with concurrent laboratory hours and less time for in-class practice during foreign language classes. So CUNY students will receive less science education and less foreign language study when the modern, global economy demands greater scientific literacy and increased understanding of other languages and cultures. After years of declining public investment and growing enrollments, CUNY is feeling pressure to spend less and less per student. At the same time, it is being driven to improve graduation rates by charter school supporting, high-stakes testing titans like the Gates and Lumina Foundations and by policy makers at every level of governance. Pressed to graduate more students faster, with an already string-tight budget, CUNY is narrowing the curriculum to reduce costs and increase productivity. This is Pathways: a false solution to the problem of transfer, concealing a corporate agenda. At CUNY, the University Faculty Senate and the Professional Staff Congress, the faculty-staff union, are fighting hard against Pathways. This is a crossroads. Higher education policy that once focused on access is being reversed to prioritize lowering costs and increasing production – and the result will be lower quality education. But Pathways is not just a CUNY issue. The college completion agenda is a national movement to corporatize and ration higher education, particularly at public institutions. In spite of faculty resistance, “reforms” similar to Pathways have already been implemented in a number of public institutions. All of us in the field of higher education – especially those who serve at public institutions – have reason to be concerned by recent trends in higher education policy. By signing our petition, your circle of colleagues can stand with us as we defend academic integrity and oppose diminishing educational opportunity for students like ours at CUNY. Please sign the petition yourself and then forward it to your colleagues nationally and internationally with a personal invitation to sign. For more information, go to the website of the PSC (www.psc-cuny.org) or the AAUP (www.aaup.org/aaup).