Educating for social justice? : hierarchy and principles of equality in the staff experience at an elite Quaker school

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2003
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Haverford College. Department of Anthropology
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eng
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Abstract
This paper is an appeal to Haverford College to live the Quaker social justice values it professes. I outline contradictions between the college's statements of its Quaker egalitarian principles and the inequalities described to me by staff members during months of fieldwork conversations. I argue that Haverford currently fails to practice social justice because it does not account for the economic and cultural hierarchies that undermine its Quaker principles. These hierarchies pull staff, students, faculty, and administrators apart and prevent the attainment of the college's Quaker 'community' ideals. Although the college claims to educate for 'social justice,' it fails to apply these principles to inequalities on its own campus. The exclusion of the staff experience from its pedagogy of 'social justice' leads me to argue that the college has failed to meet its educational goals as well. My analysis draws on the theories of Karl Marx and Pierre Bourdieu to describe hierarchies of economic and cultural capital within a framework of social change. A key theoretical concept is my adaptation of Bourdieu's habitus to propose a theory of transformative education for 'social justice.' I urge Haverford's administration to support staff-student interactions. These relationships are the key to strengthen the campus community and to build a 'social justice' habitus to meet the college's Quaker ideals.
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