Overview
- Presents a rich, engaging, and vulnerable personal narrative from an author who grew up in the milieu he seeks to investigate
- Speaks to a timely topic - in the face of rising populism, white nationalism, and disenchantment with the status quo political order and a globalized, modernizing world
- Engages with sociological and social-psychological theory and strengthened by census tract data, social media data, and the author's lifelong research on social class, education, families, and sports
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Table of contents (8 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
Reviews
“Nostalgia rolled back to me faster than the B-express train as I read Queens College sociologist Thomas J. Gorman’s Growing Up Working Class. … the book is erected around a compelling thesis: How the ‘hidden injuries of class’ follow working-class kids into adulthood … . what I admire most in Gorman’s book are his astute autobiographical observations. He successfully evokes the claustrophobic, frustrating, exhilarating, painful, sometimes menacing, and just plain loud world of working-class New York.” (Alfred Lubrano, Journal of Working Class Studies, Vol. 3 (2), December, 2018)
“Gorman’s book … is an autoethnography embedded in sociological theories and concepts (including Sennett and Cobb’s [1972] hidden injuries of class). The premise of this well-written book is simple: the author shows how sociology has allowed him to look back and understand what happened in his life. … Gorman gathered rich and differentiated material which comprises memories, informal interviews, social media hangouts, and biographical materials, such as a letter cited in full and a complete study program.” (Kamil Luczaj, Acta Sociologica, 2018)
“I didn’t write this book. I don’t know the author in the real world and we aren’t even from the same country, but after reading it I felt proud; very proud that someone like me has the bravery to write a book about their own class injuries. I say ‘bravery’ and I mean bravery—declaring yourself working class in the academy can be tricky, and becomes very tricky if you want to stay working class and be a ‘working class academic’—apparently an oxymoron, as someone told me that the words cancel each other out. I love this auto-ethnography—it speaks to me and with me. It taps into the anger and real rage within working class communities, and not just white working class communities. Sociologists have an important role in unraveling and being critical of how pain, anger, and injury relating to class inequality expand into every space.” (Lisa McKenzie, Sociology Fellow at the London School of Economics, UK)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Growing up Working Class
Book Subtitle: Hidden Injuries and the Development of Angry White Men and Women
Authors: Thomas J. Gorman
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58898-8
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-86504-1Published: 12 August 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-58898-8Published: 10 August 2017
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVII, 266
Topics: Social Structure, Social Inequality, Ethnography, Sociology of Education, Sociology of Sport and Leisure, Sociology of Work, Cultural Economics