While visiting the financial aid office as a first-year undergraduate student, dr. becky martinez conversed with a fellow peer about his family and hometown.
After describing himself as a “regular guy,” he then proceeded to pull out a checkbook and ask, “how much will the next three and a half years be so that my parents don’t have to pay the difference in tuition?”
“I about fell on the floor because I was figuring out how to pay for the rest of that semester,” said martinez, a facilitator at the Social Justice Training Institute.
Social class identity was one of many topics discussed during the First-Generation Institute hosted by the University of Minnesota’s (UMN) College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) last week.
Those social class identities translate to three areas of origin, current or felt class and attributed.
“All of those pieces are part of our identity,” said martinez. “What is really important is that they are not working in silo. They are working at the same time.”
For many participants, the idea of social class was associated with an individual’s income and socioeconomic status. However, there are many components including clothing, language or accents, network of people, diet, healthcare and educational attainment.
