SPAA Research Seminar

"Learning Where We Stand: How School Experiences

Matter for Civic Marginalization and Political Inequality"

Presented by: Joe Soss, PhD Cowles Professor for the Study of Public Service Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs University of Minnesota

Thursday, April 23, 2015

4:00-5:00 p.m.

Bruckmiller Room

Adams Alumni Center *Reception following presentation

Co-sponsored by:

In this presentation, we shift the study of education and political inequality from the things that education policies

allocate (e.g., skills, knowledge, and other forms of human capital) to the relations that schools organize and the ways

students are positioned within them. Schools, we argue, operate as sites where individuals have their first, formative

experiences with the rules and cultures of public institutions, authority relations and their uses by officials, and what it

means to be a member of a rights-and-obligations-bearing community of putative equals. By connecting the recent turn

toward meso-level analysis in citizenship studies (e.g., Margaret Somers) to relational theories of inequality (e.g.

Charles Tilly), we develop a novel account of how schools construct citizens and position them in the polity.

This event is FREE and open to the public. Visit j.mp/JoeSossSeminar for more information.