Blog #8
Last week we went over gender inequality. We talked about the different challenges that women, homosexual and transgender groups face in a day to day scenario. The class also discussed the chick-fil-a controversy about selling food at Ventura High School. Julian also gave us a presentation about the opportunities that CI provides for students such as getting involved on campus. I have been interested in joining a club but I had to postpone it because I wanted to get used to my upper-division classes. But hopefully next semester I am able to find a job on campus and join the CI community. I have to admit that I was disappointed when I found out that the club I was interested in joining lost its recognition on our campus a couple weeks ago. 
This week’s readings focused on the socioeconomic status among students. The first reading I did was titled, “Homeless How residential Instability Complicates Students’ Lives”. This reading introduced the topic of yet another minority group in the school system, the homeless. It also talked about the resources available to students such as schools providing enough money to live in residential halls. This is not always beneficial because students hit a wall once the semester is over and the funding stops.
The second reading was Classism. This reading explained how people become divided in society based on economic status. It was broken down from the top of the government all the way down to the individual. The author argues that everyone has some type of responsibility in reducing poverty. In the working report, I learned more about who is considered the working poor is and how this label affects their families and their education. The author also gave suggestions of what could be done to help. In the Howard-Levine reading, these men had a conversation about social class and College. In their conversation they discussed about how there are not many success stories happening in poor communities anymore. They discussed how some students who lacked opportunity, yet decided to pursue higher education, had someone who impacted their lives and motivated them to move forward.
Another topic covered was how many of the poor youth that goes to a university have a hard time relating to their peers because they do not share a common ground. One of the things that stood out to me in this article was that Levine mentioned that “we equate race and poverty”. He said this while giving an example of how some people use race and poverty as if they went hand in hand. One solution that they proposed was to create a conscious space on campus for these students. This might give them more confidence to open up and go out to look for resources that will help. While these kids try to better their lives through education, they still become conflicted with making money or continuing their studies. Poverty is an issue that many students have struggled with for a long time. Maybe if schools were to change the way on how they reach out to the youth who live in poverty, these young teenagers/adults could have a better chance of winning scholarships and grants that will lead them to better living conditions and also a better future.
