Class Strikes Again

I finished my MA in sociology last May and have just applied to 7 different PHD programs. I have received 4 denials so far and am beginning to realize that I may not get into any of the PHD programs that I applied to. One of the main reasons I am not getting in is because of low GRE scores. The only thing I have been doing, and can really do to maintain my sanity is to stop thinking in terms of the future and start thinking about where I am and where I came from. I've been keeping in mind that I'm not on a level playing field and that my class background still lingers.

It is amazing how hard it is to overcome the disadvantages we are born into. I always had this philosophy about how I need to be cognizant of the obstacles that are put in my way by social class. For one thing, the practice of tracking in public schools has always haunted me. Tracking is the practice of sorting students based on their "ability." In practice this separates the working class students from the more affluent students and puts them on the path to maintaining their class positions. I grew up in poverty, whether this is because of structural reasons or because of the decisions my parents made is beside the point. I didn’t make the decision. So my experience with tracking continues to affect my life chances. In high school, I was in the "workforce" track and was able to take two math courses, Algebra A and Algebra B, and graduate. These courses were the equivalent of Algebra 1, so suffice to say, math has always been a problem for me. Not that I don't understand it, I eventually found out it was a matter of preparation and not a learning disability. Short story long, I never took geometry or any other "ometry". In community college, I started at the beginning but eventually got up to statistics. I took statistics and did well and have since received at least a B on all the stats classes I took for sociology. In November, I had to take the GREs and of course didn’t do that great. Geometry was one of the major areas so I taught myself what I could but to no avail. I did crappy on the quantitative section.

I thought about this whole tracking thing because there is some frightening research on what it does when kindergartners are subjected to it. This sociologist, Ray Rist, observed a kindergarten class in the inner cities and the teacher divided the students into groups based on what he thought their ability was. The smart kids were at table 1, the average kids were at table two, and the "not so smart" kids at table three. Of course, in actuality these students were organized based on social class. A few years later, these kids were in 2nd grade and again the teacher divided the class based on ability and guess who was in the three groups. The same kids were in the same groups as they were in kindergarten. Of course, I don’t remember when it was that I may have been tracked. I was diagnosed with a few learning disabilities but I am now personally convinced that this was do to labeling. It's astounding to me how much my class background continues to affect my ability to become an academic as I have wanted to for some time. It seems that we have to realize that our disadvantages have a cumulative effect on no matter how far from home we are.