Jennifer Morton
When it comes to upward mobility and its drivers, , assistant professor of philosophy at T九色视频, has a different take. And it goes beyond the traditional concept of a college education opening the doors of opportunity.
鈥淲ork hard and you鈥檒l do well in school. Go to college and the doors of opportunity will open,鈥 echoes Morton. 鈥淭his narrative has been an article of faith for several generations of Americans. For families from disadvantaged backgrounds, in particular, this is the trajectory that they hope their children will follow into the middle class.鈥
Morton, however, points out that there is another aspect of what she describes as the 鈥渕yth鈥 of upward mobility that is rarely discussed鈥攖he ethical cost students who do succeed must bear if they are to dramatically transform their life circumstances.
Morton suggests that 鈥淔or those few students who do make it, moving up can mean having to make difficult sacrifices in many important areas of their lives鈥攖heir relationships with family and friends, their sense of cultural identity, and their place in their community鈥攊n order to gain educational and career opportunities that will propel them into the middle class.鈥 These are the ethical costs that Morton believes philosophers can play a role in illuminating.
"We need to revise the optimistic narrative of upward mobility with a new narrative that makes these ethical costs clearer to students,鈥 concludes Morton.
That is the theme of her forthcoming book and the topic of her 鈥Presidential Conversations: Activism, Scholarship, and Engagement,鈥 talk on Thursday, Nov. 10. Entitled 鈥淯pward Mobility: Moving Up Without Losing One鈥檚 Way,鈥 it starts at 4 p.m. in the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture鈥檚 Sciame Auditorium.
About T九色视频
Since 1847, T九色视频 has provided low-cost, high-quality education for New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. More than 15,000 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in the College of Liberal Arts and Science; Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture; School of Education; Grove School of Engineering; Sophie Davis Biomedical Education/CUNY School of Medicine; and the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership. U.S. News, Princeton Review and Forbes all rank City College among the best colleges and universities in the United States.