Psychology and the Social Class Worldview: A Narrative-Based Introduction
Praise for the Book
Reading this wonderful book feels like you are in a conversation with the authors in their living rooms.This book is infused with warmth, intellectual rigor, fascinating narratives … Very insightful perspective on the intersectionality of social identities, creating conceptual connections that are innovative and transformative.
-- David L. Blustein, Boston College
Comprehensive, scholarly, and politically-literate, but also accessible, spirited, personal, and contemporary. Highly recommend.
-- Laura Smith, Teachers College, Columbia University
About the Book
This unique book explores the complex topic of social class, exploring the many psychological nuances of class and classism in people’s lives. Social class can be deeply personal, complicated, and frustrating and uncomfortable to discuss, causing a blind spot in teaching and academic literature. For the first time, Anne Noonan and William Ming Liu seek to address this in one comprehensive text, using a combination of first-person narratives, academic approaches to social class, and psychology’s contributions to the subject.
The Backstory
Two decades ago, fascinated by the power of story and the subfield of narrative psychology, I conducted a research study of older workers. I was blown away by one man who told his entire work history through a lens of social class. I had always been interested in the psychology of social class, yet I always felt shortchanged by how my chosen discipline of psychology engaged with the topic.
At the beginning of my teaching career, I discovered Dr. William Ming Liu’s Social Class Worldview theory which helped me think more deeply about social class. While teaching the theory at various levels of my university’s curriculum. I soon discovered that assigning creative nonfiction was a powerful way to reduce students’ tendency to downplay the significance of social class. I searched in vain for a textbook that would bring together the psychology of social class and creative nonfiction narratives of social class and was delighted that Dr. Liu agreed to collaborate on this book.