Category: Alyssa Lyons

From the Inside Out: Education is Still Big Business

On By Karen SternheimerIn Alyssa Lyons, Class and Stratification, Social Institutions: Work, Education, and MedicineLeave a comment
Alyssa Lyons author photo

By Alyssa Lyons

When my daughter, my partner, and I walked into the large high school gymnasium that crisp fall Saturday, we were immediately overwhelmed. It was our very first high school fair, and my eighth-grade daughter was exploring her options. As we walked around the gym, we were surrounded by schools. Glossy brochures, shiny leaflets, and nifty swag adorned the tables as eager school representatives regaled us with dizzying statistics of high school graduation rates, college attendance, and career and internship prospects. 

While my family’s focus was on exploring different high schools in New York City, the sociologist in me couldn’t help but notice we were standing in the middle of a veritable marketplace with each school selling us its wares. Schools were competing against one another in real-time. Families were potential customers shopping around for a quality education. Each high school emphasized one selling point in particular: how their school would help prepare my daughter for the working world. In other words, how they would best prepare my daughter to be a worker in the labor market.

Continue reading “From the Inside Out: Education is Still Big Business” →

Love Letter to the Indie Bookstore: Radical Third Spaces 

On By econnellIn Alyssa Lyons, Behind the Headlines, Popular Culture and Consumption, Race and Ethnicity, Social Problems, Politics, and Social Change2 Comments

By Alyssa Lyons

I’ve always loved books. And I mean loved books. As a child, I’d often comb through the trash to recover discarded tomes. Where my neighbors saw old and water-stained trash, I saw glorious treasure. I’d sniff dog-eared yellowed pages as I skipped home with my latest additions. So it’s not surprising that as an adult, I would come to love bookstores.

Bookstores, especially independent ones, are what sociologist Ray Oldenburg  referred to as “third places.” Third places are virtual or physical spaces outside of home and work/school where people gather, organize, and find and build community. In independent bookstores, it’s not uncommon to find people sipping coffee, working, or quietly sharing space with others who have bookish affinities. Madeleine Roberts-Ganim identified third spaces as places that can “affirm our identities and build empathy for identities different from our own.”

Continue reading “Love Letter to the Indie Bookstore: Radical Third Spaces “ →

How Adolescence Misses the Mark on Incel Culture

On By econnellIn Alyssa Lyons, Popular Culture and Consumption, Sex and Gender1 Comment

By Alyssa Lyons

The praise for the recent U.K. show Adolescence is effusive. Popular publications like Slate called Adolescence the best show of the year while the Guardian said it was “such powerful TV that it could save lives.” In just three weeks, Adolescence became the 9th most watched Netflix series of all time. With all the hype, I was curious. So, I settled down to watch the show that captured the “miserable realism” of modern incel culture.

The term “incel” emerged during 1990s internet discourse. Initially, it was used as a self-identifier among men who were involuntarily celibate. As time went on, the term took on a newer meaning: it described men who felt entitled to have sex with women but weren’t able to.

Continue reading “How Adolescence Misses the Mark on Incel Culture” →

Abbott Elementary and the Rise of School-aganda

On By econnellIn Alyssa Lyons, Class and Stratification, Popular Culture and Consumption, Race and Ethnicity, Social Institutions: Work, Education, and Medicine8 Comments

Alyssa Lyons author photoBy Alyssa Lyons

I was sitting on the couch with my partner trying to decompress after an unusually long day. To unwind, we decided to watch Abbott Elementary. As a sociologist of education, I knew it was on brand, but I couldn’t help being drawn into the world of Abbott. I’ve spent a lot of time researching educational inequalities within schooling, and the show’s premise was both intriguing and novel.

Abbott Elementary is a feel-good mockumentary created by actress Quinta Brunson who also plays second grade teacher Janine Teagues in the show. Inspired by her mother’s career as a public-school teacher in Philadelphia, Brunson wanted to reflect the experiences of teachers in the city public school system. The mockumentary style show focuses on the experiences of predominantly BIPOC teachers, staff, administrators, and students in a fictional public elementary school in Philadelphia.

Continue reading “Abbott Elementary and the Rise of School-aganda” →

What is Decolonization?

On By econnellIn Alyssa Lyons, Class and Stratification, Race and Ethnicity, Social Institutions: Work, Education, and Medicine, Social Problems, Politics, and Social ChangeLeave a comment

Alyssa Lyons author photoBy Alyssa Lyons

The word “decolonization” is a word frequently mentioned on college campuses. As administrators and professors attempt to decolonize their institutions, their teaching, their curriculum, and their very classrooms—at least in the metaphorical sense. Courses at City College of CUNY promise to teach students to “decolonize mental health” while the University of Portland looks for ways to “decolonize the curriculum.” In addition to course offerings, foundations have incentivized decolonization efforts at the university level by offering competitive grants to decolonize course content or teaching practices.

Continue reading “What is Decolonization?” →

How the Moynihan Report Birthed Parental Engagement Policy in Schools

On By econnellIn Alyssa Lyons, Class and Stratification, Race and Ethnicity, Sex and Gender, Social Institutions: Work, Education, and Medicine, Social Problems, Politics, and Social Change1 Comment

Alyssa Lyons author photoBy Alyssa Lyons

While parental engagement has become a popular buzzword in political circles in recent years, the language of “parental involvement” didn’t appear in U.S. federal educational policy until 1965 with the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. 

Not without coincidence, this was the same year that academic and social scientist Daniel Patrick Moynihan published the Moynihan Report: The Negro Family, the Case for National Action. An incendiary racist, classist, homophobic, and sexist document, the Moynihan Report claimed that racial inequalities in wealth and education between Blacks and whites were the result of a broken and fractured Black family structure where Black matriarchs managed the household. Moynihan further suggested that establishing a stable Black family structure was central in alleviating poverty and inequalities.

Continue reading “How the Moynihan Report Birthed Parental Engagement Policy in Schools” →

Let’s Talk Parental Engagement in Schools: Parental Engagement as a Social Construct

On By econnellIn Alyssa Lyons, Class and Stratification, Race and Ethnicity, Sex and Gender, Social Institutions: Work, Education, and Medicine3 Comments

Alyssa Lyons author photoBy Alyssa Lyons

What does it mean to be an engaged parent in schools?

As both a sociologist and the mother of an eleven-year-old in the New York City public school system, I’ve often wrestled with this question. Whenever I attend school-based events, principals, teachers, and staff tell me, along with other parents, that being engaged in the school and in my child’s education is instrumental to their academic success. 

And it isn’t just educators and social science researchers singing the praises of parental engagement. Politicians and policymakers suggest that parental engagement can function as either a buffer or mitigator in addressing educational inequality on both a state and federal level.  In March 2022, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona implored schools to reconsider their relationship with parents and families, suggesting “parents are their children’s first and most influential teachers.”

Continue reading “Let’s Talk Parental Engagement in Schools: Parental Engagement as a Social Construct” →