Working-Class Women at the MLA Interview
Everett C. Ladd, Jr. estimated that approximately one-quarter of faculty members across the disciplines at American universities and colleges are from working-class backgrounds. Such backgrounds are considerably more common among older faculty members, which Lipset and Ladd interpret as an indication of academe drawing increasingly from more privileged sectors, in a move that runs counter to the documented expansion of post-secondary education among poorer sectors of American society.