"Reclaiming Class is truly first-rate. An extremely thoughtful, illuminating analysis of the role class plays in American society, particularly the perception of poverty, the stigma of poverty on those who are or who have ever been poor and the role of higher education in the survival of poor women. What is perhaps most valuable about the book is the combination of the personal with the theoretical and the analytic. The writing is vivid, immediate and compelling; the volume has an intensity that I believe will capture readers' attention and involve them in the debates and dilemmas poor women face."—Ruth Sidel, PhD, Professor of Sociology, Hunter College and author of Keeping Women and Children Last
"Adair and Dahlberg have compiled a daring collection that challenges both the core values of punitive welfare reform policies and the myth of meritocracy in American higher education. It is a moving demonstration of the best kind of social justice scholarship."—Carolyn Law, Dissertation Adviser in the Graduate School at Northern Illinois University and co-editor of This Fine Place So Far from Home: Voices of Academics from the Working Class and Out in the South (both Temple)
"Every college professor no matter what discipline should read this gripping and compelling collection of narratives and analysis about poor women and higher education. This sometimes brilliant book deconstructs and subverts the conventional wisdom about poor women and women on welfare offering instead a sociological imagining of their lives that sloughs off stereotypes to open up voices within. It portrays higher education as both problematic and opportunity, and offers compelling policy analysis."—Sari Knopp Biklen, Cultural Foundations of Education, Syracuse University