Wendy Luttrell on The Thought Project - Episode 84

This week’s guest is Graduate Center, CUNY Professor Wendy Luttrell. She’s a sociologist committed to social justice research, especially in the field of education, and currently serves as the executive officer of The Graduate Center’s Urban Education doctoral program. She also has appointments in the sociology, psychology, and women and gender studies programs. Her research focuses on how educational inequality works at the school level, taking root in students' self-evaluations and actions, including their sense of exclusion, entitlement, constraint, possibility, success, and failure. She is author of four books, including the recent Children Framing Childhood: Working-Class Kids’ Visions of Care, which is the subject of today’s podcast. Luttrell followed school children from racially and ethnically diverse families in Worcester, Massachusetts, to gain insight into their capabilities, desires, and needs. Integral to the study were the children’s photographs and videos taken at different ages (10, 12, 16 and 18) of meaningful people and events in their lives, at home and in the classroom. The work challenges stereotypes and promotes new approaches to urban education.