I agree with Jennifer Beech that the displays we saw and heard at graduation are largely due to a clash of cultures and that it has a great deal to do with class, and with what Bourdieu (sp?) refers to as "cultural capital." Those familiar with the cermonies of the academy have the cultural capital, and those who aren't, don't. The question remains, however, whether such capital can or should be forfeited (i.e. we could decide not to be bothered by airhorns) or whether it is of greater help to those marginalized by the academy to be given some of that cultural capital so they can go and spend it (by enforcing decorum and letting them know more firmly what the expectations are). 

This is where I find my liberal tendencies colliding with my more conservative ones (Mostly I hate to admit I have some). A very intelligent graduate student of mine stopped by this morning to retrieve a paper he had written. I told him I thought the paper was potentially publishable if he went back through it and made some changes. Many of these changes relate not to his argument, which is very clear and very sophisticated, but to the conventions of publishable academic writing in my field. I can wage war against those in the academy who enforce these conventions (editors, readers for journals, etc.), or I can teach him what the conventions are, as someone once taught me, so that he can trade on that cultural capital and get his work published. The second will probably be a greater help to him.

At another university I once taught in a summer program for underprivileged and undereducated youths who seemed to have some academic potential. Those who graduated from the program six weeks later were allowed to enroll in the university full-time without meeting the minimum standard entrance requirements. After a couple of days I was shocked at how loud and unruly the students were, although I recognized on second thought that, while being loud and unruly, they were also always genuinely discussing and engaging with the assigned text. It was the way they were expressing themselves, and not what they were saying that I felt was out of line. The next day I sat them in a circle and spoke in a near whisper so that they would have to be quiet to hear me. We had a nice talk about classroom conventions and about what they wanted to get out of the class. From there on I had no problem. Academic conferences are pretty quiet, staid affairs most of the time, too. But that's not just because the participants are snooty (although they often are). Their relative quiet and solemnity (as opposed to say conversations on a street corner)are mere conventions, and they are tied to class, but they are not without purpose. How can I persuade anyone of my view if they are yelling too loudly to hear me? Conversely, how can I be persuaded if I am yelling and grandstanding in a way that I am not paying attention to anyone else? I always tell my students that the university is supposed to be the most civilized place on earth, the place where you can tell someone to her face that she is flat wrong, and you don't get punched in the face or anywhere else. But you need a shared set of conventions in order for that kind of exchange to take place, and the instructor has the authority to take action if a student refuses to accept those conventions.

In that sense, teaching someone what the conventions are can be seen as a liberation and not as an oppression. Really, it all goes back to the "Ebonics" debate. Am I the great, white opressor or the liberator who's giving them a leg up when I insist that might students write in Standard English? Sometimes I'm not sure I know myself. So far, though, I'm still against airhorns.

Chris Stuart



Christopher Stuart
UC Foundation Assistant Professor
English Department
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga