“…for many students the process of upward mobility requires far more than perseverance: it also requires brutal decisions and painful sacrifices, threatens their relationships with those who matter most to them, and destabilizes their sense of identity and belonging. The story of upward mobility isn’t just one of gains; it is also one of losses.”
— Jennifer Morton, Moving Up Without Losing Your Way: The Ethical Costs of Upward Mobility
The 2020 Eastern Division Meeting of the APA in Philadelphia featured a panel discussion that we, Arianna Falbo and Heather Stewart, members of the APA’s Graduate Student Council, organized, entitled: “Outsider’s Within: Reflections on Being a First-Generation and/or Low-Income Philosopher.” To the best of our knowledge, this panel is the first of its kind at the APA, which we hope will reflect the beginning of many important discussions to come concerning the experiences of first-generation philosophers, and philosophers who come from low-income and working-class backgrounds.
The overarching goals for this panel were to give voice to, and to raise broader awareness of, the experiences of graduate students who identify as first-generation and/or low-income, and how those experiences, particularly when compiled with additional intersectional experiences of oppression and/or disadvantage, pose unique barriers to entering and remaining in the profession. Our motivations for organizing this panel were also deeply personal.
Arianna is a first-generation college student. Neither of her parents attended college, and her father, an immigrant who moved to Canada from Italy, left high school in the 10th grade to take a job working in a steel fabrication factory in order to support his family. Arianna is among the first in her immediate and extended family to receive any graduate or professional schooling. Her parents instilled in her the importance of ambition and a strong work ethic, and she holds tightly onto these values as she progresses through graduate school. Over the past few years, she has become increasingly aware of issues related to socioeconomic status in professional philosophy, and in higher education more broadly. However, perhaps one of the more unique barriers faced by many first-generation students is that of meta-ignorance: you often don’t know what you don’t know. She is incredibly lucky to have a number of inspiring mentors who have helped to show her the ropes of academic philosophy. She owes much of her success and perseverance to their continued support; without them, she almost certainly would not be doing philosophy today.
Heather also comes from a low-income and working-class background, and was the first in her family to attend university. Her father worked in a fiberglass factory to support their family until his sudden passing a month before Heather’s sixth birthday. Heather’s mother, after raising Heather and her brother as a single, stay-at-home mother, eventually remarried when Heather was 16, to a hardworking, blue-collar step-father who also worked in a factory (where he is still employed). Heather’s older brother pursued a variety of jobs after high school, but did not attend college. Having come from a low-income area just outside of Cincinnati, Heather has found the transition to an academic lifestyle to be far from easy. Like Arianna, she is deeply indebted to an incredible set of professional mentors over the years, who have helped her find her way in the academy and in professional philosophy, and to navigate the unique challenges each can bring for people for whom this world is not at all familiar, natural, or comfortable.
When we met through the APA Graduate Student Council, we immediately found a shared desire to bring issues of socioeconomic difficulty and disadvantage to the fore in the discipline. In pitching the idea for the APA panel, we sought to generate discussion about the often neglected and overlooked experiences of first-generation and/or low-income philosophers; to provide insight and support for those who themselves are the first in their family to enter the discipline of philosophy, or who are doing so from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds; to develop a sense of community and solidarity among philosophers who share these experiences; to raise awareness for administrators and educators surrounding these issues; and to start much needed discussions about how we might better facilitate equitable entry into the academic world and professional philosophy, as well as improve the conditions for academics from these backgrounds. We hope that the conversation started at this year’s Eastern Meeting of the APA—which we hope to continue through this blog and through a special issue of the APA Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy (set to come out in Spring of 2021)—will begin to make strides towards each of those goals.
The Current State of the Profession
The extent to which people from lower class backgrounds and/or first-generation college students are underrepresented in the academy, and within academic philosophy more specifically, is not well appreciated.
The best data that we have suggest that as of 2017, approximately 30.7 percent of all doctoral students in the United States are first-generation (National Science Foundation). We don’t have any robust data tracking the percentage of first-generation and/or low-income doctoral students in philosophy. The APA itself does not appear to collect this demographic information about its members—a testament to how far behind we are on taking this dimension of identity and experience seriously. According to The Diversity and Inclusivity Survey published in 2019 by Carolyn Dicey Jennings and coauthors, 23.4 percent of survey participants, which included doctoral students and recent graduates in philosophy, identified as first-generation. To the extent that we can extrapolate from this data, we can say that while first-generation students make up just a small percentage of doctoral students in general, they make up an even smaller percentage of graduate students in philosophy, in particular.
Despite the recent increase in attention given to diversity and inclusion in philosophy, class-related issues are too often overlooked and undertheorized. Much of the focus on “diversifying philosophy” has often been limited to those who are underrepresented on the basis of race and gender, with little (and often close to no) focus on features of identity that might be less visible, such as LGBTQ+ identity, dis/ability status, or, for our current purposes, socioeconomic status or experiences of being first-generation. It goes without saying that race and gender are incredibly important dimensions of identity, and the discipline ought to be making every effort to cultivate inclusivity of both; however, this step should not exclude other identity markers that bear on one’s experiences in philosophy, and/or pose barriers to one’s entry into the discipline. Our guiding aim in organizing the Eastern APA panel, then, was to start taking meaningful steps towards filling this gap.
The Panelists’ Insights
The panel itself, as well as responses to it, vastly exceeded our best expectations. After putting out the call for papers, we received an overwhelming amount of high-quality submissions; confirming that people want to share their experiences and have this conversation. We selected four panelists, and they led a profound discussion concerning how socioeconomic positionality affects entry into and experiences within academic philosophy. The panel was emotionally charged and eye-opening; and hopefully it began to raise awareness of the unique experiences of first-generation and working class students in philosophy.
The discussion began with Robert Budron (Loyola University Chicago) presenting: “Dual-Desecration: A First-Generation Student’s How-To Guide for Properly Stomping Over All of the Rules.” His talk drew upon Maria Lugones’ concept of world traveling, and in particular, upon the first-generation student’s need to travel between their home world and the often perplexing world of academic philosophy. Budron says:
It is worth noting the complex geography of a first-generation student’s world-traveling. In one sense, they find themselves at the margins of philosophy, piecing together the dynamics of a complex, at times, nonsensical system of hierarchy and pedigree. Yet, philosophy is itself the willingness to explore ideas beyond the boundaries of traditional knowledge. Thus, they find themselves struggling both for acceptance in a world most noted for its precarity and for a means of justifying to their ‘at-home’ world why they seek approval in this institution.
Budron’s presentation highlighted the double-edged sense of alienation that first-generation students often experience upon entering the discipline. They typically face a sense of isolation and lack of familiarity with academic spaces, and later encounter even further alienation and discomfort upon returning home to loved ones who might not grasp their new academic lifestyle, or who find doing philosophy a hobby of extravagance, luxury, or leisure—often a stark contrast with working-class values.
In one of the more sobering moments of Budron’s presentation, he asked audience members to raise their hands if they were a first-generation college student. Many hands rose. He then asked those same individuals to keep their hands up if they ever considered leaving academic philosophy. Not a single hand moved. It is noteworthy that there seems to be a shared experience among first-generation and/or low-income students of having seriously confronted the decision of whether staying in philosophy was a wise or even feasible choice given one’s material circumstances.
Next, Ashley Lamarre and Nompumelelo Zinhle Manzini (both from Pennsylvania State University) jointly presented: “Marginal Disclosures: Standpoint, Sisterhood, Survival, and Stipends.” Manzini, an international graduate student from South Africa, began by reflecting on her collegial relationship with Lamarre, her co-presenter. She highlighted the importance of sisterhood in surviving and navigating the academy as a graduate student with multiple marginalized identities. Manzini reflected upon the common tendency in academic spaces to pit minority students, especially women, and even more so Black women, against each other. You are expected to be in competition, not solidarity, with those who share similar marginalized identities because there are only so many token slots reserved for such philosophers. Manzini and Lamarre’s deliberate choice to present together aimed to destabilize and subvert this common perception in academic settings. In fact, it was Manzini who initially shared the panel’s call with Lamarre upon finding it. Sharing opportunities with other underrepresented students is itself a subversive act within the hyper-competitive confines of academic philosophy.
Lamarre’s portion of the talk raised an important point about the presumed research trajectory of members of marginalized groups and how they are often expected to focus on select features of their marginalized status. People who are underrepresented in philosophy (on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, and so on) are often expected to work on issues surrounding their identity as a means to improve their marketability. This is what Lamarre, drawing upon Patricia Hill Collins, referred to as the commodification of the “outsider-within.” Though Lamarre accepts the utility of standpoint in one’s discipline (as theorized by Collins, among others), she is concerned with the marketplace demands and academic alienation that have taken priority over the community-based theorizing that has been endorsed by scholars such as political theorist Joy James. The field’s expectations on the research and marketability of marginalized students is selective in that they rarely, if ever, apply to class status; rarely, Lamarre remarked, is she expected to work on philosophical topics related to her socioeconomic status the way she is expected to work on topics related to her Black-ness and Woman-ness. This discrepancy reveals a false assumption that class has less of an impact on one’s experiences in navigating the world of graduate school and professional philosophy—an assumption belied by the panel’s talks and subsequent discussions. Socioeconomic standing and experiences related to class prior entering the profession continue to affect one’s experiences in philosophy in important and complex ways.
The final speaker was Darien Pollock (Harvard University), who presented “Academic Philosophy and the Problem of Belonging.” Pollock started by noting the difference between being classified as “low-income” or “working class” and being “from the streets.” He emphasized how even when we address class (which we rarely do) we still tend to have a very narrow picture in mind. Pollock complicated this picture by talking about doing philosophy as someone who came from the streets, noting the inherent creativity and philosophically oriented thinking present in many people who are constantly struggling for their survival and trying to make ends meet.
Pollock’s discussion was centered upon what he called “the problem of belonging.” It has become a near platitude in the discipline to remark upon philosophy’s “diversity” problem. Pollock’s presentation turned this labelling on its head and helped to reveal how talk of “diversity” in the academy is predominantly disingenuous and tends to serve the interests and needs of institutions, which make little effort toward actually supporting and improving the material conditions of philosophers who come from historically marginalized backgrounds. The problem academic philosophy faces is not fundamentally one of “diversity,” but rather one of belonging; it’s a problem of having nobody to turn to in academic settings who can understand your experiences; of unrecognized labor and epistemic oppression; of lacking the infrastructure and policies needed to accommodate and support the unique needs and experiences of minority students, including those who come from low-income and first-generation backgrounds.
Pollock says:
While this [epistemic] oppression is anchored in the demographic deficiency of these departments—what some call the “problem of diversity”—a separate but related issue sustains it: what I like to call the problem of belonging. This problem has two features. First, there is the phenomenon of members of historically marginalized groups being hyper-visible in philosophy departments. At the other end of the spectrum is the invisibility that we must endure.
Pollock notes that much of the frequent inattention and ignorance concerning the experiences of philosophers who come from historically marginalized backgrounds is rooted in academic philosophy’s history of elitism, privilege, and prestige. The obstacles and barriers faced by low-income and first-generation students are often invisible to those members of the profession who are not themselves affected by them.
Unmasking Problems
A thread across all of the talks and the subsequent discussion was the difficulty of navigating competing loyalties. Philosophers who are the first in their family to attend university, and often relatedly, to move away from their home communities, tend to experience the simultaneous pull of duty to one’s community and family (e.g., to help with caregiving) and the obligation to be ever-present in the academic context; to prove that one deserves their place in philosophy by showing up to every event, and by putting in extra hours and work on research and teaching.
Another common theme was the idea of financial difficulty or constraint that is often caused or exacerbated by implicit assumptions about the sort of person who pursues a career in philosophy—namely, that such a person comes from financial means or is a person who has disposable income. As Pollock reflected, after being admitted to his PhD program, there was an assumption that he had the funds required to move and to have enough resources to live off of and keep a roof over his head until the first stipend check arrived. Similarly, Manzini discussed the challenges of the reimbursement model of travel funding for people who come from low-income backgrounds, as well as how this model especially disadvantages many international students who might not have access to a credit card. The field often takes for granted that graduate students have credit cards on which to book flights and hotels, and that it is no problem for them to be reimbursed well after the fact. And if one is not so fortunate, they are forced to choose either to miss the conference or job interview—which contributes to further underrepresentation of people from lower class backgrounds in philosophical space—or to incur debt and additional financial hardship.
Relatedly, participants discussed the importance of negotiating one’s funding before accepting a PhD admissions offer. As the panel highlighted, this imperative to negotiate one’s way to a better stipend offer relies on a variety of assumptions that don’t reflect the lived experiences of first-generation and/or low-income students. Practically speaking, people from limited financial means might not be in a good bargaining position if they weren’t able to apply to many programs. As Manzini noted, PhD applications are expensive and while some people can afford to apply to many schools, some people can’t, and must be more selective in where they spend money applying. But those who apply to fewer schools are consequently likely to have fewer PhD offers, and are thereby less likely to be in a strong negotiating position. Lamarre added that such students might not even know how to negotiate, insofar as this is a learned skill, or they might not even know that they can negotiate their stipend offers, since nobody really tells prospective students this ahead of time.
The sensitivity and know-how required in the negotiation of one’s stipend offer is well-suited to students who come from backgrounds of privilege and wealth. Such skills tend to be acquired by students whose families have access to higher paying jobs, or who have experienced having several job offers at once, or even those who have had the option to hold out for a better job offer because one has savings and does have to use their funds to help support family members. Additionally, while some people are socialized to feel empowered to ask for things, some of us feel lucky just to get an offer. When one already feels a combination of luck, imposter syndrome, and fear that they could take your offer away, one is unlikely to feel comfortable negotiating financial offers in the way one’s privileged peers might. And, importantly, this dynamic can result in students who need financial support the most receiving less attractive offers than they would otherwise have received. This worry is especially acute for students who don’t have family money to fall back on if they come up short on rent, or need help paying a bill.
Sparking Conversations and Challenging Assumptions
The panel called on departments and administrators to take these financial barriers seriously, and to rethink the many elitist assumptions that have become so deeply ingrained into academic culture and practice, and which pose a variety of difficulties for students from low-income and first-generation backgrounds.
Nancy Bauer, who is currently serving as a dean at Tufts University, remarked after attending the session:
The four outstanding Philosophy PhD students who spoke at the 2020 Eastern APA panel have generously shared the depth and breadth of the challenges they face. They made clear how much better they have to be than their privileged peers and how poorly we faculty members support first-gen students even as we pat ourselves on the back for our, and our schools’, largesse. I was anguished at the modest size of the audience for this panel: in my decades of attending APA meetings, I’ve never been to a more important panel nor learned so much from a group of speakers.
While we have shared only some of the many important insights that were raised by the panelists and the ensuing discussion, we hope to have clarified two things: first, that there are unique issues posed by entering philosophy from a disadvantaged class background or as a first-generation college student; and second, that by listening to the voices of people with these backgrounds we can begin to learn about what exactly needs to change in professional philosophy, and the academy more broadly, in order to make it a more hospitable place for everyone.
The combination of these two insights has compelled us to try to build upon the panel discussion and to bring more voices into it. To this end, we are happy to announce a call for papers for a special issue of the APA Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy mentioned above (CFP found here). We strongly encourage any philosophers with relevant experiences to use this platform to have their voices shared, in conjunction with others, and with the wider discipline. We are thrilled about guest editing this issue of the newsletter, and we owe a great debt of gratitude to the newsletter’s editor, Lauren Freeman, for giving us this opportunity. We hope that the newsletter, like the APA panel, will help to raise attention and spark conversations about these important issues, while also continuing to unmask others.
We are tremendously grateful to the participants in the APA session (and all of those who submitted proposals) for being open and vulnerable, and for sharing their experiences with us. We hope to use our positions within the APA Graduate Student Council and otherwise to keep amplifying and propelling these voices forward, while calling for meaningful responses from those with the power to make positive changes.
Postscript: We are grateful to the panelists, Ashley Lamarre, Nompumelelo Zinhle Manzini, Robert Budron, and Darien Pollock for providing their invaluable feedback on a draft version of the blog. We are also grateful to Nancy Bauer for allowing us to include her supportive comments, and Lauren Freeman for allowing us the opportunity to guest edit a volume of the APA Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy on this topic.
Photo (left to right): Nompumelelo Zinhle Manzini, Ashley Lamarre, Robert Budron, and Darien Pollock speak at the 2020 Eastern Division Meeting session “Outsider’s Within: Reflections on Being a First-Generation and/or Low-Income Philosopher.”
Arianna Falbo
Arianna Falbo is a PhD student at Brown University, where she is also pursuing a doctoral certificate in Gender and Sexuality Studies. Her research is primarly in epistemology, feminist philosophy, and philosophy of language (and their various intersections), and she is currently working on projects on inquiry as well as epistemic oppression. Arianna is dedicated to making academic philosophy more inclusive and friendly. To this end, she has taught for Corrupt the Youth, an educational outreach program that brings philosophy to students from low-income backgrounds and Title 1 high schools. She also co-founded and helps to organize a MAP chapter at Brown, and this summer she is excited to serve as the graduate director for Brown’s Summer Immersion Program in Philosophy (SIPP).
Heather Stewart
Heather Stewart is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Oklahoma State University. Their research and teaching take an intersectional feminist approach to analyses of medicine, healthcare, digital technologies, and artificial intelligence, with a particular focus on how power, oppression, and privilege shape individual and collective engagement with these institutions and technologies. Their work has been published in several top journals, including The Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, Feminist Philosophy Quarterly, and Perspectives on Psychological Science, among others. Heather’s first book, Microaggressions in Medicine (with Lauren Freeman), was published with Oxford University Press in February of 2024.
Being a first generation college student is one thing, a wonderful thing, very justly celebrated without reservation. Being a first generation aspiring philosopher is a more complicated question.
It depends of course on how one defines philosophy, and I won’t propose that there is a “one true way” to make such a definition.
If one defines philosophy as the articulate expression of abstract ideas widely judged to be reasonable by the ivory tower group consensus, then there is no problem as the first generation student can learn such skills just as well as their richer colleagues.
If one instead defines philosophy as a process of exploring the boundaries of the group consensus, a vitally valuable service few others are willing or able to provide, the first generation student enters a land of challenge, because….
Every other article emerging from the ivory tower these days argues for diversity. This is very reasonably labeled a very good thing. But it’s not philosophy, at least as seen from here, because diversity sermons have become a very safe routine of the ivory tower group consensus. Safe routines which bow to the group consensus are not philosophy, imho. Literally a million thinker/writers are already making the case for diversity, so a philosopher doesn’t really make much of a contribution by making that case yet again.
So, does the first generation philosophy student chant the ivory tower group consensus in service to their own personal career interest? Do they do so to fit in and be popular and accepted? That’s good philosophy business for sure, but is it good philosophy? If your professors don’t present you with this inconvenient question, start looking for another school.
Or does the first generation philosophy student act like a real philosopher, and swim against the tide of whatever is currently widely accepted as truth?
To such a brave student, a reminder. One can skillfully argue a case without personalizing believing it, just as the best defense attorney will defend his client with all his skill, even though they know their client is guilty.
Old white men have ruthlessly dominated the field of philosophy for centuries. It would be really bad philosophy business, but rather good philosophy, to articulately defend this practice in the court of public opinion.
If a first generation philosophy students swims with the tide of the group consensus, they will be safe, but unnoticed. If they swim against the tide, they will face risks, but start making a name for themselves.
Thank you for this. I myself am the daughter of an immigrant from Germany who trained to be an engineer under the apprenticeship system. And, even though my father did make tons of money after a while, the cultural capital did not come with it. Neither did it come with my mom who grew up in Newfoundland and only got as far as the eighth grade. Nor did it come after their deaths, since the person in charge of the finances had bipolar. I also grew up in a rural area, so my cultural identity is really blue collar, and since I did not fit in in my small town, the only people I hung around with were juvi’s. I did inherit the the mental health issues, however, and I am a female. I did not encounter philosophy until my 4th undergrad institution in my senior year. It was a seminar on rational decision theory. And, wow, I found home, I thought. Then I found out I had to do this thing called a “PhD,” which I had never heard of, and I quickly found myself in the company of people who had grown up listening to the CBC, who knew all the commentators names and so on. And I was being invited to wine and cheese parties — things I had assumed did not really happen — that the idea they did must have been based on stereotypes. And I was dating a professor who didn’t beat you up and stuff. I was in serious culture-shock. Yet, these people seemed to think they were…I don’t know…enlightened about such things. Or, were not subject to class biases or something. But then, why, when I said something “vulgar” or well, what I would call “honest,” did I feel like I had violated some convention of etiquette. So my point I guess: YEAH, academics are a class, and there are markers of it that characterize them. And it’s not simply that we need more women, or more blacks, or more LGBTQ people. We also need those people that are economically and culturally underprivileged or differently abled, and who will not “pass” the academic class test. And please, let’s not do it by incorporating more philosophy that appeals to them so we have more pockets to segregate us into either. I’m rather tired of the assumption that because of my genitalia, I must be able to teach feminism. I can, of course. But my research interests are pretty conventional. And I’d like to fit in with the metaphysicians and philosophers of language as much as I do with the social justice warriors. Well, not that I think I’ll ever really “fit in” anywhere, but fit-in-ish at least anyhow. I did not really get into the mental health stuff, but I have been quite open about it, and it was only this year that I caught on to how much harder it is if you officially get labelled a “crazy bitch.” In fact, that issue is one that is in serious need of address. Psychiatry is not a science, not at least if falsifiability is a basic requirement for being one. It’s not clear what ought to be pathologized anyway. So, I guess my mental arrangement is such that I fail to fit in in a sexist, racist, homophobic, and so on system? Awww. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLPQ765VS6E