Addressing Race and Class in the Lasallian Legacy of Social Justice

Justin Peralta, B.A. and Cory Blad, Ph.D.

ABSTRACT

The authors propose a re-examination of the educational legacy of John Baptist de La Salle wherein a 17th century concern for the poor in France becomes broader social justice concerns in the more global economy of the 21st century. Modern issues regarding equity and justice involve considerations that were not socially relevant or were epistemologically inaccessible to De La Salle given his time in history. However, there were fair amounts of classism reinforced subtly and not-subtly in the ways De La Salle instructed pupils, because in order to battle for universal education some compromises to French elitism had to be made. The authors, consequently, assert that his legacy and its continuing impact requires an understanding of power and cultural reproduction to frame the problem of intersectional race and class in the 21st century. Readers are invited to consider the socioeconomic entanglements of race and class through a new discourse guided by the Lasallian core principles.

Full Text:

Addressing Race and Class in the Lasallian Legacy of Social Justice

Keywords: universal education, capitalism, whiteness, prestige status, habitus, field, power, social capital, upward mobility, intersection of class and race, social inequality, diversity