I'm wondering how much an island New York is, perhaps not just within
the US. When I would complain about the overwhelming passiveness of
Southern Californians, my ex, who was from North Carolina, would say
that she didn't notice the difference--that it was a New York thing.
That said, I used to run reminiscence workshops for old people at
various sites around New York. The first several were at Jewish
sites, where the few men (our mortality being what it is) tried to
stay out of the crossfire. The women were fierce--I needed a whip and
a chair. Then I ran a workshop at Riverside Church, which is very
civilized northern Baptist. I couldn't understand what was wrong: the
women would raise their hands to speak and actually listen to each
other, or pretend to.
Even with college-age women I noticed a breakdown by demographic.
Jewish, Italian, and Black women tended to jump right in more than
the other women (older women excepted). The Italian and Black men
were much less active than the women. Presumably this reflected
their roles in the family?
In Tucson my classes were largely divided into White Protestants and
Hispanic Catholics. The older students were always White and
dominated everything. In San Diego, where my students were almost all
traditional college-age and overwhelmingly middle-class, but
ethnically mixed, I needed a cattle prod to get things started.
I did notice some class differences, but I often knew too little
about my students' class backgrounds to generalize.
Mark
At 10:45 AM 3/31/2006, you wrote:
>My experience at Edinburgh U was more or less identical, right down to...
>
> >Dominic: It would help to know where this was (at least what part of the
>country, urban,
> >suburban, rural) and what the demographics were, as best you can tell. Did
>the more active
> >students in any way differ in background, age, ethnicity, from their more
>passive classmates?
>
> >Mark
>
> >occasionally one of them would turn in an absolutely
> >first-rate essay (some people prefer to sit quietly, listen and
> >think...)
> >
> >Dominic
>
>...the one who evidently thought her colleagues didn't deserve to share her
>insights.
>
>As far as noticeable differences are concerned, the ones who'd taken a gap
>year tended to be more articulate -- these were first-year, first-semester
>students.
>
>P
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