Privileged, moi?

[steepholm]

This meme is borrowed from a_d_medievalist:

Father went to college
Father finished college
Mother went to college
Mother finished college
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers [My parents both were high school teachers - UK equivalent]
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home  [Possibly, but I'd guess not quite.]
Were read children's books by a parent
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18 [not sure I understand this one]
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively [or this one - I've seen plenty of positive and negative portrayals of people in T-shirts]
Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs 
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs [in my day, in the UK, all the fees and most of the costs were paid by the government. My mother made a contribution to living costs, based on her income]
Went to a private high school
Went to summer camp
Had a private tutor before you turned 18
Family vacations involved staying at hotels
Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
My parents never provided me with a car, period
There was original art in your house when you were a child [my father was an artist and knew a lot of artists]
Had a phone in your room before you turned 18
You and your family lived in a single family house
Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left
You had your own room as a child
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course [no idea what that is]
Had your own TV in your room in High School
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
Went on a cruise with your family
Went on more than one cruise with your family
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family [not in pounds and pence, but that kind of thrift was heavily stressed]


The list is based on an exercise developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. The exercise developers ask that if you participate in this blog game, you acknowledge their copyright.

If you post this in your blog, please leave a comment on this post. To participate in this blog game, copy and paste the above list into your blog, and bold the items that are true for you. If you don't have a blog, feel free to post your responses in the comments.

Comments

[hafren.livejournal.com]

I don't get it. Why are some in bold and some not? And what in hell is an IRA, when not bombing people and robbing banks?

These lists are almost too US-centred to work for others...

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

You're meant to bold the ones that are true for you. I agree about the US-centredness: several of these questions conjure up a particular set of expectations that don't really apply outside that country. But some can be roughly translated. IRA is USA-ian for personal pension plan, I think.

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

Yep in the IRA -- Funnily enough, that particular kind of plan didn't exist until I was at university!

Re the lessons, I think it's whether one had, e.g., music AND ballet AND riding AND martial arts kind of thing. The SAT/ACT are the standardized exams required by most US colleges/universities as part of the qualification program. Prep courses became more prevalent in the 1980s, I think.

In the case of paying for uni, I don't know how to read that -- I see Europeans as having a great privilege in that university education for my peers was free -- but not everybody can go. OTOH, in the US, pretty much everybody can go, but it's not free. Me, I had lots of government money because I am old enough that there were grants for people of my income level. That and I worked 30 hours a week.

I do think it's also generational as much as geographical -- very few people I knew growing up had TVs in their rooms, for example -- if people had a second TV, it was often in the parents' room or in a separate 'family room.' Many of my friends were much better off financially than we were, but it just wasn't done.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Ah - that kind of lesson! I thought it was asking in a politely roundabout way whether I ever went to school. In that case... well, I did study the piano for about four weeks when I was five, so I guess I did. (I might have carried on, but my older brother was depressingly good, and it didn't seem worth fighting for that particular evolutionary niche.)

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

Hee! A typical USian-English usage stumble. Your brother is a music professor-type, isn't he?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Yup - at the University of Sussex.

[emmaco.livejournal.com]

Why can't Europeans all go to college?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Well, speaking for the UK at least, they'd have to get sufficiently high passes at 'A' level to qualify. (It's more complicated than that, what with access courses and the like, but that's the basic reason.)

[emmaco.livejournal.com]

I think these researchers are missing a good opportunity here not to collect data from the meme-doers of where they're from and how they'd perceive their class status, so they could compare US to other places!

The car one doesn't seem to fit the list, surely not ever having had a car provided is supposed to mean less privelege?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I agree on both counts.

[mraltariel.livejournal.com]

I've had a bash over on my blog.