Answers and more Questions...

Well, so in response to the last post, I finally have a dissertation question. It came alot faster than I though it would, thanks to my AWESOME advisor. So, this sounds a bit convaluded..but basically I want to look at how cultural capital and social reproduction play out in schools. There was a great study done by a woman named Annette Lareau (who is currently teaching here at MD and with whom I am also working) that defined different parenting styles designated by class. She proposed that theses parenting styles actually affected the children's abilities to do well in school because schools privileged the middle class style of parenting, called concerted cultivation, over the working/poor class, called accomplishment of natural growth. What I would like to do is to actually go into the schools and see what this privileging looks like. My argument of course would be that the policies themselves also privilege one class over another. So that is the answer :)
The questions...as some of you know, E and I have been going to MC and we are really, really doing well. I have never felt so connected to him, so close to him, and so much in love with him. He is really an amazing and loving man and I have returned to my initial observation that he is G-d's gift to me for all I have been through in my life. However, the process has been SO painful. Reliving the disappointments and past hurts sometimes feels like hell. I know that the end process is so worth it and can even see benefits now, but sometimes I wonder if it will always be this much work. Can I maintain this level of constant work? is this what relationships are really about? will it ever just be "natural"? i know that I am a fighter and will always *fight*, but I do hope that home is a place that I can let my guard down and just be. I feel like the process somehow undercuts the self esteem I have worked so hard to build. I have to constantly analyze why I do and say what I do and i realize that I am not always *nice*...the bigger problem of course comes in trying to figure out why I am not nice, why I try to evoke shame or pain...that then is a reminder of my past..the painful stuff I have *dealt with*....I know that a stronger US only comes from each of us becoming stronger as individuals...still, does the pain of the past ever go away, does time REALLY heal all wounds?

Dissertation Question Anyone?

Well, since I originally started this blog as a way to record our fertility journey and that is essentially stalled, I decided to write about something else..and since the next thing in my life that is all consuming is graduate school..ta da!
I met with a professor yesterday to begin discussions about the ever elusive dissertation question. She gave me some advice about how to start: take the three areas I am interested in, education, policy, and social inequality; and then list all of the topics below them, so for example under education it may say, achievement, testing, vouchers, etc. and then I have to rank order the topics ...and of course two things happen 1) you figure out that there is some overlap, for example vouchers is both about education, a form of policy, and a topic of social inequality ( BTW- I am NOT interested in doing anything about vouchers) and 2) you can begin to narrow the general areas to more specific topics...hopefully that helps *me* figure out a question.
Next she wants me to list all the books in these areas that are relevant, those I have read and need to read and figure out what my dissertation could potentially add to them. That seems like a tall order...I mean these are some brilliant sociologists, economists, and scholars, and I am supposed to *amend* their work??? This "literature review" of sorts will be part of my dissertation proposal which she would like me to write this semester...
So on the one hand this is good because it is moving things along, on the other..OMG- I am feeling a bit overwhelmed, incredibly anxious, and a bit intimidated at such a BIG task looming in front of me. Okay, back to work...making lists :) Thoughts? Those that have "been" there?