#HonorsProgram#養成閱讀習慣#VIS菁英班

【春節連假你讀了什麼書？】

李瑞中教授給菁英班學生出的寒假作業是：讀一本有博士學位（Ph.D., M.D. or J.D./S.J.D.）作者的專書。

同學們這週在課堂上報告自己寒假讀的書，有同學讀了哈佛特聘教授Michèle Lamont的“The Dignity of Working Men“，Lamont教授是李瑞中教授恩師的好朋友，沒想到再次聽到她的名字竟是從高中生的口中；李瑞中教授問學生是如何得知這位學者與她的書，學生說他只是很自然地到Harvard University Press（哈佛大學出版社）的網站上翻看一本本的書，直到找到這本最吸引他的書……。

大部分的人會認為，很多事情必須達到一定歲數才做得來，就連教育者也常會以年紀評估能力。事實上，不要小看孩子們，引發他們的興趣，為他們推開一扇門，他們會自己走進去，開展屬於他們的天地。

以下是菁英班同學們選讀的書單，領域遍佈經濟學、社會學、心理學 與 自然科學，邀請大家一同養成閱讀的好習慣。

而今天要介紹的是：The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of Race, Class, and Immigration

【The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of Race, Class, and Immigration】

Michèle Lamont takes us into the world inhabited by working-class men--the world as they understand it. Interviewing black and white working-class men who, because they are not college graduates, have limited access to high-paying jobs and other social benefits, she constructs a revealing portrait of how they see themselves and the rest of society.

Morality is at the center of these workers' worlds. They find their identity and self-worth in their ability to discipline themselves and conduct responsible but caring lives. These moral standards function as an alternative to economic definitions of success, offering them a way to maintain dignity in an out-of-reach American dreamland. But these standards also enable them to draw class boundaries toward the poor and, to a lesser extent, the upper half. Workers also draw rigid racial boundaries, with white workers placing emphasis on the "disciplined self" and blacks on the "caring self." Whites thereby often construe blacks as morally inferior because they are lazy, while blacks depict whites as domineering, uncaring, and overly disciplined.

This book also opens up a wider perspective by examining American workers in comparison with French workers, who take the poor as "part of us" and are far less critical of blacks than they are of upper-middle-class people and immigrants. By singling out different "moral offenders" in the two societies, workers reveal contrasting definitions of "cultural membership" that help us understand and challenge the forms of inequality found in both societies.