Sorca Marie O’Connor

Sorca M. O’Connor, PhD, is Associate Professor Emerita, Department of Educational Policy, Foundations and Administrative Studies, Graduate School of Education, Portland State University. Sorca’s colleagues and friends in the Graduate School of Education, Women’s Studies, and the 2001–2002 AAUP Board, along with her numerous former students and admiring colleagues, celebrate this scholar-activist as our heroine for her relentless advocacy for social justice. 

Sorca, born on November 3, 1940 in Wanakena, New York, was the fifth child in a working poor Irish-American family. Her father, George J. O’Connor, was a partially disabled WWI veteran, radio repairman, and an avid reader; her mother, Agnes, was a well-educated Irish immigrant. Given the values of George and Agnes, it is no surprise that learning and literature were the topics of lively conversations within the family and often drew in neighbor children as well. Her father served as supervisor for the tiny one-room school where Sorca began her education, and later, when she rode the bus to school in a larger consolidated district, he was also a member of its Board of Education.  

Her father died in 1954 when Sorca was thirteen. Despite her sadness during this period, she also experienced a newfound sense of liberation as she came into her own as a student. She excelled, winning awards in civic leadership, public speaking, and science. In her sophomore year, her sister moved the family to Syracuse to escape the hardships of harsh upstate winters. Here Sorca learned a lesson that would shape the course of her life: she began to understand what it meant to be a “poor kid.” She found herself working part-time jobs to meet her own expenses and to help her mother and little sister, while other teenagers—those who were expected to go to college—had few responsibilities. Despite the rigors of poverty and because of her determination and the support of several teachers, Sorca continued to excel at school as an outstanding student and a talented musician. She won a Regents Scholarship to Albany State Teachers College where she earned an honors degree in English.

Sorca took her first teaching job at Mother Cabrini High School in New York City teaching a staggering 240 students in six classes each day. Because of her own experience as a “poor kid,” she was acutely aware of the differences between the lives of the scholarship students and the students whose families were able to pay tuition—differences that standard issue uniforms failed to disguise. It was here, as a young teacher, that her passion for educational equity became strong and clear enough to under gird a lifetime of personal and professional decisions. Sorca had established her identity as a teacher and an activist. She also married a young medical student during this time.

When she became the mother of Jennifer and two years later of Emilie, child rearing became another powerful force. She used the two lenses of child rearing and education to focus her deepening commitment to social justice. While her daughters were attending Parents Nursery School in Palo Alto, California, she became especially interested in the development and conditions of young children. After her divorce in the mid-1970s, Sorca returned to paid work—ultimately becoming the director of a children’s center. She was also deeply involved in the enormous social change of the late 1960s and 1970s including the anti-war movement, the women’s movement, and the anti-nuclear movement.

By now Sorca was clearly defined as an advocate for children and for social justice. These passions took her back to the university to pursue them with focus and purpose. She wanted to understand how social structures could support child rearing through programs that seamlessly melded the caring and teaching of young children. She earned a master’s degree at San Francisco State University. Captivated by sociological theories of education, she went on to earn a PhD in the sociology of education at Stanford University in 1986.

Sorca had now embarked on a career as an academic, first at Washington University in St. Louis and then at Portland State University where, through her teaching and research, she continued to dedicate herself to the central themes of economic, racial, and gender equity.

Portland State was marvelous fit for Sorca. She quickly recognized the parallels between her own early life and the experiences of many of her students. Her lifelong effort to overcome the socioeconomic barriers she faced enabled her to help students discover their own voice in the classroom and in the world of educational organizations where so many of them worked or intended to work. Her impact on students was profound. She inspired those from less privileged backgrounds to speak out and also brought increased understanding to those from privileged backgrounds. One of her students, now a successful school principal, remarked, “Sorca made me develop the ability to examine critically the entire institution of education in the United States.” As her students go about their work in school and live in the larger society, her influence continues to be far reaching and transformative.

Sorca’s scholarly work included active participation in the Sociology of Education Association, the American Educational Research Association, and the National Women’s Studies Association. Her scholarship centered on comparative studies of the differences among countries in the gap between the “care” and “education” of young children as institutionalized in state policies and the effect of these policies on young children. Other notable achievements include helping to found the Child and Family Studies Program at PSU, membership on the PSU President’s Diversity Action Council, and Board membership on Love Makes a Family. She pursued her love of singing as a member of the Portland Lesbian Choir.

One of her most important legacies is a heightened awareness among students and colleagues of the profound significance of social class for every aspect of education and, as a result, the need to act to bring about a more just educational system.

Sorca retired in 2002 to rural California with her longtime partner, historian Susan Lynn. She remains active in community organizations, writing, gardening, community living, and—most especially—grandmothering three fine grandchildren.