Class in the Classroom

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Class in the Classroom

• The Effects of Classism on Educational
  Development

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• Class is rarely talked about in the United
  States nowhere is there more intense silence
  about the reality of class differences than in
  educational settings. Significantly, class
  differences are particularly ignored in
  classrooms.
• hooks, bell. (1994) Teaching to Transgress
  Education as a Practice of Freedom. New York
  Routledge.

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Problems and Issues

• Barriers and limitations in education
• Socially excluded/marginalized students
• Social exclusion that influences policies
• Biased policies manifested in current education
  curricula
• Largely middle-class ideals are mirrored
• in current school curricula

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• Bourgeois values in the classroom create a
  barrier, blocking the possibility of
  confrontation and conflict, warding off dissent.
  Students are often silenced by means of their
  acceptance of class values they teach them to
  maintain order at all costs.
• hooks, bell. (1994) Teaching to Transgress
  Education as a Practice of Freedom. New York
  Routledge.

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• Students have assimilated this censoring process
  that middle class values in the classroom
  promote.
• These bourgeois values basically undermine the
  democratic exchange of ideas that is supposed to
  take place in a true democratic classroom.

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Teaching strategies, philosophies, and curricula
need to fit the societal need, which is today
comprised of a diverse population.
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Research Procedures

• Survey
• Sample is selected from individuals who have
  experienced societal marginalization
• Ten questions on social and economic class issues
• Participants expected to reflect on their past
  educational experiences
• Current relevant theory will be applied to
  qualify all information disclosed

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Quotes

• When did you realize you were associated with a
  particular class?
• I realize that I was in a different class level
  than other people when I realized that my parents
  were much different people from my teachers in
  the way they dress and their speech. That
  perspective about the world seemed totally
  different. Morally we all seem to maintain the
  same qualities, however I became increasingly
  aware that there were different levels of
  material attainment and the human person. I began
  to pander myself after my teachers around the
  second or third grade.

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Analysis

• Teacher and institutional influence is clear.
• Quote is consistent with research on class that
  suggests that students who are from poor and
  working class families are never taught about the
  relevance of their prescribed class in relation
  to the capitalist structure. They are often
  unaware of what class they belong to and,
  therefore, not provided with the skills to
  transcend class level.
• Knowledge of more powerful groups are imposed on
  the working class and the poor.
• Anyon, Jean. (1981). Social Class and School
  Knowledge. New Jersey Rutgers.

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Critical Theory

• School is an introduction to social life.
• Forms of knowledge favor specific visions.
• Schools function in ways that maintain class
  hierarchies that reproduce inequality.
• Current curricula and institutional practices
  promote social control.

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Suggestions

• Look at the reality of schools current curricula
  and pedagogical practices as supporting social
  reproduction.
• Empower the powerless through practices that are
  consistent with critical pedagogy and
  multicultural education.
• Use multicultural education development
  strategies to create a universal and equitable
  curriculum.
• Promote a true democratic classroom structure and
  overall school culture.