Students begin to experience the effects of classism in schools as early as kindergarten, or perhaps even nursery school. Elementary school playgrounds reveal the effects of classism on a child’s education. Families living in poverty and even working-class families cannot readily afford the latest toy or gadget that might be all the rage on the […]
kids
Happy Day Before Payday!
While summer 2018 has been a scorcher, the high for February 1st and 2nd made it to 11º in Kari Fisher’s hometown in Minnesota, and single digits reigned during both school days. I got the email from one of my son’s high school teachers while I was teaching and didn’t have a chance to read it […]
Class Inequality in Children’s Movies
A new study, Benign Inequality: Frames of Poverty and Social Class Inequality in Children’s Movies, from Duke University sociologist Jesse Streib reveals that almost universally G-rated movies legitimate poverty and social class inequality in a new way – by presenting them as benign. Limited Learning about Other Classes What are some of the first ideas about social […]
Mental Health Diagnoses
Through a Classist Lens
Many people believe that you’re born with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). As a person who has been diagnosed with ADHD myself and treated with Ritalin for years, I started doubting whether ADHD is really a biological-neurological disorder. For those who don’t know the disease, people suffering from this disorder have difficulty with memory and concentration, […]
A Hard Lesson about Free Money
“Congratulations, you have been awarded a scholarship by your high school foundation. You are invited to attend awards night and be recognized for your achievement,” the letter said. My daughter had applied to several hundred scholarships, four through her highly-ranked, public high school’s parent & legacy foundation. She received one scholarship from a community group […]
Is That What They Would Say?: Home Knowledge vs. School Knowledge
Two incidents from my school years illustrate the clash between home experience and school assumptions. In second grade, I was drawing in my Alice and Jerry book, a lovely book about the foreign country of the middle class where kids got surprise playhouses for their birthdays— built, painted, and transported by Dad and Grandpa who’d […]
The Unlevel Playing Field of High School Sports
I grew up thinking that even if some people were born to great privilege and others were born into much more challenging circumstances, there was one place where the contests were fair: sports. After all, everyone plays by the same rules, right? Apparently not. Every year, the Boston Globe compiles the won/loss record of all […]
Summertime and the livin’ is (not always) easy
In many classrooms across the country this fall, students will be asked to respond to the age-old prompt, “What did you do on your summer vacation?” Though often used as a well-meaning way for teachers to build community and to better get to know their students, such a question can surface deep classist assumptions that […]
Humiliation at School Should Be a Thing of the Past
Dozens of children at a Utah elementary school had their lunch trays snatched away from them before they could take a bite last month. Salt Lake City School District officials say the trays were taken away at Uintah Elementary School because some students had negative balances in the accounts used to pay for lunches, according […]
“Bring Enough for Everyone”: What We Lose When We Lose Public Education
Did your schoolteachers say, “Don’t bring [candy, toys, coveted items] to school unless you bring enough for everyone”? Mine did. Maybe they recognized how incapable children are of understanding the fundamental injustice of wealth inequality, of some people having immensely desirable things that for some reason cannot be attained by others. Those who endured segregation […]
Neighborhood Class Divisions and Hope for the Future
On Halloween in my neighborhood, kids come around dressed as princesses, super heroes and ghosts – nothing that would be offensive based on class, race or religion. Why not? What is different about my neighborhood is that it is a mixture of everyone. Black, white, poor, wealthy, conservative, liberal and pretty much all the religions […]
Children and mass culture
We can’t escape mass culture. Everywhere, children and adults are bombarded: TV, movies, video, radio, books, newspapers, toys, comic books, billboards, friends and neighbors, etc., etc., etc.. Through all of these media we are pounded with messages that glorify consumerism, reinforce sexual stereotypes, and trivialize and homogenize anything if it will turn a buck. We […]
Jesse’s Choices
My youngest son is about to graduate high school. I am feeling a mix of emotions, as I am certain many others have felt and are feeling at this time. One of the more salient emotions for me is connected to a deep curiosity I have: did I teach him what he needs to know […]
Santa Claus, Imagination, and Class
I must have been around seven, living in far northern Wisconsin—not classy Minoqua and other Chicago playgrounds, but the dregs of the timber industry, the swamps reserved for Natives, and rocky farmland left to the last immigrants, a place where the last snow might surprise you on the last day of school—when my dad sat […]
Gifts, power and money
The holidays can be hard times. With all the hopes and expectations of the season up, disappointments have more room to play. And when we most want our attention to be on loving and giving, it can easily slide toward getting, proving and comparing. The pervasive materialism of the season, and the expectation that we […]
Inciting critical thinking in 8th graders: An inspiring ‘Created Equal’ story
“The learning process is something you can incite, literally incite, like a riot. And then, just possibly, hopefully, it goes on.” — Audre Lorde A deep conversation about equal opportunity was incited recently in a group of Latino 8th graders participating in a summer program in a Boston public school. I and another Class Action intern, Anna Rodriguez, […]
Shame, School Lunch, and Passing
When I was in sixth grade, my family was eligible for free school lunches. I attended a small country school, without much class diversity, mostly farmers, some without indoor toilets in their homes. Even so, when I gave my lunch ticket to the student appointed to collect them, I noticed and she noticed that there […]
“Is This for a Rental?”
Ever gone to a hardware store to buy a toilet, sink, or door and have the salesperson ask, “Is this for yourself, or for a rental?”? We all know that if it’s for ourselves, the owners of property, we’ll be wanting something nicer, better-made, more durable, more functional and often more efficient. If it’s for […]
Exploring Classism
Just recently I attended a Class Action workshop. This was my first workshop ever dealing on the issues of classism. Heading into it, I didn’t know what to expect. I had an open mind and was willing to work with others I hadn’t met. It was definitely a big step to go outside my comfort […]
Class Reproduction by Four Year Olds
I watched how class played out in a preschool classroom, creating disadvantages for the already disadvantaged and privileges for those born into privilege. I spent eight months observing in a preschool classroom full of four years old. About half of the preschoolers in this classroom were from working-class families and were receiving scholarships to attend […]
