Social Class and School
Knowledge
Jean Anyon
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‘Working Class Schools’
(blue collar schools)
- family incomes at or below $12,000
- unskilled/semiskilled occupations
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‘Working Class Schools’
(blue collar schools)
- emphasis in curriculum and in
classrooms on mechanical
behaviors, as opposed to sustained
conception
- students gave evidence that they
had already rejected the ideals of
patriotism and equal chances for
themselves.
‘Middle Class Schools’
(light blue collar schools)
- family incomes between $13,000
and $25,000
- highly skilled, well-paid blue collar
and white collar occupations
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‘Middle Class Schools’
(light blue collar schools)
- school knowledge is highly
commodified
- students had the highest degree of
mystification and ideological
internalization
‘Affluent Professional Schools’
(white coat schools)
- family incomes between $40,000
and $80,000
- highly-paid doctors, advertising
executives, interior designers, etc.
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‘Affluent Professional Schools’
(white coat schools)
- students were taught that the
power of their own group is
legitimate
- emphasis on individual
development
- active use of concepts and ideas by
students
‘Executive Elite Schools’
(Armani suit schools)
- family incomes over $100,000
- vice presidents or more advanced
corporate executives
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‘Executive Elite Schools’
(Armani suit schools)
- students were told importance of
controlling ideas and given some
insight into controlling their own
- students were given analytical and
unsentimental insight into the
system
Conclusion!
- “The most important implication of
the study is that for those of us who
are working to transform society,
there is much to do, at all levels, in
education” (Anyon).
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Jean Anyon
- parents were both labor organizers
and imbedded the passion for social
justice at an early age
- taught elementary in inner-city
schools in Washington, D.C.
- received her PhD and then taught
in the Teacher Education
Department at Rutgers University
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Jean Anyon
- is the author of three novels
+ Ghetto Schooling: A Political
Economy of Urban Educational
Reform
+ Radical Possibilities
+ Theory and Educational
Research: Toward Critical Social
Explanation.
Works Cited
Anyon, Jean. Radical
Possibilities. New York: Routledge,
2005.
Anyon, Jean. "Social Class and
School Knowledge." Muticultural
Education (2008): 146-151.