Blog #10: Anyon, "Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work"

"Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum"

by Jean Anyon

Author's Argument:

      In Jean Anyon's "Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum", she argues that the American system of education is divided into different social strata. The lowest and most poor would be the working class schools, the next lowest would be the middle-class schools, followed upwards by the affluent professional schools, the the executive elite schools. These different classifications not only cater to the varying cultures, but also reinforce the societal class systems. This is done by teaching different sets of skills to their given students.

Passages of Interest:

1)      This article is very eye opening. In the introduction, Anyon lays out explicitly exactly what she is trying to express in the passage. It is disheartening to see that such a system is in place as illustrated in this passage:

"-fifth graders of different economic backgrounds are already being prepared to occupy particular rungs on the social ladder. In a sense, some whole schools are on the vocational track, while others are geared to produce future doctors, lawyers, and business leaders."

2)      Anyon states that the children of working class parents are destined to follow in their family's footsteps, due to the fact that they are taught and develop according to the rules and reward systems taught to them in school. This is illustrated in the following quotation:

" In the two working class schools, work is following the steps of a procedure. The procedure is usually mechanical, involving rote behavior and very little decision making or choice. The teachers rarely explain why the work is being assigned, how it might connect to other assignments, or what the idea is that lies behind the procedure or gives it coherence and perhaps meaning or signifigance."

3)      Anyon's main point is further summed up in the following statement:

"These differences may not only contribute to the development in the children in each social class of certain types of economically significant relationships and not others but would thereby help to reproduce this system if relations in society. In the contribution  to reproduction of unequal social relations lies a theoretical meaning and social consequences of classroom practice."

Discussion:

      This article is very disheartening. Anyon's research shows that those without social privilege have very little choice in their adult lifestyles. The working class become clerks and janitors, the middle class managers, the affluent professionals would become doctors and the executive elites would become the heads of massive corporations. The rich stay richer, and the poor go nowhere.

Sad.