"The Question of Class".

“The Question of Class”. 

Paul Gorski calls on fellow educators examine the classist assumptions infiltrating classrooms and schools.

Issue 31, Spring 2007

Paul Gorski

Paul C. Gorski challenges educators to push beyond a one-dimensional understanding of poverty. Rather than examining a so-called "culture of poverty"—a term used by the very popular Ruby Payne and others who write and speak about poverty at the national level—Gorski urges educators to question the culture of classist assumptions that infiltrates our classrooms and schools.

For too long, educators' approach to understanding the relationships between poverty, class and education has been framed by studying the behaviors and cultures of poor students and their families. If only we—in the middle and upper-middle classes—can understand their culture, why those people don't value education, why those parents don't attend our functions and meetings, why those kids are so unmotivated, perhaps we can "save" some of our economically disadvantaged students from the bleak futures before them. And so we set about studying what Ruby Payne (author of A Framework for Understanding Poverty) and others describe as the "culture of poverty," how poor people see and experience the world, how they relate to food, money, relationships, education and other aspects of life. This, despite that research has shown again and again that no such culture of poverty exists.

It's all too easy, for even the most well-meaning of us, to help perpetuate classism by buying into that mindset, implementing activities and strategies for "working with parents in poverty" or "teaching students in poverty" that, however subtly, suggest we must fix poor people instead of eliminating the inequities that oppress them.

The question, of course, for any educator of privilege committed to educational equity is this: Do we choose to study supposed cultures or mindsets of poverty because doing so doesn't require an examination of our own class-based prejudices? By avoiding that question, we also avoid the messy, painful work of analyzing how classism pervades our classrooms and schools, never moving forward toward an authentic understanding of poverty, class and education.

What does it mean, for example, that high-poverty schools have more teachers teaching outside their areas of certification, larger numbers of teacher vacancies, and fewer experienced teachers than low-poverty schools? That they're more likely to lack full access to computers and the Internet? That they have inadequate facilities and classroom materials? Or that students in high-poverty schools are more likely than their wealthier counterparts to be subjected to overcrowded classrooms, dirty or inoperative bathrooms, less rigorous curricula and encounters with vermin such as rats and cockroaches? Or that these students are more likely to attend schools with serious teacher turnover problems and lower teacher salaries than students at low-poverty schools? And why do Payne and other "experts" so often fail to mention these inequalities?

These inequitable conditions—or, in Jonathan Kozol's words, these savage inequalities—have nothing to do with a so-called mindset or culture of poverty, nor with any other supposedly intrinsic or inherent value held by the people they most impact. They're wholly disconnected from any measure of intelligence, eagerness to learn, or effort. Yet they deeply influence learning and inhibit our most underserved students' access to equitable educational opportunity.

The reality gets worse. Children from economically disadvantaged families are more likely than their middle class or wealthy peers to suffer preventable illnesses caused by inadequate healthcare, lack of health insurance and contaminated living spaces. They're more likely to experience hunger and homelessness, to go without meals, without shelter and warmth. They're more likely to live in neighborhoods with unsafe levels of environmental pollutants, to lack safe places to play, safe water to drink, safe air to breathe. 

Regardless of whether a child living in poverty wants to learn, regardless of whether she's determined to make the best life for herself, she must first overcome enormous barriers to life's basic needs—the kinds of needs that middle-class people, including most professional educators, usually take for granted: access to healthcare; sufficient food and lodging; reasonably safe living conditions. Again, none of these conditions speaks to the values or desires of students in poverty, although they may speak to the values of a nation that can afford to eliminate these inequities but chooses not to.

So where do we start? 

Students: Alfonso Diego - Cabrera Jeniffer