My generation came of age in the rebellious 1960s, and that may be one reason that as academics many of us were attracted to a theory that challenged what we had been taught about U.S. society. Rather than focusing on meritocracy, democracy, and patriotism, as our school books had taught us, we focused on what seemed to us structural inequalitiesâand what we saw as systematic means by which whole groups and cultures (e.g., workers, African Americans, women) were excluded from the American Dream. Radical economists Sam Bowles and Herb Gintis, in a book reviewed in the New York Times in 1976 âSchooling in Capitalist Americaâ were the ïŹrst neo-Marxists to receive wide attention in education circles. The authors argued that the experiences of students, and the skills they develop in school in different social class contexts (e.g., working-class or wealthy communities), exhibited striking correspondences to the experiences and skills that would characterize their likely occupational positions later. The authors wanted to demonstrate that the major role of the education system was not primarily meritocratic, to propel individuals and groups upward as a matter of course, but was, rather, to reproduce an amenable and differentiated work force. Social class (although race and gender later proved to be also important) determined oneâs future economic role. The social class of oneâs parents and neighborhood generally determined the kind of schooling one received, and the skills and dispositions learned there predisposed you to a similarly structured economic position in the labor force. In this view, the experience of schooling was as important as, if not more important than, the content of the curriculum to the process by which schools prepare future labor force participants.
Because of this correspondence, education did not seem to be the âsocial levelerâ that Americans had long been taught. Rather, schools tended to reproduce the unequal labor positions that the economic system had created. Bowles and Gintis pointed out that the vast expansion of educational opportunities since World War I (and into the middle 1970s, when they were writing), had not substantially changed the highly unequal distribution of income in society. Moreover, âdespite the important contribution of education to an individualâs economic chances, the substantial equalization of educational attainments over the years has not led measurably to an equalization of income among individualsâ (8).
As Marx had pointed out, however, institutions and systems are typically contradictory in their effects: capitalism could have both liberating as well as oppressive effects. (The closure of the feudal commons, for example, liberated peasants from their feudal bonds, but in so doing set them free to starve in the developing cities if they could not ïŹnd work.) Bowles and Gintis pointed out the contradictory nature of education: while the system of schooling certainly functions primarily to legitimate and reproduce inequality, it sometimes produces critics, rebels, and radicals.
Social Class and School Work
The research I conducted in the late 1970s examined work tasks and interaction in the ïŹfth grade in ïŹve elementary schools in contrasting social class communitiesâtwo working-class schools, a middle-class school, and two highly afïŹuent schools.
The ïŹrst three schools were in a medium-sized city district in northern New Jersey, and the ïŹnal two were in a nearby New Jersey suburban district. In each of the three city schools, approximately 85 percent of the students were white. In the fourth school, 90 percent were white, and in the last school, all were white (see Anyon, 1980, 1981, 1983, 1984).
The ïŹrst two schools were designated working-class schools, because the majority of the studentsâ fathers (and approximately one-third of their mothers) were in low-paid unskilled or semiskilled occupations, with somewhat less than a third of the fathers being skilled workers. The third school was designated the middle-class school, although because of residence patterns the parents were a mixture of highly skilled, well-paid blue collar and white collar workers, as well as those with traditional middle-class occupations such as public school teachers, social workers, accountants, and middle-managers. There were also several local doctors and town merchants among the parents.
The fourth school was designated the afïŹuent professional school, because the bulk of the studentsâ fathers were highlypaid doctors such as cardiologists or surgeons; television or advertising executives; successful interior designers; or other afïŹuent professionals. While there were a few families less afïŹuent than the majority (e.g., the families of several professors at nearby universities, as well as several working class families), there were also a few families who were more afïŹuent.
The ïŹnal school was called the executive elite school. The majority of pupilsâ fathers in this school were vice presidents or more advanced corporate executives in U.S.-based multinational corporations or ïŹnancial ïŹrms on Wall Street. Most family money incomes of students in this school were in the top 1 percent of U.S. family income at the time.
There are obvious similarities among United States schools and classrooms. There are school and classroom rules, teachers who ask questions and attempt to exercise control, and who give work and homework. There are textbooks and tests. All of these were found in the ïŹve schools. But I identiïŹed differences by social class in student work tasks and conceptions of knowledge. These differences did correspond to the likely future job requirements of the children in each school.
The Working-Class Schools
In the two working-class schools, work was following the steps of a procedure. The procedure was usually mechanical, involving rote behavior and very little decision making or choice on the part of the student. The teachers rarely explained why the work was 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 signiïŹcance. Most of the rules regarding work were designations of what the children are to do; the rules are steps to follow. These steps are told to the children by the teachers and often written on the board. The children are usually told to copy the steps as notes. Work was often evaluated not according to whether it was right or wrong, but according to whether the children followed the right steps. The following mathematics example illustrates these points.
One of the teachers led the children through a series of steps to make a one-inch grid on their paper without telling them that they were making a one-inch grid, or that it would be used to study scale. She said, âTake your ruler. Put it across the top. Make a mark at every number. Then move your ruler down to the bottom. No, put it across the bottom. Now make a mark on top of every number. Now draw a line from. âąâ At this point a girl said that she had a faster way to do it and the teacher said, âNo, you donât; you donât even know what Iâm making yet. Do it this way, or itâs wrong.â After they had made the lines up and down and across, the teacher told them she wanted them to make a ïŹgure by connecting some dots and to measure that, using the scale of one inch equals one mile. Then they were to cut it out. She said, âDonât cut until I check it.â
The ïŹfth grade teachers observed in the working-class schools typically attempted to control classroom time and space by making decisions without consulting the children and without explaining the basis for their decisions. The teachers continually gave the children orders. Rarely if ever did they explain why the children were to do what they were told. Only three times did the investigator hear a teacher in either working-class school preface a directive with an unsarcastic âPlease,â or âLetâsâ or âWould you.â Instead, the teachers gave orders, as in, âShut up,â âShut your mouth,â âOpen your books,â âThrow your gum awayâif you want to rot your teeth, do it on your own time.â Teachers made every effort to control the movement of the children, and often shouted, âWhy are you out of your seat?â Often teachersâ demands seemed capricious, and not part of regular school rules or routines.
A dominant theme that emerged in these two schools was student resistance. Although some amount of resistance appeared in every school in this study, in the working-class schools it was a dominant characteristic of student â teacher interaction. There was both active and passive resistance to teachersâ attempts to impose the curriculum. Active sabotage sometimes took place: someone put a bug in one studentâs desk; boys fell out of their chairs; they misplaced books, or forgot them; they engaged in minor theft from each other; sometimes they rudely interrupted the teacher. When I asked the children during interviews why they did these things, they said, âTo get the teacher mad;â âBecause he donât teach us nothinâ;â âThey give us too many punishments.â When I asked them what the teachers should do, they said, âTeach us some more;â âTake us alone and help us;â âHelp us learn.â Sometimes they seemed pleased to see the teacher get angry, upset.
It is fairly clear that such experiences are highly similar to the type of rote, unrewarding work tasks and disciplinary control typical in working-class jobs across the board. Unskilled industrial workers, clerical personnel, retail salespersons, health care workersâthese representing large percentages of jobs in the U.S. â face work tasks and control not unlike what these working-class schools seemed to be preparing their students for. And, understandably, working-class resistance is a familiar presence in such job situations.
Middle-Class School
In the middle-class school, work was getting the right answer. If one accumulated enough right answers one got a good grade. One must follow the directions in order to get the right answers, but the directions often called for some ïŹguring, some choice, some decision making. For example, the children often had to ïŹgure out by themselves what the directions asked them to do, and how to get the answer: what do you do ïŹrst, second, and perhaps third? Answers were usually to be had in books or by listening to the teacher. Answers were usually words, sentences, numbers, or facts and dates; one writes them on paper, and one should be neat. Answers must be in the right order, and one can not make them up.
For example, math involved some choice: one may do two digit division the long way, or the short way, and there were some math problems that could be done âin your head.â When the teacher explained how to do two-digit division, there was recognition that a cognitive process was involved; she gave several ways, and said, âI want to make sure you understand what youâre doingâso you get it right;â and when they went over the homework, she asked the children to tell how they did the problem and what answer they got.
Work tasks did not usually request creativity. Serious attention was rarely given in school work to how the children develop or express their own feelings and ideas, either linguistically or in graphic form. On the occasions when creativity or self-expression was requested, it was peripheral to the main activity, or it was âenrichment,â or âfor fun.â
The style of control of the teachers observed in this school varied from somewhat easygoing to strict, but in contrast to the working-class schools, the teachersâ decisions were usually based on external rules and regulations, for example, on criteria that were known or available to the children. Thus, the teachers always honored the bells for changing classes, and they usually evaluated childrenâs work by what was in the textbooks and answer booklets.
It was also the case that work tasks in this school involved more of a conceptual process than in the working-class schools, in that work was less a matter of facts and skills and more a matter of traditional bodies of knowledge or âcontent,â and students were offered some choice in how they, for example, carried out a math problem. Knowledge was understanding and information from socially approved sources. Good grades were a possession. Information, facts, and dates could be accumulated and exchanged for good grades and college or a job. Knowledge here, however, was not usually connected to biographies or exploratory activities of the learners, and was thus divorced from processes of personal discovery (as indeed it was in the working-class schools as well). There was, however, in this school, the sense of possibility: school knowledge has real value, if one has âenoughâ of it.
It is apparent that many middle-class jobs involve more decision making, conceptual judgments, and choice than working-class jobs like clerical work or retail sales. The middle-class school, by emphasizing these skills in classes, prepares students for jobs that demand those kinds of skillsâjobs like public school teaching, police and ïŹre ïŹghters, low and mid-level management, and other middle income employees.
AfïŹuent Professional School
In the afïŹuent professional school, work was creative activity carried out independently. The students were continually asked to express and apply ideas and concepts. Work involved individual thought and expressiveness, expansion and illustration of ideas, and choice of appropriate method and material. The products of work in this class were often written stories, editorials and essays, or representations of ideas in mural, graph, or craft form. The products of work should not be like everybody elseâs, and should show individuality. They should exhibit good design, and (this is important), they must also ïŹt empirical reality. The relatively few rules to be followed regarding work were usually criteria for, or limits on, individual activity. Oneâs product was usually evaluated for the quality of its expression and for the appropriateness of its conception to the task. In many cases oneâs own satisfaction with the product was an important criterion for its evaluation. When right answers were called for, as in commercial materials like SRA (Science Research Associates) and math, it was important that the children decided on an answer as a result of thinking about the idea involved in what they were being asked to do. Teacherâs hints were often to âthink about it some more.â
The following activity is illustrative. Each child and his or her family had made a geoboard. The teacher asked the class to get their geoboards from the side cabinet, to take a handful of rubber bands, and then to listen to what she would like them to do. She said, âI would like you to design a ïŹgure and then ïŹnd the perimeter and area. When you have it, check with your neighbor. After youâre done, please transfer it to graph paper and tomorrow Iâll ask you to make up a question about it for someone. When you hand it in, please let me know whose it is, and who veriïŹed it. Then I have something else for you to do thatâs really fun. (pause) Find the average number of chocolate chips in three cookies. Iâll give you three cookies, and youâll have to eat your way through, Iâm afraid!â They worked sitting or standing up at their desks, at benches in the back, or on the ïŹoor. A child handed the teacher his paper and she commented, âIâm not accepting this paper. Do a better design.â To another child she said, âThatâs fantastic! But youâll never ïŹnd the area. Why donât you draw a ïŹgure inside [the big one] and subtract to get the area?â
The teachers often used negotiation to control the class. I rarely heard them yell or scream; they attempted to reason with the children and control them through a process of give and take.
Work tasks in the afïŹuent professional school involved not only conceptual work, but discovery, construction, and meaning making. Individuals were to express themselves in their work.
Jobs in which one is likely to be considered an âafïŹuent professionalâ include advanced computer designers, high-level positions in advertising, the arts, media; medical doctors, highly paid professors, and other positions in which creativity and use of symbol systems are manipulated and well rewarded. Control is by negotiation with oneâs peers and those to whom one reports. The children in this afïŹuent professional school were receiving good preparation for that kind of work.
Executive Elite School
In the executive elite school, work was developing oneâs analytical intellectual powers. Children were continually asked to reason through a problem, and to produce intellectual products that were both logically sound and of top academic quality. A primary goal of thought was to conceptualize rules by which elements may ïŹt together in systems, and then to apply these rules in solving a problem. School work helps one to achieve, to excel, to prepare for life.
The following is illustrative. The math teacher taught area and perimeter by having the children derive formulae for each. First she helped them, through discussion at the board, to arrive at A = L Ă W as a formula (not the formula) for area. After discussing several, she said, âCan anyone make up a formula for perimeter? Can ...