(chapter taken from Learning Power)From Social Class and t.docx

(chapter taken from Learning Power)
From Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work
JEAN ANYON
It's no surprise that schools in wealthy communities are better
than those in poor communities, or that they better prepare their
students for
desirable jobs. It may be shocking, however, to learn how vast
the differences in schools are - not so much in resources as in
teaching methods
and philosophies of education. Jean Anyon observed five
elementary schools over the course of a full school year and
concluded that 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 education track, while others are
geared to produce future doctors, lawyers, and business leaders.
Anyon's main
audience is professional educators, so you may find her style
and vocabulary challenging, but, once you've read her
descriptions of specific
classroom activities, the more analytic parts of the essay should
prove easier to understand. Anyon is chairperson of the
Department of
Education at Rutgers University, Newark; This essay first
appeared in Journal of Education in 1980.
Scholars in political economy and the sociology of knowledge

have recently argued that public schools in complex industrial
societies like our
own make available different types of educational experience
and curriculum knowledge to students in different social
classes. Bowles and
Gintis1 for example, have argued that students in different
social-class backgrounds are rewarded for classroom behaviors
that correspond to
personality traits allegedly rewarded in the different
occupational strata--the working classes for docility and
obedience, the managerial classes
for initiative and personal assertiveness. Basil Bernstein, Pierre
Bourdieu, and Michael W. Apple focusing on school knowledge,
have argued
that knowledge and skills leading to social power and regard
(medical, legal, managerial) are made available to the
advantaged social groups but
are withheld from the working classes to whom a more
"practical" curriculum is offered (manual skills, clerical
knowledge). While there has
been considerable argumentation of these points regarding
education in England, France, and North America, there has
been little or no attempt
to investigate these ideas empirically in elementary or
secondary schools and classrooms in this country.3
This article offers tentative empirical support (and
qualification) of the above arguments by providing illustrative
examples of differences in
student work in classrooms in contrasting social class
communities. The examples were gathered as part of an
ethnographical4 study of
curricular, pedagogical, and pupil evaluation practices in five
elementary schools. The article attempts a theoretical
contribution as well and
assesses student work in the light of a theoretical approach to

social-class analysis.. . It will be suggested that there is a
"hidden curriculum" in
schoolwork that has profound implications for the theory - and
consequence - of everyday activity in education....
The Sample of Schools
... The social-class designation of each of the five schools will
be identified, and the income, occupation, and other relevant
available social
characteristics of the students and their parents will be
described. The first three schools are in a medium-sized city
district in northern New
Jersey, and the other two are in a nearby New Jersey suburb.
The first two schools I will call working class schools. Most of
the parents have blue-collar jobs. Less than a third of the
fathers are skilled,
while the majority are in unskilled or semiskilled jobs. During
the period of the study (1978-1979), approximately 15 percent
of the fathers were
unemployed. The large majority (85 percent) of the families are
white. The following occupations are typical: platform,
storeroom, and
stockroom workers; foundry-men, pipe welders, and
boilermakers; semiskilled and unskilled assembly-line
operatives; gas station attendants,
auto mechanics, maintenance workers, and security guards. Less
than 30 percent of the women work, some part-time and some
full-time, on
assembly lines, in storerooms and stockrooms, as waitresses,
barmaids, or sales clerks. Of the fifth-grade parents, none of the
wives of the skilled

workers had jobs. Approximately 15 percent of the families in
each school are at or below the federal "poverty" level;5 most
of the rest of the
family incomes are at or below $12,000, except some of the
skilled workers whose incomes are higher. The incomes of the
majority of the
families in these two schools (at or below $12,000) are typical
of 38.6 percent of the families in the United States.6
The third school is called the middle-class school, although
because of 5 neighborhood residence patterns, the population is
a mixture of several
social classes. The parents' occupations can he divided into
three groups: a small group of blue-collar "rich," who are
skilled, well-paid workers
such as printers, carpenters, plumbers, and construction
workers. The second group is composed of parents in working-
class and middle-class
white-collar jobs: women in office jobs, technicians,
supervisors in industry, and parents employed by the city (such
as firemen, policemen, and
several of the school's teachers). The third group is composed
of occupations such as personnel directors in local firms,
accountants, "middle
management," and a few small capitalists (owners of shops in
the area). The children of several local doctors attend this
school. Most family
incomes are between $13,000 and $25,000, with a few higher.
This income range is typical of 38.9 percent of the families in
the United States.7
The fourth school has a parent population that is at the upper
income level of the upper middle class and is predominantly
professional. This
school will be called the affluent professional school. Typical
jobs are: cardiologist, interior designer, corporate lawyer or

engineer, executive in
advertising or television. There are some families who are not
as affluent as the majority (the family of the superintendent of
the district's
schools, and the one or two families in which the fathers are
skilled workers). In addition, a few of the families are more
affluent than the
majority and can be classified in the capitalist class (a partner
in a prestigious Wall Street stock brokerage firm).
Approximately 90 percent of the
children in this school are white. Most family incomes are
between $40,000 and $80,000. This income span represents
approximately 7 percent
of the families in the United States.8
In the fifth school the majority of the families belong to the
capitalist class. This school will be called the executive elite
school because most of
the fathers are top executives (for example, presidents and vice-
presidents) in major United States-based multinational
corporations - for
example, AT&T, RCA, Citibank, American Express, U.S. Steel.
A sizable group of fathers are top executives in financial firms
in Wall Street.
There are also a number of fathers who list their occupations as
"general counsel" to a particular corporation, and these
corporations are also
among the large multi-nationals. Many of the mothers do
volunteer work in the Junior League, Junior Fortnightly, or
other service groups; some
are intricately involved in town politics; and some are
themselves in well-paid occupations. There are no minority
children in the school. Almost

all the family incomes are over $100,000 with some in the
$500,000 range. The incomes in this school represent less than
1 percent of the
families in the United States.9
Since each of the five schools is only one instance of
elementary education in a particular social class context, I will
not generalize beyond the
sample. However, the examples of schoolwork which follow
will suggest characteristics of education in each social setting
that appear to have
theoretical and social significance and to be worth investigation
in a larger number of schools.
The Working Class Schools
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 significance. Available
textbooks are not always
used, and the teachers often prepare their own dittos or put
work examples on the board. Most of the rules regarding work
are 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 are often
written on the board.
The children are usually told to copy the steps as notes. These
notes are to be studied. Work is often evaluated not according
to whether it is
right or wrong but according to whether the children followed

the right steps.
The following examples illustrate these points. In math, when
two-digit division was introduced, the teacher in one school
gave a four-minute
lecture on what the terms are called (which number is the
divisor, dividend, quotient, and remainder). The children were
told to copy these
names in their notebooks. Then the teacher told them the steps
to follow to do the problems, saying, "This is how you do
them." The teacher
listed the steps on the board, and they appeared several days
later as a chart hung in the middle of the front wall: "Divide,
Multiply, Subtract,
Bring Down." The children often did examples of two-digit
division. When the teacher went over the examples with them,
he told them what
the procedure was for each problem, rarely asking them to
conceptualize or explain it themselves: "Three into twenty-two
is seven; do your
subtraction and one is left over." During the week that two-digit
division was introduced (or at any other time), the investigator
did not observe
any discussion of the idea of grouping involved in division, any
use of manipulables, or any attempt to relate two-digit division
to any other
mathematical process. Nor was there any attempt to relate the
steps to an actual or possible thought process of the children.
The observer did not
hear the terms dividend, quotient, and so on, used again. The
math teacher in the other working-class school followed similar
procedures
regarding two-digit division and at one point her class seemed
confused. She said, "You're confusing yourselves. You're
tensing up. Remember,
when you do this, it's the same steps over and over again--and

that's the way division always is." Several weeks later, after a
test, a group of her
children "still didn't get it," and she made no attempt to explain
the concept of dividing things into groups or to give them
manipulables for their
own investigation. Rather, she went over the steps with them
again and told them that they "needed more practice."
In other areas of math, work is also carrying out often
unexplained fragmented procedures. For example, one of the
teachers led the children
through a series of steps to make a 1-inch grid on their paper
without telling them that they were making a 1-inch grid or that
it would be used to
study scale. She said, "Take 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..." At this point a girl said that she had a
faster way to do it
and the teacher said, "No, you don't; you don't even know what
I'm making yet. Do it this way or it's wrong." After they had
made the lines up
and down and across, the teacher told them she wanted them to
make a figure by connecting some dots and to measure that,
using the scale of 1
inch equals 1 mile. Then they were to cut it out. She said,
"Don't cut it until I check it."
In both working-class schools, work in language arts is
mechanics of punctuation (commas, periods, question marks,
exclamation points),
capitalization, and the four kinds of sentences. One teacher

explained to me, "Simple punctuation is all they'll ever use."
Regarding punctuation,
either a teacher or a ditto stated the rules for where, for
example, to put commas. The investigator heard no classroom
discussion of the aural
context of punctuation (which, of course, is what gives each
mark its meaning). Nor did the investigator hear any statement
or inference that
placing a punctuation mark could be a decision-making process,
depending, for example, on one's intended meaning. Rather, the
children were
told to follow the rules. Language arts did not involve creative
writing. There were several writing assignments throughout the
year but in each
instance the children were given a ditto, and they wrote answers
to questions on the sheet. For example, they wrote their
"autobiography" by
answering such questions as "Where were you born?" "What is
your favorite animal?" on a sheet entitled "All About Me."
In one of the working-class schools, the class had a science
period several times a week. On the three occasions observed,
the children were not
called upon to set up experiments or to give explanations for
facts or concepts. Rather, on each occasion the teacher told
them in his own words
what the book said. The children copied the teacher's sentences
from the board. Each day that preceded the day they were to do
a science
experiment, the teacher told them to copy the directions from
the book for the procedure they would carry out the next day
and to study the list
at home that night. The day after each experiment, the teacher
went over what they had "found" (they did the experiments as a
class, and each
was actually a class demonstration led by the teacher). Then the

teacher wrote what they "found" on the board, and the children
copied that in
their notebooks. Once or twice a year there are science projects.
The project is chosen and assigned by the teacher from a box of
3-by-5-inch
cards. On the card the teacher has written the question to he
answered, the books to use, and how much to write. Explaining
the cards to the
observer, the teacher said, "It tells them exactly what to do, or
they couldn't do it."
Social studies in the working-class schools is also largely
mechanical, rote work that was given little explanation or
connection to larger
contexts. In one school, for example, although there was a book
available, social studies work was to copy the teacher's notes
from the board.
Several times a week for a period of several months the children
copied these notes. The fifth grades in the district were to study
United States
history. The teacher used a booklet she had purchased called
"The Fabulous Fifty States." Each day she put information from
the booklet in
outline form on the board and the children copied it. The type of
information did not vary: the name of the state, its abbreviation,
state capital,
nickname of the state, its main products, main business, and a
"Fabulous Fact" ("Idaho grew twenty-seven billion potatoes in
one year. That's
enough potatoes for each man, woman, and...") As the children
finished copying the sentences, the teacher erased them and
wrote more.
Children would occasionally go to the front to pull down the
wall map in order to locate the states they were copying, and the
teacher did not
dissuade them. But the observer never saw her refer to the map;

nor did the observer ever hear her make other than perfunctory
remarks
concerning the information the children were copying.
Occasionally the children colored in a ditto and cut it out to
make a stand-up figure
(representing, for example, a man roping a cow in the
Southwest). These were referred to by the teacher as their social
studies "projects."
Rote behavior was often called for in classroom work. When
going over 15 math and language art skills sheets, for example,
as the teacher
asked for the answer to each problem, he fired the questions
rapidly, staccato, and the scene reminded the observer of a
sergeant drilling recruits:
above all, the questions demanded that you stay at attention:
"The next one? What do I put here?. . . Here? Give us the next."
Or "How many
commas in this sentence? Where do I put them . . . The next
one?"
The four fifth grade teachers observed in the working-class
schools attempted to control classroom time and space by
making decisions without
consulting the children and without explaining the basis for
their decisions. The teacher's control thus often seemed
capricious. Teachers, for
instance, very often ignored the bells to switch classes -
deciding among themselves to keep the children after the period
was officially over to
continue with the work or for disciplinary reasons or so they
(the teachers) could stand in the hall and talk. There were no
clocks in the rooms in

either school, and the children often asked, "What period is
this?" "When do we go to gym?" The children had no access to
materials. These
were handed out by teachers and closely guarded. Things in the
room "belonged" to the teacher: "Bob, bring me my garbage
can." The teachers
continually gave the children orders. Only three times did the
investigator hear a teacher in either working-class school
preface a directive with
an unsarcastic "please," or "let's" or "would you." Instead, the
teachers said, "Shut up," "Shut your mouth," "Open your
books," "Throw your
gum away-if you want to rot your teeth, do it on your own
time." Teachers made every effort to control the movement of
the children, and often
shouted, "'Why are you out of your seat??!!" If the children got
permission to leave the room, they had to take a written pass
with the date and
time....
Middle-Class School
In the middle-class school, work is getting the right answer. If
one accumulates enough right answers, one gets a good grade.
One must follow
the directions in order to get the right answers, but the
directions often call for some figuring, some choice, some
decision making. For example,
the children must often figure out by themselves what the
directions ask them to do and how to get the answer: what do
you do first, second, and
perhaps third? Answers are usually found in books or by
listening to the teacher. Answers are usually words, sentences,
numbers, or facts and
dates; one writes them on paper, and one should be neat.

Answers must be given in the right order, and one cannot make
them up.
The following activities are illustrative. Math involves some
choice: one may do two-digit division the long way or the short
way, and there are
some math problems that can be done "in your head." When the
teacher explains how to do two-digit division, there is
recognition that a
cognitive process is involved; she gives you several ways and
says, "I want to make sure you understand what you're doing-so
you get it right";
and, when they go over the homework, she asks the children to
tell how they did the problem and what answer they got.
In social studies the daily work is to read the assigned pages in
the textbook and to answer the teacher's questions. The
questions are almost
always designed to check on whether the students have read the
assignment and understood it: who did so-and-so; what
happened after that;
when did it happen, where, and sometimes, why did it happen?
The answers are in the book and in one's understanding of the
book; the
teacher's hints when one doesn't know the answers are to "read
it again" or to look at the picture or at the rest of the paragraph.
One is to search
for the answer in the "context," in what is given.
Language arts is "simple grammar, what they need for everyday
life." The language arts teacher says, "They should learn to
speak properly, to
write business letters and thank-you letters, and to understand
what nouns and verbs and simple subjects are." Here, as well,
actual work is to
choose the right answers, to understand what is given. The

teacher often says, "Please read the next sentence and then I'll
question you about it."
One teacher said in some exasperation to a boy who was fooling
around in class, "If you don't know the answers to the questions
I ask, then you
can't stay in this class! [pause] You never know the answers to
the questions I ask, and it's not fair to me-and certainly not to
you!"
Most lessons are based on the textbook. This does not involve a
critical perspective on what is given there. For example, a
critical perspective in
social studies is perceived as dangerous by these teachers
because it may lead to controversial topics; the parents might
complain. The children,
however, are often curious especially in social studies. Their
questions are tolerated and usually answered perfunctorily. But
after a few minutes
the teacher will say, "All right, we're not going any farther.
Please open your social studies workbook." While the teachers
spend a lot of time
explaining and expanding on what the textbooks say, there is
little attempt to analyze how or why things happen, or to give
thought to how
pieces of a culture, or, say, a system of numbers or elements of
a language fit together or can be analyzed. What has happened
in the past and
what exists now may not be equitable or fair, but (shrug) that is
the way things are and one does not confront such matters in
school. For
example, in social studies after a child is called on to read a
passage about the pilgrims, the teacher summarizes the
paragraph and then says, "So

you can see how strict they were about everything." A child
asks, "Why?" "Well, because they felt that if you weren't busy
you'd get into
trouble." Another child asks, "Is it true that they burned women
at the stake?" The teacher says, "Yes, if a woman did anything
strange, they
hanged them. [sic] What would a woman do, do you think, to
make them burn them? [sic] See if you can come up with better
answers than my
other [social studies] class." Several children offer suggestions,
to which the teacher nods but does not comment. Then she says,
"Okay, good,"
and calls on the next child to read.
Work tasks do not usually request creativity. Serious attention
is rarely given in school work on 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 is requested, it
is peripheral to the
main activity or it is "enriched" or "for fun." During a lesson on
what similes are, for example, the teacher explains what they
are, puts several
on the board, gives some other examples herself, and then asks
the children if they can "make some up." She calls on three
children who give
similes, two of which are actually in the book they have open
before them. The teacher does not comment on this and then
asks several others to
choose similes from the list of phrases in the book. Several do
so correctly, and she says, "Oh good! You're picking them out!
See how good we
are?" Their homework is to pick out the rest of the similes from
the list.
Creativity is not often requested in social studies and science

projects, either. Social studies projects, for example, are given
with directions to
"find information on your topic" and write it up. The children
are not supposed to copy but to "put it in your own words."
Although a number
of the projects subsequently went beyond the teacher's direction
to find information and had quite expressive covers and inside
illustrations, the
teacher's evaluative comments had to do with the amount of
information, whether they had "copied," and if their work was
neat.
The style of control of the three fifth-grade teachers observed in
this school varied from somewhat easygoing to strict, but in
contrast to the
working-class schools, the teachers' 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 honor the
bells for changing classes, and they usually evaluate children's
work by what is in
the textbooks and answer booklets.
There is little excitement in schoolwork for the children, and
the assignments are perceived as having little to do with their
interests and feelings.
As one child said, what you do is "store facts up in your head
like cold storage - until you need it later for a test or your job."
Thus, doing well is
important because there are thought to be other likely rewards:
a good job or college.10

Affluent Professional School
In the affluent professional school, work is creative activity
carried out independently. The students are continually asked to
express and apply
ideas and concepts. Work involves individual thought and
expressiveness, expansion and illustration of ideas, and choice
of appropriate method
and material. (The class is not considered an open classroom,
and the principal explained that because of the large number of
discipline problems
in the fifth grade this year they did not departmentalize. The
teacher who agreed to take part in the study said she is "more
structured this year
than she usually is.) The products of work in this class are often
written stories, editorials and essays, or representations of ideas
in mural, graph,
or craft form. The products of work should not be like anybody
else's and should show individuality. They should exhibit good
design, and (this
is important) they must also fit empirical reality. The relatively
few rules to be followed regarding work are usually criteria for,
or limits on,
individual activity. One's product is usually evaluated for the
quality of its expression and for the appropriateness of its
conception to the task. In
many cases, one's own satisfaction with the product is an
important criterion for its evaluation. When right answers are
called for, as in
commercial materials like SRA (Science Research Associates)
and math, it is important that the children decide on an answer
as a result of
thinking about the idea involved in what they're being asked to
do. Teacher's hints are to "think about it some more."
The following activities are illustrative. The class takes home a

sheet requesting each child's parents to fill in the number of
cars they have, the
number of television sets, refrigerators, games, or rooms in the
house, and so on. Each child is to figure the average number of
a type of
possession owned by the fifth grade. Each child must compile
the "data" from all the sheets. A calculator is available in the
classroom to do the
mechanics of finding the average. Some children decide to send
sheets to the fourth-grade families for comparison. Their work
should be
"verified" by a classmate before it is handed in.
Each child and his or her family has made a geoboard. The
teacher asks 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 says, "I would like you to design a figure and then
find the perimeter
and area. When you have it, check with your neighbor. After
you've done that, please transfer it to graph paper and tomorrow
I'll 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 verified it. Then I have
something else
for you to do that's really fun. [pause] Find the average number
of chocolate chips in three cookies. I'll give you three cookies,
and you'll have to
eat your way through, I'm afraid!" Then she goes around the
room and gives help, suggestions, praise, and admonitions that
they are getting
noisy. They work sitting, or standing up at their desks, at
benches in the back, or on the floor. A child hands the teacher
his paper and she
comments, "I'm not accepting this paper. Do a better design."
To another child she says, "That's fantastic! But you'll never

find the area. Why
don't you draw a figure inside [the big one] and subtract to get
the area?"
The school district requires the fifth grade to study ancient
civilization (in particular, Egypt, Athens, and Sumer). In this
classroom, the emphasis
is on illustrating and re-creating the culture of the people of
ancient times. The following are typical activities: the children
made an 8mm film on
Egypt, which one of the parents edited. A girl in the class wrote
the script, and the class acted it out. They put the sound on
themselves. They
read stories of those days. They wrote essays and stories
depicting the lives of the people and the societal and
occupational divisions. They
chose from a list of projects, all of which involved graphical
presentations of ideas: for example. "Make a mural depicting
the division of labor in
Egyptian society."
Each wrote and exchanged a letter in hieroglyphics with a fifth
grader in another class, and they also exchanged stories they
wrote in cuneiform.
They made a scroll and singed the edges so it looked authentic.
They each chose an occupation and made an Egyptian plaque
representing that
occupation, simulating the appropriate Egyptian design. They
carved their design on a cylinder of wax, pressed the wax into
clay, and then
baked the clay. Although one girl did not choose an occupation
but carved instead a series of gods and slaves, the teacher said,
"That's all right,

Amber, it's beautiful." As they were working the teacher said,
"Don't cut into your clay until you're satisfied with your
design."
Social studies also involves almost daily presentation by the
children of some event from the news. The teacher's questions
ask the children to
expand what they say, to give more details, and to be more
specific. Occasionally she adds some remarks to help them see
connections between
events.
The emphasis on expressing and illustrating ideas in social
studies is accompanied in language arts by an emphasis on
creative writing. Each
child wrote a rebus story for a first grader whom they had
interviewed to see what kind of story the child liked best. They
wrote editorials on
pending decisions by the school board and radio plays, some of
which were read over the school intercom from the office and
one of which was
performed in the auditorium. There is no language arts textbook
because, the teacher said, "The principal wants us to be
creative." There is not
much grammar, but there is punctuation. One morning when the
observer arrived, the class was doing a punctuation ditto. The
teacher later
apologized for using the ditto. "It's just for review," she said. "I
don't teach punctuation that way. We use their language." The
ditto had three
unambiguous rules for where to put commas in a sentence. As
the teacher was going around to help the children with the ditto,
she repeated
several times, "where you put commas depends on how you say
the sentence; it depends on the situation and what you want to
say. Several

weeks later the observer saw another punctuation activity. The
teacher had printed a five-paragraph story on an oak tag and
then cut it into
phrases. She read the whole story to the class from the book,
then passed out the phrases. The group had to decide how the
phrases could best
be put together again. (They arranged the phrases on the floor.)
The point was not to replicate the story, although that was not
irrelevant, but to
"decide what you think the best way is." Punctuation marks on
cardboard pieces were then handed out, and the children
discussed and then
decided what mark was best at each place they thought one was
needed. At the end of each paragraph the teacher asked, "Are
you satisfied with
the way the paragraphs are now? Read it to yourself and see
how it sounds." Then she read the original story again, and they
compared the two.
Describing her goals in science to the investigator, the teacher
said, "We use ESS (Elementary Science Study). It's very good
because it gives a
hands-on experience--so they can make sense out of it. It
doesn't matter whether it [what they find] is right or wrong. I
bring them together and
there's value in discussing their ideas."
The products of work in this class are often highly valued by
the children and the teacher. In fact, this was the only school in
which the
investigator was not allowed to take original pieces of the
children's work for her files. If the work was small enough,
however, and was on
paper, the investigator could duplicate it on the copying
machine in the office.

The teacher's attempt to control the class involves constant
negotiation. She does not give direct orders unless she is angry
because the children
have been too noisy. Normally, she tries to get them to foresee
the consequences of their actions and to decide accordingly. For
example, lining
them up to go see a play written by the sixth graders, she says,
"I presume you're lined up by someone with whom you want to
sit. I hope you're
lined up by someone you won't get in trouble with."...
One of the few rules governing the children's movement is that
no more than three children may be out of the room at once.
There is a school
rule that anyone can go to the library at any time to get a book.
In the fifth grade I observed, they sign their name on the
chalkboard and leave.
There are no passes. Finally, the children have a fair amount of
officially sanctioned say over what happens in the class. For
example, they often
negotiate what work is to be done. If the teacher wants to move
on to the next subject, but the children say they are not ready,
they want to work
on their present projects some more, she very often lets them do
it.
Executive Elite School
In the executive elite school, work is developing one's
analytical intellectual powers. Children are continually asked to
reason through a
problem, to produce intellectual products that are both logically

sound and of top academic quality. A primary goal of thought is
to conceptualize
rules by which elements may fit together in systems and then to
apply these rules in solving a problem. Schoolwork helps one to
achieve, to
excel, to prepare for life.
The following are illustrative. The math teacher teaches area
and perimeter by having the children derive formulas for each.
First she helps them,
through discussion at the board, to arrive at A = W X L as a
formula (not the formula) for area. After discussing several, she
says, "Can anyone
make up a formula for perimeter? Can you figure that out
yourselves? [pause] Knowing what we know, can we think of a
formula?" She works
out three children's suggestions at the board, saying to two,
"Yes, that's a good one," and then asks the class if they can
think of any more. No
one volunteers. To prod them, she says, "If you use rules and
good reasoning, you get many ways. Chris, can you think up a
formula?"
She discusses two-digit division with the children as a decision-
making process. Presenting a new type of problem to them, she
asks, "What's
the first decision you'd make if presented with this kind of
example? What is the first thing you'd think? Craig?" Craig
says, "To find my first
partial quotient." She responds, "Yes, that would be your first
decision. How would you do that?" Craig explains, and then the
teacher says,
"OK, we'll see how that works for you." The class tries his way.
Subsequently, she comments on the merits and shortcomings of
several other
children's decisions. Later, she tells the investigator that her

goals in math are to develop their reasoning and mathematical
thinking and that,
unfortunately, "there's no time for manipulables."
While right answers are important in math, they are not "given"
by the book or by the teacher but may be challenged by the
children. Going
over some problems in late September the teacher says, "Raise
your hand if you do not agree." A child says, "I don't agree with
sixty-four." The
teacher responds, "OK, there's a question about sixty-four. [to
class] Please check it. Owen, they're disagreeing with you.
Kristen, they're
checking yours." The teacher emphasized this repeatedly during
September and October with statements like "Don't be afraid to
say you
disagree. In the last [math] class, somebody disagreed, and they
were right. Before you disagree, check yours, and if you still
think we're wrong,
then we'll check it out." By Thanksgiving, the children did not
often speak in terms of right and wrong math problems but of
whether they
agreed with the answer that had been given.
There are complicated math mimeos with many word problems.
Whenever they go over the examples, they discuss how each
child has set up
the problem. The children must explain it precisely. On one
occasion the teacher said, "I'm more--just as interested in how
you set up the
problem as in what answer you find. If you set up a problem in
a good way, the answer is easy to find.
Social studies work is most often reading and discussion of

concepts and independent research. There are only occasional
artistic, expressive, or
illustrative projects. Ancient Athens and Sumer are, rather,
societies to analyze. The following questions are typical of
those that guide the
children's independent research. "What mistakes did Pericles
make after the war?" "What mistakes did the citizens of Athens
make?" "What are
the elements of a civilization?" "How did Greece build an
economic empire?" "Compare the way Athens chose its leaders
with the way we
choose ours." Occasionally the children are asked to make up
sample questions for their social studies tests. On an occasion
when the
investigator was present, the social studies teacher rejected a
child's question by saying, "That's just fact. If I asked you that
question on a test,
you'd complain it was just memory! Good questions ask for
concepts."
In social studies--but also in reading, science, and health--the
teachers initiate classroom discussions of current social issues
and problems. These
discussions occurred on every one of the investigator's visits,
and a teacher told me, "These children's opinions are important
- it's important that
they learn to reason things through." The classroom discussions
always struck the observer as quite realistic and analytical,
dealing with concrete
social issues like the following: "Why do workers strike?" "Is
that right or wrong?" "Why do we have inflation, and what can
be done to stop
it?" "Why do companies put chemicals in food when the natural
ingredients are available?" and so on. Usually the children did
not have to be
prodded to give their opinions. In fact, their statements and the

interchanges between them struck the observer as quite
sophisticated
conceptually and verbally, and well-informed. Occasionally the
teachers would prod with statements such as, "Even if you don't
know [the
answers], if you think logically about it, you can figure it out."
And "I'm asking you [these] questions to help you think this
through."
Language arts emphasizes language as a complex system, one
that should be mastered. The children are asked to diagram
sentences of complex
grammatical construction, to memorize irregular verb
conjugations (he lay, he has lain, and so on ...), and to use the
proper participles,
conjunctions, and interjections in their speech. The teacher (the
same one who teaches social studies) told them, "It is not
enough to get these
right on tests; you must use what you learn [in grammar classes]
in your written and oral work. I will grade you on that."
Most writing assignments are either research reports and essays
for social studies or experiment analyses and write-ups for
science. There is only
an occasional story or other "creative writing" assignment. On
the occasion observed by the investigator (the writing of a
Halloween story), the
points the teacher stressed in preparing the children to write
involved the structural aspects of a story rather than the
expression of feelings or
other ideas. The teacher showed them a filmstrip, "The Seven
Parts of a Story," and lectured them on plot development, mood
setting, character
development, consistency, and the use of a logical or
appropriate ending. The stories they subsequently wrote were,
in fact, well-structured, but

many were also personal and expressive. The teacher's
evaluative comments, however, did not refer to the
expressiveness or artistry but were all
directed toward whether they had "developed" the story well.
Language arts work also involved a large amount of practice in
presentation of the self and in managing situations where the
child was expected
to be in charge. For example, there was a series of assignments
in which each child had to be a "student teacher." The child had
to plan a lesson
in grammar, outlining, punctuation, or other language arts topic
and explain the concept to the class. Each child was to prepare a
worksheet or
game and a homework assignment as well. After each
presentation, the teacher and other children gave a critical
appraisal of the "student
teacher's" performance. Their criteria were: whether the student
spoke clearly, whether the lesson was interesting, whether the
student made any
mistakes, and whether he or she kept control of the class. On an
occasion when a child did not maintain control, the teacher said,
"When you're
up there, you have authority and you have to use it. I'll back
you up."
The executive elite school is the only school where bells do not
demarcate the periods of time. The two fifth-grade teachers
were very strict
about changing classes on schedule, however, as specific plans
for each session had been made. The teachers attempted to keep
tight control
over the children during lessons, and the children were

sometimes flippant, boisterous, and occasionally rude. However,
the children may be
brought into line by reminding them that "It is up to you." "You
must control yourself," "you are responsible for your work,"
you must "set your
own priorities." One teacher told a child, "You are the only
driver of your car-and only you can regulate your speed." A new
teacher
complained to the observer that she had thought "these
children" would have more control.
While strict attention to the lesson at hand is required, the
teachers make relatively little attempt to regulate the movement
of the children at other
times. For example, except for the kindergartners the children in
this school do not have to wait for the bell to ring in the
morning; they may go
to their classroom when they arrive at school. Fifth graders
often came early to read, to finish work, or to catch up. After
the first two months of
school, the fifth-grade teachers did not line the children up to
change classes or to go to gym, and so on, but, when the
children were ready and
quiet, they were told they could go--sometimes without the
teachers.
In the classroom, the children could get materials when they
needed them and took what they needed from closets and from
the teacher's desk.
They were in charge of the office at lunchtime. During class
they did not have to sign out or ask permission to leave the
room; they just got up
and left. Because of the pressure to get work done, however,
they did not leave the room very often. The teachers were very
polite to the
children, and the investigator heard no sarcasm, no nasty

remarks, and few direct orders. The teachers never called the
children "honey" or
"dear" but always called them by name. The teachers were
expected to be available before school, after school, and for part
of their lunchtime to
provide extra help if needed.
The foregoing analysis of differences in schoolwork in
contrasting social class contexts suggests the following
conclusion: the "hidden
curriculum" of schoolwork is tacit preparation for relating to
the process of production in a particular way. Differing
curricular, pedagogical, and
pupil evaluation practices emphasize different cognitive and
behavioral skills in each social setting and thus contribute to the
development in the
children of certain potential relationships to physical and
symbolic capital,11 to authority, and to the process of work.
School experience, in the
sample of schools discussed here, differed qualitatively by
social class. 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 of relations in society. In the contribution to the
reproduction of unequal social relations lies a theoretical
meaning and social
consequence of classroom practice.
The identification of different emphases in classrooms in a
sample of contrasting social class contexts implies that further
research should be
conducted in a large number of schools to investigate the types
of work tasks and interactions in each to see if they differ in the

ways discussed
here and to see if similar potential relationships are uncovered.
Such research could have as a product the further elucidation of
complex but not
readily apparent connections between everyday activity in
schools and classrooms and the unequal structure of economic
relationships in which
we work and live.
NOTES
1. S. Bowles and H. Gintes, Schooling in Capitalist America:
Educational Reform and the Contradictions of Economic Life
(New York: Basic
Books, 1976). [Author's note]
2. B. Bernstein, Class, Codes and Control, Vol. 3. Towards a
Theory of Educational Transmission, 2d ed. (London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977); P. Bourdieu and J. Passeron,
Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture
(Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1977); M.W. Apple, Ideology and
Curriculum (Boston: Routledge Kegan Paul, 1979).
[Author's note]
3. But see, in a related vein, M.W. Apple and N. King, "What
Do Schools Teach?"Curriculum Inquiry 6 (1977); 341-
58; R.C. Rist, The Urban School: A Factory for Failure
(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1973). [Author's note]

4. ethnographical: Based on an anthropological study of cultures
or subcultures-the "cultures" in this case being the
five schools being observed.
5. The U.S. Bureau of the Census defines poverty for a nonfarm
family of four as a yearly income of $6,191 a year or
less. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the
United States: 1978 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government
Printing Office, 1978), p. 465 ,table 754. [Author's note]
6. U.S. Bureau of the Census, "Money Income in 1977 of
Families and Persons in the United States," Current
Population Reports Series P-60, no. 118 (Washington, D.C.:
U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978), p. 2 ,table A.
[Author's note]
7. Ibid. [Author's note]
8. This figure is an estimate. According to the Bureau of the
Census, only 2.6 percent of families in the United States
have money income of $50,000 or over. U.S. Bureau of the
Census, Current Population Reports Series P-60. For
figures on income at these higher levels, see J.D. Smith and S.
Franklin, "The Concentration of Personal Wealth,
1922-1969," American Economic Review 64 (1974): 162-67.
[Author's note]
9. Smith and Franklin, "The Concentration of Personal Wealth."

[Author's note]
10. A dominant feeling expressed directly and indirectly by
teachers in this school, was boredom with their work.
They did, however, in contrast to the working-class schools,
almost always carry out lessons during class times.
[Author's note]
11. physical and symbolic capital: Elsewhere Anyon defines
capital as "property that is used to produce profit,
interest, or rent": she defines symbolic capital as the knowledge
and skills that "may yield social and cultural power."

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