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VI. Theme-Based Activities Following are suggestions for activities that might help students learn how social class intersects with and affects just about everything in our "classless" society. CLASS AND CASH I always thought my whole life you work hard and you do ok. … I didn't realize that some people weren't working so hard and they still had tons of money. How the hell did that happen? Access to ready money at reasonable lending rates -- through checking accounts, ATM machines, credit cards, and charge accounts -- is one of the privileges often taken for granted by many families in the United States. Think about the benefits that come with credit cards, mortgages, and other forms of buying on time. Low-income communities, however, often play by a different set of financial rules. Paradoxically, in places where cash is scarce, people sometimes pay more to be poor. → GO TO Michele Soussou's lesson plan, Income Levels & Social Class: Is it all about cash? , which prompts students to convert class concepts into numbers/charts/statistics. → GO TO Supplementary Reading: "Where to Go When You're Broke," by Brendan I. Koerner, an article about a pawnshop and the folks who do their "banking" there. CLASS PROJECT: Ask students to imagine they need $2,000 to purchase a used car. Direct them to gather information about lending from a number of sources: from a bank, a check-cashing store, a pawnshop, a credit card company. What kind of collateral is required? What are the interest rates? What are the penalties for late payment? In small groups, students can compare the costs of borrowing from each of these sources.
CLASS AND THE AMERICAN DREAM If you're upper middle class you really are grasping opportunities, … rising through the world. And if you're part of the working class, you may stay at the same factory for thirty years or for your whole life or even for three generations. And that is a totally different mentality. In Facing Up to the American Dream: Race, Class, and the Soul of the Nation Princeton, 1995), Jennifer Hochschild presents four components of the dream:
DISCUSS: Do students agree/disagree with any or all of these beliefs? Why/why not? Do the characters in People Like Us convey the idea that the American dream is a reality for most people? Why/why not? RESEARCH/WRITE: Ask students to interview a family member, relative, or adult friend. Which class did that person grow up in? Did s/he move up in class? To what factors in life does s/he attribute his or her financial or professional success? Individual talent, drive, and persistence? Family connections? Education? A caring mentor? A wealthy spouse? Financial support -- for example, from the family or the government (such as the G.I Bill or a low-interest student loan)? Any combination of the above? Does s/he subscribe to the belief that "If I can do it, everybody can?" Why does s/he think so? Students can write up the interview as a journalistic profile or tape record it and summarize key points. A follow-up class discussion could center around the questions: Is success in fact "a result of individual characteristics?" In terms of success, are one's actions always under one's control? Or are there other, complicating factors? CLASS ACTIVITY: In pairs, students can interview each other about their expectations in life. What career do they aspire to? What do they need in terms of money, education, support, social connections, etc. to be successful in that career? What advantages do they already have or lack? What obstacles do they foresee to the fulfillment of their life goals? How can they overcome those obstacles?
CLASS AND HISTORY It's basically against the American principle to belong to a class. So naturally, Americans have a really hard time talking about the class system, because they really don't want to admit that the class system exists. Teachers may wish to use People Like Us as a springboard for studying class issues in American history. Here are two suggestions for group activities.
RESEARCH/WRITE: Ask students to examine the reasons Tocqueville found the United States to be so egalitarian. Prompt them to recall the class from which Tocqueville came and the social hierarchies in his native France, in Europe, and in Great Britain. Do they agree with Tocqueville's opinion? Why/why not? Did his observation extend to women, people of color, Jews, and immigrants? What would Tocqueville say if he came back to the United States today? [TEACHER'S NOTE: As his name suggests, Tocqueville was a French aristocrat who lived through the French Revolution. He knew that most European nations had rigid class boundaries: a citizen was either born upper class, bourgeois, or working class and that's the way s/he stayed, by and large. In the United States, Tocqueville found it remarkable that no one seemed to defer to anyone else in social relations. To his eye, social class on the new continent seemed to be based more on money than lineage. In comparison with the European system, the United States did in fact afford much more social mobility at the time.] → GO TO www.tocqueville.org for biographical information on the writer and excerpts from "Democracy in America." RESEARCH/WRITE: Compile resource materials on the history of the Titanic disaster. [There are numerous books about the Titanic in print, including many primary sources: transcripts of hearings, newspaper reports, survivors' accounts, and other narratives.] Ask students to explore the stratification of passengers and the facilities allotted to each. What were the criteria for loading people into the few lifeboats available? Ask students to compare statistics on who died, by passenger/ crew category/gender. [NOTE: When the great ship went down in 1912, 60 percent of the first class survived, 40 percent of the second, and only 25 percent of the third. In certain situations, women were given preference over men.] If everyone has seen the movie Titanic, students can discuss the ways in which it presented issues of social class.
CLASS AND THE MEDIA An old proverb says: "History is written by the winners." The history of our world is being written now, every day, in America's newspapers and magazines, in television news shows and entertainment programs. Who are the winners and who the losers in the daily creation of the historical record? Does class play a role? If so, how does it shape our view of the world? → GO TO Lesson Plan: William Munn's "Class in the Media: Writing a Television Show" focuses student attention on the way different classes are portrayed in print and in the electronic media. Also see "The Rise of the Educated Class," an excerpt from David Brook's Bobos In Paradise. See if Brook's analysis of the wedding announcements in The New York Times applies to your local newspaper. DISCUSS: Have students consider some popular TV shows through the prism of class. Which shows are (ostensibly) about upper, middle or working class characters? How can you tell what class backgrounds the characters are supposed to be from? What jobs do they hold? Are their lifestyles, possessions, and homes reflective of their class? What behaviors are ascribed to members of the different classes? Do characters mix with members of different classes and how are these interactions portrayed? Do the shows seem to promote the idea of the American Dream? Who do you think writes the programs and might the writers’ class backgrounds play a role in the presentation of class on TV? What effect do you think the presentation of class on TV has on our understanding of our own class identity? SUPPLEMENTARY READING: See Linda Holzman's Media Messages: What Film, Television, and Popular Music Teach Us About Race, Class, Gender, and Sexual Orientation, (M.E. Sharpe, 2000), an excellent resource that offers ideas for student projects. In particular, see Chapter 3, "Is the United States a Classless Society?" for a variety of student activities. GROUP PROJECT: Where do we get our ideas about class? Collect one week's worth of your local newspaper or newspapers. Divide students into small groups and give each group one or two editions to read, analyze, and compare. How many stories are about the upper class? Middle class? Poor? What kinds of stories are written about each category? Are the different classes treated differently? Who are the major advertisers in the newspaper? What items are being advertised? Do these items appeal to a particular class? To which class do students think the reporters mostly belong? Does a reporter's class affiliation (or race and gender and class) affect objectivity? If so, in what ways? [TEACHER'S NOTE: This activity can be adapted for local or national television news programs. Students can observe a variety of programs and analyze the class backgrounds/perspectives of the anchors, reporters, and pundits. Or, have students analyze TV advertisements for clues to how the product is marketed to a particular class -- or how the product projects an image of class -- high or low --that it promises to bestow on the consumer. ] SUPPLEMENTARY READING: Volunteer Slavery by Jill Nelson (Viking Penguin, 1994). Nelson was the first black woman to write for The Washington Post's Sunday magazine. Her autobiography gives a behind-the-scenes look at class and race bias in action in one of America's most prestigious newsrooms.
CLASS AND EDUCATION A generation ago, when you sent your kids to private school, it was because you didn’t like black people. And now when you send your kids to private school, it’s ‘cause you don’t like poor people. It’s all about class, it’s all about, "I want my kid to go to school with the right kinds of people so that he can get in to Harvard"...it’s all about class. Americans tend to believe that education is the great leveler of class, an idea that assumes that all Americans get an equal education. But the fact that most public schools are supported by local property taxes guarantees that wealthier communities will have better-financed schools. In reality, high-quality public schools remain, by and large, available primarily to children who live in wealthy communities, while those who live in poor districts are often literally short-changed. RESEARCH PROJECT: How do schools get and spend their funding? Divide students into two groups. Group 1 can devise a plan to research how their school is funded. Group 2 can research the same questions at a school (public or private) in a lower- or higher-class neighborhood or if possible, in another community. [Note: This could perhaps be a long-distance project, with students from a suburban school e-mailing students in an inner-city school for answers.] After research is completed, compare: What is the operating budget for each school? Where does the money come from? How much is spent on each student? How much is spent on technology and equipment? On teachers' salaries? On extra-curricular activities, like music and art? What are the main sources of revenue for each school? Is there a relationship between property taxes in the community and education? What is that relationship? →GO TO www.nea.org for education statistics: From the National Education Association Web site, teachers or students can download a free annual report of state-level education data, including sources of school revenue, teacher salaries, and per-capita expenditure for the year 2000.
CLASS AND GENDER Two segments of People Like Us point to the particular class-related
issues faced by single or divorced women with children in America. In the program,
two African-American mothers link their "low" status as single parents to their
exclusion from a high-class black club. Burger King employee Tammy Crabtree
struggles to support her four teenagers, apparently with minimal assistance
from their father. These women, and others throughout the country, confront
a hard statistic: that the median weekly pay of full-time working women is roughly
75 percent of men's median pay -- and that their children often suffer from
the difference. [Source: Equal Pay for Equal Work Is No. 1 Goal of Women
by Tamar Lewin, The New York Times, September 5, 1997.] CLASS PROJECT: What happens when class and gender intersect? Ask students to peruse the statistics on disparities of gender and income. Develop a chart that shows comparisons between the earnings of men and women and divorced men and divorced women. [Note: You can also do a similar exercise based on class and race or class and disability.]
WRITING: Review the Tammy Crabtree segment. Ask students to imagine they are Ms. Crabtree's social worker. Write an assessment of her abilities, her needs, her goals, and the obstacles she faces. Assess what kinds of services or assistance she requires to achieve her goal of raising her children and becoming a teacher. How can she get access to these services? →GO TO www.newyorktimes.com for related articles on women and income: A New York Times report by Louis Uchitelle, "Lacking Pensions, Older Divorced Women Remain at Work," (June 26, 2001) explores the problems facing women in their sixties who lost their nest egg when their husbands departed and must hang on to their jobs to maintain their household. (note: access to New York Times archives may involve additional charges) CLASS AND HOUSING I think we all lose something when we are all divided. I don't want to be stuck in an upper middle class ghetto with all my friends being the same sort of people…. I feel deprived to live in a society that is so segregated by class. Throughout the United States, urban communities increasingly face rising rents, over-development of luxury housing units, and under-development of subsidized housing for the poor and middle class. In many places, there is an increase in the rise of "gated communities" -- high-priced enclaves that are fenced off from surrounding neighborhoods and patrolled by private security guards. At the same time, the gap between the number of affordable housing units and the number of people who need them is currently the largest on record -- an estimated 5.4 million units [Source: www.nationalhomeless.org]. CLASS PROJECT: Ask students to research different neighborhoods in their community. They can start with the local newspaper ads for rentals and homes for sale. If possible, arrange for students to visit a variety of neighborhoods and report back: what kinds of housing and lot-sizes are available in each? Is there a "gated community" in your area? What are the bylaws of that neighborhood? What is the average price of a home there? What stores or restaurants are in each neighborhood? Are there banks or ATM machines in all areas? Have students compare the price of a staple item (milk, diapers) in stores in each neighborhood. Based on this research, ask students to create a community map. Who are the people who tend to live in the various neighborhoods? In general, what are their professions -- white collar? Blue collar? Working poor? What differences did students find in terms of costs, facilities, stores, banking outlets, and so forth? Finally: Are there people in your community who are homeless? Where are they sheltered? What is being done in the community to provide homes for low-income people? →GO TO www.nationalhomeless.org for related link to : A National Housing Trust Fund that the organization proposes. This fund would subsidize production of new housing and help preserve or rehabilitate existing housing that is affordable for low income people. →GO TO www.pbs.org/peoplelikeus/resources for related link: to PRIZM, a marketing data base that estimates your income and your personal characteristics and tastes based on where you live.
CLASS AND GOVERNMENT It is a commonly-held belief in our society that every baby born in the United States has the possibility of becoming President -- of literally rising to the top, regardless of his or her humble origins. Does an examination of the historical record support this idea? GROUP ACTIVITY: Compile autobiographical material about American Presidents in the 20th century. In small groups, ask students to examine the social backgrounds of the men who have held the nation's highest office. Analyze how many were born to families of wealth and privilege and how many rose up from the middle or lower classes. Each group should report its findings to the class and discuss whether class plays a role in the matter of electing our Chief Executive. →GO TO www.census.gov The official site of the U.S. Census Bureau contains reports, statistics, graphs, and other information about the distribution of wealth in the United States.
What Is Social Class? Determinants of Social Class [Adapted from: Coleman, James S. A Paradigm for the Study of Social Strata. 1965/6]
Variables of Social Class [Based on a model formulated by social scientist, Max Weber] a) Power - The degree to which a person can control other people. b) Wealth - Objects or symbols owned by human beings which have value attached to them. c) Prestige - The degree of respect, favorable regard or importance accorded to an individual by members of society.
Class Structure In The United States [Adapted from: Coleman, James S. A Paradigm for the Study of Social Strata. 1965/6]
Three Middle Classes
Two Lower Classes 2. Lower Lower - Socially and Economically Disadvantaged →GO TO http://www.abacon.com/sociology/soclinks/sclass.html, a Web site with links related to social class, poverty, and inequality.
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