Privileging Class: Toward a Critical Psychology of Social Class in the Context of Education

• Published in: Journal of social issues Vol. 59; no. 4; pp. 677 - 692
• Main Authors: Ostrove, Joan M., Cole, Elizabeth R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 350 Main Street , Malden , MA 02148 , USA , and 9600 Garsington Road , Oxford OX4 2DQ , UK Blackwell Publishing 01.12.2003; Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• Subjects: Class; Class relations; Education; Gender; Psychology; Race; Sex; Social Class; Social classes; Social organization; Social psychology; Social stratification
• ISSN: 0022-4537; 1540-4560
• DOI: 10.1046/j.0022-4537.2003.00084.x

This issue of the Journal of Social Issues explores psychological meanings of social class in the context of education. In this article we propose an outline for a critical psychology of social class and discuss why education is a useful context for examining relations between class and individual psychology. We consider how research and theory in the study of race and gender can and cannot inform a psychology of social class. We introduce three themes that organize the issue and the articles that illustrate them. The articles in this issue address all levels of education, include data from within and outside of the United States, and investigate perspectives of individuals from a range of social class groups. “What I remember most about school was that if you were poor you got no respect and no encouragement. I mean if you didn't have cute ringlets, an ironed new uniform, starched shirts, and a mother and father who gave money to the church, you weren't a teacher's pet and that meant you weren't encouraged.”    —a working‐class woman respondent interviewed in Luttrell, 1993 Class differences were boundaries no one wanted to face or talk about. It was easier to downplay them, to act as though we were all from privileged backgrounds, to work around them, to confront them privately in the solitude of one's room, or to pretend that just being chosen to study at such an institution meant that those of us who did not come from such privilege were already in transition toward privilege … . It was a kind of treason not to believe that it was better to be identified with the world of material privilege than with the world of the working class, the poor.             —hooks, 1989