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Taken from an anthology
Source: Rereading America
Editors: Gary Colombo, Robert Cullen, and Bonnie Lisle
Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's
City: Boston/New York
Year: 2005

Jean Anyon: From Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work

Page 195

Scholars in political economy and the sociology of howledge 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 Gintis' 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,2 focusing
on school howledge, have argued that howledge and skills leading
to social power and regard (medical, legal managerial) are made a d -
able to the advantaged social groups but are withheld from the worldng
classes, to whom a more "practical" cumculum 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 cou~try.~
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 cumcular, 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

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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;
foundrymen, pipe welders, and boilermakers; semiskilled and unskilled
assemblyline 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."
The third school is called the middle-class school, although because of
neighborhood residence patterns, the population is a mixture of several social
classes. The parents' occupations can be 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 ~ t a t e s . ~
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 afluent 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

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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
finn). 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?
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 State-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 on 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 multinationals.
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.'
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 vely
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 hoard. 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

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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 10
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 manipdables, 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 manipulable~
fo r 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 I-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 worldng-class schools, work in language arts is mechanics of
punctuation (commas, periods, question marks, exclamation points), capital-

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ization, and the four ldnds 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 be 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

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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
math and language arts sldlls 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 offcially 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
worldng-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-Clnss 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.

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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 he 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." 20
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

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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
bum 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 hut 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 fonn. On the occasions
when creativity or self-expression is requested, it is peripheral to the main
activity or it is "enrichment" or "for fun." During a lesson on what similes
are, for example, the teacher explains what they are, puts several on the
hoard, 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 picldng 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 hut 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, hut in contrast to the
working-class schools, the teachers' decisions were usually based on external
rules and regulations -for example, on criteria that were hown or
availahle to the children. Thus, the teachers always honor the hells 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 assign- 25
ments 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 yourjob." Thus, doing well is important
because there are thought to he other, likely rewards: a good job or
~ollege.'~

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Affluent Professional School
In the affluent professional school, work is creative activity canied 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 plincipal
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 evelybody else's and should show individuality.
They should exhibit good design, and (this is impoltant) they must
also fit empirical reality. Moreover, one's work should attempt to interpret
or "make sense" of reality. The relatively few rules to he 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 thinldng 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 availahle in the classroom to do the mechanics of
finding the average. Some children decide to send sheets to the fourthgrade
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 geohoard. The teacher asks
the class to get their geoboards from the side cabinet, to take a handful of
rubber hands, 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

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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 graphic representations of ideas: for example,
"Make a mural depicting the division of labor in Egyptian society."
Each child wrote and exchanged a letter in hieroglyphics with a fifth 30
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 worldng 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

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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 ~hraseso n 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 light 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. 35
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 yon 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 analyhcal 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.

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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 anive 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 how, can we think of a formula?" She works out
three children's suggestions at the hoard, 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 h d 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'U 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 thinldng 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 sq-four." The teacher responds,
"OK, there's a question about sq-four. [to class] Please check it.
Owen, they're disagreeing with you. Kristen, they're checking youn." 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 prohlem 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

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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 anal$cal, dealing with concrete social issues
like the following: 'Why do workers stlike?" "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
how [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 so- 45
cial 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, weu-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

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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 he 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 50
social-class contexts suggests the following conclusion: the "hidden cumculum"
of schoolwork is tacit preparation for relating to the process of produc-

ANYON SOCIAL CLASS 209

tion in a particular way. Differing curricular, pedagogical, and pupil evaluation
practices emphasize different cognitive and behavioral shlls in each social
setting and thus contrihute to the development in the children of certain
potential relationships to physical and symbolic capital," to authority,
and to the process of work. School experience, in the sample of schools discussed
here, differed qualitatively hy 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 he 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.