Where in the World Does Anyon Belong?

1042 Words5 Pages
Jean Anyon, author of “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work,” is a professor of Urban Education at the University of New York. Anyon has written several books about Urban Education, Public Policies, and Ghetto Schools. Anyon’s essay, “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work,” is about schools and the social classes that exist within them, and their relationship to the social class of the parents of the children that exist within these schools. Anyon herself fits within the Executive Elite Class, her writing style, how she conducted this study and the system that she uses to explain the schools existence are all examples. The schools that Anyon explains in her article are Working-class, Middle-class, Affluent Professional, and Executive Elite. The class types were established from schools that contained elementary level students, and were based upon what the students learn within the schools is related to their parent’s social class and job type. Jean Anyon defines social class “by the way that person relates to the process in society by which goods, services, and culture are produced.” (Anyon, 227) Anyon describes that social class has a relation to capital. Capital, defined by Anyon, is “property which is used to produce profit, interest or more profit, interest or rent—that is more capital” (227, Anyon) and “it can be the socially legitimated knowledge of how the production process works, it’s financial, managerial, technical or other ‘secrets.’” (227, Anyon) How a person relates to capital defines their social class within a capitalistic society such as the United States, one that Jean Anyon is a part of. Anyon describes the jobs of a Working-class employee as “work that is routine and mechanical and that is a small, fragmented part of a larger process with which usually blue-collar, manual labor.” (Anyon, 227) The work that students do
Open Document