Class discussion--how interesting!

In my family, class mobility was all about education. Mom's side of the family were Irish immigrant farmers until Mom's generation. Out of her and her five sibs, two brothers were farmers, one brother and BIL were union workers, and my mom had her RN (the first in her family to have a post-secondary school education). Her younger sister was the first with a 4-year college degree. On Dad's side, Grandpa was a jack-of-all-trades/small farmer immigrant from Sweden whose pension ended up coming from Stateville prison, where he was a janitor the last decade or so of his career. Grandma was from a more WASP-y middle-class family (Great-Grandpa Jesse was a barber on the South Side of Chicago), so it was interesting that she and her sister married two Swedish brothers who didn't have that same background. Dad's sister was a social worker, Dad worked for GE/ComEd and got his college degree in his late 30s, and his brother was an architectural engineer with the first 4-year degree in the family.

However, for those in my generation, the big thing was "Go to college!" on both sides of the family. All of us cousins have at least an associate's degree, and most have a BS/BA if not higher. Getting that degree meant you have more options than the grandparents did, and that was what everyone wanted for us.

My K-8 education was at a public school, but one filled with mostly middle- to upper-middle class kids, and a few who were from upper-class (it was an excellent school system at the time), but money wasn't really discussed much amongst us kids. I was really surprised to find out that one of my acquaintances was going to be boarding for high school--I had no clue her parents had that kind of money! High school had many more rich girls (private Catholic school) who were more about flaunting their status ("Daddy bought me a car for my 16th--it's a great little Porsche!" Ugh.), so I was used to that type by the time I went to college and saw more of them. One of my best friends there, though, was a trust fund kid (her grandpa was Dubuque Packing) who was as down-to-earth as could be.

My whole problem with the class article is that the woman profiled seems to think it's all based on economics, ignoring environment, education, and culture. I get why it could be helpful at a local level for teaching and understanding your students, but her genralizations leave a lot out. For example, I would think most poor/working-class immigrants would not fit into her analysis of food preparation at all.

I think her work is more about people (in this case teachers) not assuming that their assumptions are the only assumptions. She then gives them wide examples of other assumptions they could be encountering with their pupils and discusses how to work with them.

I don't think its supposed to be a comprehensive analysis of class and every possible permutaion. And I don't think she means for the information to be used as "if X person is Y class they are making all the assumptions on this list" so much as "you have now encountered a person of a different class background than yourself. y'all have different expectations of 'normal'. there are things you may wish/have to teach them that you'd have never expected".

Last week at work, baby!

Ooh! Jealous.

It seems that a lot of people work on the assumption that money/things=class. It irks me, because it does leave out the issues of education, manners, etc. I've seen things where some lout in a Mercedes is presented as being upper class, while a college professor on a bicycle isn't. I grew up being taught that it was tacky to flaunt money and things, that you bought "quality" and kept it forever. I think it may stem from an old-fashioned sense of priorities, whereas these days going broke to buy status symbols is seen as the thing to do.

[link]

Conspicuous consumption, this research suggests, is not an unambiguous signal of personal affluence. It’s a sign of belonging to a relatively poor group. Visible luxury thus serves less to establish the owner’s positive status as affluent than to fend off the negative perception that the owner is poor. The richer a society or peer group, the less important visible spending becomes.

I grew up being taught that it was tacky to flaunt money and things, that you bought "quality" and kept it forever.

This is the key difference between old money and new money.

When I was living on the Eastern Shore I bought an old Oriental carpet from the professor of archeology. He apologized for the condition because it looks worn (which is why it was so affordable) and I was like: Why would I want a carpet that looks new? I want it to look like it's been in my family forever. 'Cause I'm an old money snob, even if I don't have any.

I was so stunned the first time I went by Phillips as a kid and saw all the kids there were dressed like bums. I was like, "I thought they were rich!" My mother was like, yeah, that's how rich kids dress.

I went by Phillips as a kid

Jesse, your old money is showing. I'm assuming Andover, not Exeter.

I'm an old money snob, even if I don't have any.

This is so me it's not even funny.

(You hear that, universe? Our car has 200K+ on it because we are that awesome!)

Jesse, your old money is showing. I'm assuming Andover, not Exeter.

Please. Of course.

Actually, it's just my Massachusetts upbringing -- My mother worked in Andover for most of my childhood, so I didn't know there was another PA for a long time. I have mostly only heard of the prep schools on that list via proximity -- I went to summer camp in Groton, etc.