Elizabeth Strohminger

2.3.10

Critical Analysis: Jean Anyon’s Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work
Every community, whether or not the people in it like to believe it, has a social class that

dominates their life. Because schools find their home in communities across the United States, it

makes sense that if a community is of a certain social class, then the schools within said

community would be the same social class. In her essay, Anyon attempts to explore the

relationship between these communities and the type of education received. To do this, she

evaluates schools in distinctly different social classes; these are what she names “working class”

schools, “middle class” schools, “affluent professional” schools, and “executive elite” schools in

increasing order of communal income. By evaluating each school type, Anyon came to the

conclusion that “there is a ‘hidden curriculum’ in school work that has profound implication for

the theory –and consequence- of everyday activity in education.”

Based on Anyon’s definitions of each social class, I would place myself in either the “affluent

professional” or the “executive elite” school. Anyon suggests that in the “affluent professional”

schools, students are taught to develop “a potential relationship to capital that is instrumental and

expressive and involves substantial negotiation.” These students are taught to develop expressive

skills that can be turned into concrete form. In other words, they will become the successful

artists and intellectuals. Because man’s need to be creative is stimulated at this influential age,

the children growing up in this social class are more concerned with what Anyon coins

“symbolic capital.” She claims, “The producers of symbolic capital often do not control the

socially available physical capital nor the cultural uses to white it is put.” In other words, they

don’t make much money, but monetary compensation isn’t such a high need because they can

express themselves creatively.

 Elizabeth Strohminger
2.3.10

My other option would be an “executive elite” school. Anyon defines this school as one that

gives “knowledge of and practice in manipulating the socially legitimated tools of analysis of

systems.” Because they are trained to analyze and plan, they are prepared to work in society

demanding these skills, and will become those who control and own physical capital.

Pulling from my own experiences, opportunities such as these are not solely given to those

children who live in affluent communities. There are several developing programs that have the

sole purpose of stimulating the analytical mind. The school that I attended was the border of a

very affluent neighborhood and a very poor neighborhood, meaning that students from all

aspects of life went to the same school without being bused into the area. Because of this, the

same opportunities were offered to everyone. However, Anyon’s initial observations held true in

this school- those students who came from working class communities took those classes that

seemed to only develop these skills and those that came from affluent communities took classes

to develop those skills. So this must imply that there are other factors that are involved in why

people maintain their status quo. It is easy to blame the community and schools on why children

don’t grow up to be better than their parents, and Anyon makes an excellent case. However, the

answer may be closer to home. Behavior is not learned in a vacuum; children who grow up living

in a certain community will learn the mannerisms associated with it initial development. These

mannerisms are then taken with them through their schooling and either developed further or

squashed by the type of people by whom they are surrounded.