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What's the Matter with Social Class?

Tom Nesbit
Adult Education Quarterly 2006 56: 171
DOI: 10.1177/0741713605286173
The online version of this article can be found at:
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Nesbit / WHATS THE MATTER

ADULT
10.1177/0741713605286173
WITH
EDUCA
SOCIAL
TION
CLASS?
QUARTERLY / May 2006

WHATS THE MATTER WITH

SOCIAL CLASS?
TOM NESBIT
Simon Fraser University

Social class is a major determining factor of accomplishment in most educational, employment,

and social arenas and still one of the best predictors of who will achieve success, prosperity, and
social status. Yet, despite its continued significance, social class is rarely as well considered as
the related analytic vectors of gender and race, particularly within U.S. adult education. So why
do scholars so significantly acknowledge class less than its counterparts and why is it so
underrepresented in adult educational theory? This article explores the development of social
class and its relationship to several different arenas of adult education practice. It highlights the
links between adult education, the material and social conditions of daily and working lives, and
the economic and political systems that underpin them. The article also reaffirms the salience of
class in shaping the lives we lead and the educational approaches we develop.
Keywords: social class; oppression; social disadvantage; social stratification

Adult education is generally intended to ameliorate the personal and social disadvantages created by ones circumstances and background. However, although its
history bears testament to some remarkable educational achievements, too often
adult education merely serves to clarify or, worse, exacerbate existing disadvantages. So it is not surprising that social divisions and the tensions they bring about
are seen as critical issues in adult education. In fact, the literature of adult education
contains several trenchant analyses of the educational approaches, structures, and
activities that perpetuate the silence and invisibility of marginalized and disenfranchised groups. It is not surprising that this literature is also permeated with regular
exhortations to consider class, race, and gender (and more latterly, sexual
orientation) as prime markers of social division.
TOM NESBIT is associate dean of continuing studies at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, British
Columbia, Canada (e-mail: tnesbit@sfu.ca).
This article is a revised and expanded version of the authors article Social Class and Adult Education
in Class Concerns: Adult Education and Social Class (T. Nesbit, Ed., pp. 5-14; New Directions in Adult
& Continuing Education No. 106, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass). Oral presentations of the article were
made at the 45th Adult Education Research Conference (Victoria, BC, May 28-31, 2004) and the 3rd Annual How Class Works Conference (Stony Brook, NY, June 10-12, 2004).
ADULT EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Vol. 56 No. 3, May 2006 171-187
DOI: 10.1177/0741713605286173
2006 American Association for Adult and Continuing Education

171

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172 ADULT EDUCATION QUARTERLY / May 2006

Yet, in comparison with its counterparts, the study of social class has been
underexplored by American adult educators. For example, the two most recent editions of the AAACE [American Association for Adult and Continuing Education]
Handbook (Merriam & Cunningham, 1989; Wilson & Hayes, 2001) list neither
class nor social class in their indexes, even though several of their chapters are
clearly informed by such ideas. Furthermore, recent searches of the Educational
Resources Information Center (ERIC) database combining the descriptors adult
education with gender, race, and social class produce totals of 533, 324, and 86
hits, respectively. Assuming that the number of references roughly correlates with
research interests, why do researchers so significantly less acknowledge class than
its counterparts? Why is class so underrepresented in social and educational theory? Why is class ignored as the elephant in the room (hooks, 2000)?
In this article, I outline several of the relationships between social class and adult
education. I first distinguish some ideas about class and then explore how they
inform educational practices in general. Next, I focus more specifically on adult
education and consider how class analysis can illuminate various areas of adult
education practice. Finally, I reassert the importance of maintaining and developing a class perspective on adult education.

CONTEXT
Economic, social, and cultural factors profoundly influence how we live and
what we do. The societies we live in, the relationships we have and create with other
people, the ways we accommodate or resist unfairness and oppression, and the
ways we choose to think about these phenomena are both limited and enabled by
our place in the economic structure of society. Whether we like it or not, at individual, community, and societal levels, everything we believe and everything we do is
influenced by our place in an economic and social order.
Thus, education, as a major arena of social activity, operates within a set of
social, cultural, and economic relations and is shaped by cultural and economic
influences (Althusser, 1971; Gramsci, 1971). Education also shapes how we experience social, cultural, and economic forces. It is through education that we first
come to understand the structures of society and the ways that power relations permeate them. It is also through education that we learn the strategies and approaches
that help us either accommodate or resist power relations in our personal and public
lives. Educational systems are thus one of the most important vehicles for hegemony, the process by which a society inculcates and maintains dominant ideas by
portraying them as natural and normal. Because of this, groups and individuals regularly use the systems, institutions, policies, approaches, and practices of education
to perpetuate their own positions of privilege and power and reproduce existing patterns of social relations. Ironically, the education system legitimates its role in this
social reproduction by deflecting attention away from the process and portraying it
as natural and normal. However, as many adult educators realize, such a process is

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Nesbit / WHATS THE MATTER WITH SOCIAL CLASS? 173

not always reproductive: Education can also counter hegemony by helping people
understand how they might resist and challenge oppressive social structures and
behaviors.
Such notions particularly influence the education of adults. Whatever its particular focus, approach, or clientele, adult education is an essentially social and political endeavor. The struggles for powerwho has it, how they use it, and in whose
interestslie at the heart of the adult education enterprise (Cervero, Wilson, &
Associates, 2001). Concerned with identity and personal and social change, adult
education seeks to provide the knowledge, skills, and attitudes for people to engage
more fully in and shape their individual and social worlds. As Habermas (1972) and
others have indicated, education is a moral and political endeavor as much as it is a
technical practice, and it is thus affected by its role in maintaining or challenging
the social order. Do educational policies and practices reproduce existing relations
of dominance and oppression? Alternatively, do they contribute to social as well as
personal change? Answering such questions involves exploring the extent to which
education intersects with notions of class and the related demands of capitalist
ideology.
Capitalism seems a far cry from the common situations and interactions of adult
educators, yet capitalist ideas are so insidious and pervasive that they affect every
aspect of our work. Capitalist societies commodify human activity by subjecting all
aspects of peoples lives and social relations to market requirements. These relations are then normalized and made to seem natural. In capitalist societies, our prestige and status is related to productive ability; society values us by how much we
earn. Such basic aspects as where we live, how we earn a living, who our friends
are, and what access we have to health care and education are all dependent on our
ability to produce wealth and other resources. Of course, these attributes are not
fixed permanently; because the distribution of resources is unequal, people strive to
maintain or enhance their own share. Thus, peoples struggle for access to and control of resources is dynamic. Capitalist societies are stratified into classes, hierarchies of power and privilege related to the ownership and control of various forms
of capital. Capitalist systems of structured inequality continue because society portrays them as normal or inevitable: The system encourages its victims to regard
themselves as responsible for their failure to be successful. In this way, dominant
groups are able to maintain the status quo and the hegemony of their own ideas
without facing too strong a challenge from those less powerful.

WHAT IS CLASS?
Although Aristotle first documented the segmenting of society by economic,
social, and cultural distinctions, the concept of class is more recent, its present use
dating from the Industrial Revolution. By the mid-19th century, Marx was using
class as the foundational concept for explaining social organization in terms of
understanding the ownership, means, and control of work processes and material

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174 ADULT EDUCATION QUARTERLY / May 2006

wealth (Marx & Engels, 1845/1970). Marx claimed that societies consisted of two
classes: the bourgeoisie (which owned and controlled the mills, mines, and factories) and the proletariat (workers with little more than their labor power to sell). The
relationship between these two classes was essentially unequal, exploitative, and
beneficial mainly to the bourgeoisie. Those who own capital reinvest their profits to
earn even more; those who do not must sell their ability to work in order to survive.
Wealth thus returns to the owners, and workers perpetuate their own dependence.
That is, though the working class generates surplus wealth, it does not equally
profit from it. Because the bourgeoisie own the means of production and distribution of resources, that class disproportionally appropriates and accumulates wealth.
As modes of production and types of work became more complex, many came
to regard the division of society into two opposing classes as overly reductionist
and outmoded. Industrial societies shifted from a principally manufacturing basis
toward the inclusion of more service- and knowledge-based industries. Forms of
work became more elaborate and thus confounded existing notions of class. Intermediate class positions developed, and European societies soon settled into the
now more familiar structuring of three classesupper, middle, and lower, though
these are still largely related to occupation and income. Most recently, the concept
of a fourth class, an underclass, has arisen. This rather unfortunately named group
consists of those whom society considers outside of or largely excludes from the
established economic order, such as the certifiably insane, the long-term unemployed, drug addicts, recent immigrants, prisoners, and others with certain socalled pathological deficiencies who are significantly dependent upon state welfare
(Morris, 1994).
Not everyone regards class in such materialistic terms. Weber (1920/1968), for
instance, argued that class is better defined by also including notions of culture, values, politics, and lifestyle. People who fall within the same economic class may
nevertheless occupy different social class positions and have differing opportunities for acquiring work, earning income, developing skills, obtaining education,
and owning property. For Weber, ones class is based more on these life chances,
cultural background, status, and life outside of work than on ones relationship to
the ownership and control of the means of production. Rather than see society as a
two-class system, Weber posited a system of social stratification of many different
classes that sometimes overlap. Classes need not be formally organized along such
rigid lines. In other words, people from similar backgrounds need not communicate
directly with one another in order to maintain their lifestyle, status, and prestige. In
essence, they can act in concert without organizing themselves to do so.
This less deterministic approach is also visible in the work of Pierre Bourdieu,
for whom a class is any grouping of individuals sharing similar conditions of existence and tendencies or dispositions (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977). Equally important as ones location in an economic order is the possession of various forms of
capitaleconomic, cultural, social, or symbolicthat can constellate differently
in different societies. Bourdieus concept of class thus takes into account other

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stratifying factors, such as gender, race, ethnicity, place of residence, and age.
Finally, these class structures are not predetermined or imposed from without but
more subtly reproduced. For example, people with like dispositions can discriminate (often unwittingly) against those who have different lifestyles and personal
characteristics. Note that both Weber and Bourdieu allow more scope for human
agency than did Marx but still regard external class structures as fundamental and
quite constant. In other words, class relationships transcend the individuals who
occupy the positions: People may move around or stay put, but society is still
structured along class-based axes of inequality and exploitation.
These two broad views have shaped the development of the concept of class in
European and North American countries. In Europe, throughout the social upheavals of industrialization, older ideas of rank continued to affect definitions of class.
The so-called lower orders, the laboring classes, and the middling ranks of society
(such as merchants or teachers) existed alongside the aristocracy and the gentry.
However, as the stratification of industrial society became less rigid, these definitions settled into the more familiar classification of working, middle, and upper
class. Most recently, scholars have recognized that this depiction treats class as
essentially static. Although it underlines the fundamentally economic nature of
class, such a definition ignores the dynamic and shifting nature of the relationships
between those who possess wealth and power and those who do not. Class has now
come to be regarded more as a relation that is constantly changing. As British historian E. P. Thompson (1968) puts it, class is not a category . . . but rather an historical relationship between one group of people and another. . . . It is defined by men as
they live their own history (pp. 9-10).
North American countrieswhich, since colonization, have largely developed
in response to European feudalismsee themselves as relatively free from such
archaic categories as aristocracy and the lower orders. Especially in the United
States, one commonly hears either that class has ceased to exist or, alternatively,
that everyone is middle class. For Zweig (2000), class remains one of the nations
best kept secrets; any serious discussion of it is banished from polite company
(p. 4). Instead, the ethics of self-reliance and mobility and the ideologies of individualism, egalitarianism, and meritocratic achievement have been more powerful
forces than class solidarity. Nowadays, existential rather than social factors tend to
influence who Americans think they are. For example, it is far more common for
people to define themselves as Black, gay, Jewish, Latino, lesbian, or mobilitychallenged than to refer to themselves in terms of class. In addition, the historical
legacy of slavery and its lingering consequences have shaped a more complicated
system of stratification; one kept in place by ideological as well as economic factors
(Levine, 1998). Older depictions of class are now regarded as too simplistic for a
heterogeneous country like the United States. Also, the civil rights and womens
movements of the 1960s and 70s underscored that racial and gender inequality
could neither be ignored nor treated as secondary to class inequality. Nowadays,
constructs such as class, race, and gender are commonly seen as interrelated and

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overlapping (P. H. Collins, 1993; Wood, 2002). More specifically, social class is
recognized as both gendered and racialized and viewed as but one part of a wider
and interlocking system of oppression and domination (Rothberg, 1998; Tisdell,
1993).
Such melding tends to both illuminate and complicate the constituent analytic
categories. Despite this, class remains distinctively less acknowledged or examined
than its counterparts. For example, consider the notion of identitya significant
aspect of the United Statess individualistic society. One of the effects of capitalist
ideology has been to reinforce the notion that individual identity is unrelated to
such supposedly hidden forces as class. Identity politics (usually based on individualistic claims of importance) represent the success of this misconception. Identity
and other subjective politics (generally less overtly opposed to capitalism) are also
more readily comprehensible and therefore more appealing. So, even though vast
institutionalized social inequalities persist in the United States, the discussion of
class remains relatively ignored. American scholars tend to discuss social stratification more in terms of identity, inequality, or status rather than of opposing social
classes. Paul Fussell (1992, p. 18) describes class as the dirty little secret of the
United States, for, when compared with such categories as race or gender, class
appears invisible. Of course, it is precisely this invisibility that, when linked with its
apparent naturalness, allows an unfair class system to reproduce itself continually.
Ironically, even though people might not discuss class much, it still remains a subjectively relevant category in their minds. Studies repeatedly indicate that when
asked, people have little difficulty placing themselves into a class and identifying
strongly with it (Beeghley, 2000).
Of course, the explanatory and analytic power of class as a concept relates more
to the notion that society is still stratified in ways that link individuals and groups
with the economic order of production than it does to the specific number of different classes, their definition, or even the people who form them. So whether there are
two, three, four, or even more classes, every division of society by class continues to
stigmatize the less well-off and to define them as responsible for their own demise.
Class still exists. As in Marxs time, all social life continues to be marked by the
struggles and conflicts over access to the generation and distribution of wealth and
status.
Given the different perspectives and ambiguities about class, examining it can
often be difficult. Eric Olin Wright (1979) identifies four major approaches to
understanding class: a functional differentiation of positions within a society,
groups unified by their common position in a hierarchy of power or authority,
groups with different market capacities that result in different life chances, and a
shared location in the social organization of production. However, whatever ones
orientation, an attention to class and class analysis reveals several general principles. First, a class analysis focuses on materialist concepts regarding the production
and reproduction of social life and the importance of human activity in shaping
both material subsistence and consciousness. Second, a class analysis highlights

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the fundamental and dynamic relationships between economic and social structures, the ideologies that frame our world, and the ways we experience, understand,
and shape the world. Third, a class analysis suggests that we cannot explain social
phenomena by their surface manifestations nor by the ways that individuals experience them but as, instead, representations of external divisions of power. Fourth, a
class analysis provides a basis for explaining why people organize themselves into
collective forces to resist injustice and exploitation. Finally, for those with a commitment to social justice, a focus on class also raises several important questions:
How do we negotiate or internalize dominant ideologies and relations of ruling?
How might alternative ones develop? How can marginalized people, silenced by
social, economic, and cultural relations of power, recover their voices and the right
to be heard? Because we can address these questions educationally, I now turn to
exploring the relationships between class and education.

CLASS AND EDUCATION

Education is generally intended to inculcate dominant values, not confront
them. Because educational institutions are generally a middle-class domain, their
policies and practices are weighted strongly in favor of middle-class values. So
capitalist societies, in which class operates as the primary structuring of social
inequality, usually ignore or bury class perspectives. As such, many adult educators
are uncertain about how their work reflects underlying political structures, let alone
economic systems. Observing the effects of power and privilege is far easier than
determining their causes. Yet, a number of studies explore how education reproduces existing patterns of power. Economists Samuel Bowles and Herb Gintis
(1976) demonstrated how educational systems are part of a system of broader capitalist class relations. Their correspondence theory explains how, in general, schools
reproduce the social relations that capitalist production requires. As Bowles and
Gintis describe, capital requires two things: workers of specific types and relative
social stability, and ideological acceptance of class relations. The capitalist class
thus has a broadly shared set of interests pertaining to educational systems and the
capacity to promote such interests.
Some find the correspondence theory too mechanistic or reductive; it allows little agency for those involved. One less-deterministic approach came from Pierre
Bourdieu (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977), who suggested that education serves the
interests of the privileged by structuring learners access to and uses of various
forms of social and cultural capital. Others have introduced notions of struggle and
resistance into this process. Most notably, Paul Willis (1977) showed how several
working-class teenage lads consciously resisted and rebelled against school and
classroom authority. Tellingly, however, this resistance worked better within
school than outside it: When the lads left school, they remained unable to find anything but unskilled and unstimulating jobs. The work of Peter McLaren (1995) and
Michael Apple (1996) also shows how individuals can resist and contest social and

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cultural oppression in educational settings. They document the complex relationships between cultural reproduction and economic reproduction and explore how
class interrelates with the dynamics of race and gender in education.
All these studies indicate the essential role of education in promoting and maintaining the social relations required for capitalist production. Furthermore, they
suggest that we can fully understand education only as part of a broader capitalist
class system. Although we now recognize that the relationships between educational practices and political structures are much more complex than correspondence theory suggests, adult educators who work in such areas as adult basic education, literacy, vocational education, and the pernicious welfare-to-work programs
will recognize how often their work, the policies about it, and the textbooks and
curricula they use are still much more closely tied to employers needs than to their
adult or working-class studentsinterests (DAmico, 2004; Kincheloe, 1999; Rose,
1989).

FOCUSING ON ADULT EDUCATION

Clearly, adult education is not immune from these trends. Together with K-12
and higher education counterparts, adult education is now firmly established as
central to the smooth functioning of economic systems and societies. As such concepts as lifelong learning and the knowledge society gain prominence, adult education and training become key vehicles for preparing people to be adaptable to economic and cultural changes in society.
As noted earlier, the ERIC database identifies more than 80 adult education documents in the past 40 years that refer in some way to concepts of social class. Most
of these explore the consequences or experiences of class and examine such issues
as the participation, access, and attainment of different groups. In documenting
how social class affects participation in adult education programs, those studies
consistently underscore how far social class remains a key determinant of adult participation in organized learning. To give just one example, Sargent and Aldridge
(2002) indicate that upper- or middle-class adults are twice as likely to engage in
some sort of learning activity than are those from the working class.
However, although such studies detail how class remains a major factor affecting adult education participation, most do not really explore either the constitutive
dynamics of class nor how it operates in practice. From a conceptual perspective,
they add little to Jack Londons (London, Wenkert, & Hagstrom, 1963) classic
study that explored the important contribution that adult education makes to larger
society, specifically for those deemed less educated and less skilled. London and
his colleagues found a strong connection between social class and peoples abilities
to prosper in a rapidly changing world. Class not only affected participation in adult
education activities but was also closely related to such other facets of social life as
jobs, vocations, and leisure pursuits. Anticipating the subsequent debates about
lifelong learning, Londons report called for adult education and training to

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become a continuing part of everyones life (p. 148), providing both education
for work and education for leisure (p. 153). Perhaps more seriously, the majority
of the studies listed in the ERIC database do little to further class awareness or
address what Allman, McLaren, and Rikowski (2003) describe as a chasm between
class as social inequality and class as a constitutive element of the world of struggle.
This concentration on the results rather than the causes or workings of class is
perhaps understandable. Individuals tend to internalize the conflicts within hierarchical systems, especially those individuals without much power. Also, people usually closely experience class at the same time as other, more recognizable forms of
oppression. These factors, when combined with the scarcity of class scrutiny,
ensure that people do not always have readily available concepts to identifylet
alone analyzethe class aspects of their experiences. So scholars prefer to focus
on more obvious markers of social division and continue to overlook class in their
theoretical lexicon. Class is also difficult to discern: We can only examine it
through its consequences or outcomes. And, as it is not easy to identify or
operationalize on an individual level, it is much better suited to macro- rather than
micro-analyses. Even when it is acknowledged, class still tends to be regarded as an
individual characteristic or an entity rather than a constituent social relationship.
So, the tendency of U.S. adult education researchers to assume a strong individual
orientation tends to further divert attention away from class perspectives. The conceptual complexity of class seems better suited to longer and more elaborate studies
than normally appear in the ERIC database.
As might be expected, sophisticated explorations of class and adult education
are more readily found outside the United States. Adult educators Paula Allman
(2001), Michael Collins (1998), David Livingstone (1999), Nelly Stromquist
(1997), Jane Thompson (2000), Shirley Walters (1997), Michael Welton (1995),
and Frank Youngman (2000) all provide rich empirical and theoretical examinations of how adult education practices are linked to social class and the increasingly
globalized nature of capitalism. Discussions of adult education and social class are
also more noticeable on the margins of the established adult education literature. To
give a flavor of such work, I now explore how others have addressed issues of class
in several different arenas of adult education practice: approaches to learning and
teaching, adult educations role in social movements, and the related fields of
higher education and working-class studies.
Learning and Teaching
A distinguishing feature of adult education is its strong emphasis on learning. In
their studies of working peoples intelligence and learning, Mike Rose (2004) and
Peter Sawchuk (2003) provide two of the best recent analyses of the interrelationships of class and learning. Both identify a distinctive working-class learning style
that operates independently of formal training and centers around informal workplace and community networks. This learning style is collective, mutual, and

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solidaristic: People exchange knowledge and skills, hardware and software, and
they use each others differences, which then become group resources. And so they
develop an expanding learning network: a powerful working-class resource that
stands opposed to the trajectory of dominant forms of workplace and institutionalized education that individualize and commodify learning. Although most research
on adult education and class focuses on how working-class people are excluded and
help to exclude themselves from formal education, the research of Rose and
Sawchuk shows that working-class adults bring rich cultural resources to their
learning.
How such learning is (or is not) acknowledged is a central concern of pedagogical approaches in adult education. It is now commonly understood that different
approaches to teaching can also influence learners attitudes toward a wider range
of issues than specific content: for example, education, learning, themselves, and
society at large. Just as teaching can disguise and obfuscate attitudes toward social
disadvantage, it can also promote a greater understanding of them. Specifically, it
can facilitate awareness of class perspectives. As I have indicated elsewhere, Nesbit
(2004) indicates two components are particularly useful here. The first is praxis
the cycle of critical reflection and practice that connects our daily activities with
broader theoretical analyses. For example, a class perspective on teaching considers its dominant approaches as activities for socialization and social reproduction.
Acknowledging this can aid the exploration of the relationships between ideology,
power, culture, and knowledge and the asking of such questions as What counts as
knowledge and knowing? How is such knowledge produced and distributed? Do
certain forms legitimate one set of interests above others? Whose interests get
downplayed or ignored? How might alternate forms be considered?
Second, through the use of such questions, teaching can extend learners knowledge and experience into social critique. Regardless of course or program, most
curricula are alien to adult learners: usually divorced from any social and historical
context, foreign to their experiences and culture, and imposed upon them. Any pedagogy that ignores learners experiences and culture is a form of ideological imposition that reflects a particular balance of political and social power. Although
starting where the students are is a familiar adult education approach, it can be far
more than a simple pedagogic device. A class perspective on teaching never
unquestioningly endorses dominant approaches to teaching but regards the capacity to unsettle and irritate as important. Instead of ironing out complexity, it celebrates it, problematizes it, and makes it critical. So, a class perspective on teaching
regards learners knowledge and experiences and their development of critical
awareness as key parts of the curriculum itself. Such an approach builds upon the
work of adult educators such as Frank Youngman (1986) who argue that pedagogy
should always be situated within an economic and political context. As Youngman
sees it, the aims of a class-based pedagogy should be to challenge the ideology and
culture of capitalism and create a counter-hegemony and to develop the general

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knowledge and technical expertise necessary to reorganize production and society

in a fully democratic way (p. 197).
Social Movements
Adult education deliberately links the personal with the social. A class perspective reminds us that lasting social change comes about through people acting
together. To give just one example, Shirley Walters (2005) provides a compelling
account of the ways that class affects the educational activities of those who struggle for social justice in South Africa. As Walters shows, learning about previous
battles for social justice can provide resources and hope to those involved in current
struggles. Particularly, the biographies of Myles Horton (1990), Moses Coady
(Welton, 2001), bell hooks (2000), and Paulo Freire (Gadotti, 1994) all offer connections to a wider set of ideas about adult education for social change. More theoretical discussions of the role of adult learning and education in social movements
are provided by John Holst (2002) and Griff Foley (1999). Basing their work on the
ideas of Freire, Gramsci, and Marx, they each explore the idea that radical adult
educators can help build civil society through social movements. Two aspects of
their work are particularly important to an appreciation of adult learning. First,
learning in such situations is tacit, embedded in action and often not recognized as
learning (Foley, 1999, p. 3). Second, the notion of learning in and through struggle. Foley again: Peoples every day experience reproduces ways of thinking and
acting which support the, often oppressive, status quo, but [can also] enable people
to critique and challenge the existing order (pp. 3-4).
One key social movement that has clearly adopted a class-based educational
perspective is the labor movement. Most American histories tend to ignore or
downplay the part played by working people, and histories of adult education are
no different. One exception is Fred Schieds (1993) exploration of the radical working-class traditions in 19th-century Chicago and the role that immigrant German
socialists played in creating the labor movement there. Schied affirms how the educational forms and approaches that took place in workers clubs, reading rooms,
and debating societies were not separate activities but an integral (albeit transitory
and informal) part of a broader radical working-class culture that had its own goals
and traditions. Nonformal educational institutions have also occasionally tapped
into these resources. Probably the best known example of this in the United States is
the Highlander Education and Research Center in Tennessee. Here, Myles Horton
and his colleagues taught working-class people to critically analyze their experiences from the perspective of their needs, interests, and primarily working-class
culture. Highlander has been at the forefront of most of the contemporary struggles
for social justicewhether concerning labor, race, environment, or sexual orientation. However, whatever the specific issue, Horton himself always placed economic and class-based concerns as central (Horton & Freire, 1990). Other useful
accounts of adult educators developing working-class learning include Richard

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Altenbaughs (1990) description of the American labor colleges of the 1920s and
1930s and the once-extensive but now all-but-forgotten Jefferson School of Social
Science, which flourished in New York City during the 1940s and early 1950s
(Gettleman, 2002).
Higher Education
The related field of higher education also provides analyses of how universities
treat adult learners from different class backgrounds and how such students experience university-level education (Adair & Dahlberg, 2003; Ball, 2003; Tokarczyk,
2004). They also explore how curricula and pedagogy in different disciplines
reflect class-based interests (Margolis, 2001), how to challenge the status quo and
democratize classroom practices (Shor, 1996), how class shapes the identity and
teaching of educators (Malcolm, 2005), how notions of class intersect in a very
practical way with those of gender (Hart, 2005) and race (Mojab, 2005), and how
academic institutions might change to better accommodate the needs and interests
of working-class and adult learners (Rose, 1989). Although it will come as no great
shock to most university-based adult educators, many current higher education
practices [still] pose barriers to [adult] participation which include a lack of flexibility in calendar and scheduling, academic content, modes of instruction and availability of learning services (Commission for a Nation of Lifelong Learners, 1997,
p. 3).
The emergent field of working-class studies has also reinvigorated discussion of
the intersections of class, adult learning, and institutional practices in North America (Linkon, 1999; Zandy, 2001). Acknowledging that working-class learners now
constitute a significant proportion of students enrolled in institutions of higher education, this body of work incorporates a sensitivity to students working-class roots
while suggesting curricular and pedagogic innovations informed by an awareness
of class culture. Several recently published books detail the travails of academics
from working-class backgrounds (Dews & Law, 1995; Ryan & Sackrey, 1984;
Tokarczyk & Fay, 1993). All contain powerful autobiographical and analytic
essays that address the personal, professional, and ideological issues in the experiences of working-class teachers and students in higher education.
Many of these studies explore the notion that working-class learners who enter
formal educational environments experience what Sennett and Cobb (1972) call
status incongruity. Here, the differences between the culture and language of students working-class backgrounds and the academic environments they enter can
create discomfort and uncertainty. Working-class learners can become unsure of
their own identity, feel out of place and marginalized, and experience what Ryan
and Sackrey (1984) tellingly describe as the sense of being nowhere at home (p.
119). Such work also dispels the myth that the working-class pursuit of adult and
higher education is always a rejection of or an escape from ones culture and the
often harsh and demeaning living and working conditions that shape it. Neither is it,

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as some maintain, an accommodation to middle-class values or a capitulation to

bourgeois cultural hegemony. Rather, it represents for many a telling act of resistance against the repression of a system that damages the spirit as well as the body.
Although for too many working-class learners education is still about failure;
about being found out (Reay, 2001, p. 334), it can also provide opportunities for
upward mobility and a greater understanding of and interaction with ones self,
community, and society (Tokarczyk, 2004). Because much of working-class life
and culture is already marked by struggle anyway, many working-class learners
view their education as a continuance of their personal and collective struggles for a
better worldnot just for themselves but often for everyone else as well.

THE IMPORTANCE OF A CLASS PERSPECTIVE

Class can mean different things to different people: a theoretical device for analyzing the social world, shared social conditions, or a set of particular orientations,
beliefs, and life practices. Popular understandings of class still describe it in terms
of jobs, income, wealth, the lifestyles that people can buy, or the power that accrues
from ownership. Yet, class is less a possession than a dynamic: a relationship
between different people and groups divided along axes of power and privilege. So
class differences play out in power relations. And adult education plays a critical
role in forming and mediating these relations: providing opportunities for personal
mobility while legitimating social inequality. Thus, adopting a class perspective on
adult education does two things: It draws clear links between educational institutions, the world of work, and the economic system that underpins them, and it highlights how educational institutions function to maintain and inculcate societal
ideology and values.
Many adult educators find such a perspective overwhelming and off-putting.
Others question the extent to which adult educators should critique dominant social
systems and the prevailing capitalist system. Yet, the many and varied ways that
class shapes adult education continue to demand our attention. As Apple (1995)
and others have cogently argued, adult education is a function of the state and is
therefore regulated according to certain economic, political, and cultural interests
and pressures. Second, educational institutions are situated in historical and social
contexts that suggest that adult education is intimately linked with maintaining particular cultural and social arrangements. Third, adult educators should closely consider class because of how it plays out in their everyday situations and practices. For
example, consider teaching: What educators teach and how they teach are choices
made from a wider universe of knowledge and values. Such choices always benefit
and privilege some while ignoring, downplaying, or deprivileging others; curricular and pedagogical choices reflect different ways of understanding and responding
to social relations. Fourth, political choices imbricate the adult education profession itself. Consider teaching again: Some people are considered worthy or accredited to teach adults; others are not. And, as many adult education practitioners

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184 ADULT EDUCATION QUARTERLY / May 2006

realize on a daily basis, there are concomitant struggles over autonomy, respect,
wages, workload, job security, evaluation, and accountability. Finally, an attention
to class in adult education offers other benefits. It helps subvert the tendency to
focus only on the thoughts, attitudes, and experiences of those who are materially
privileged (hooks, 2000, p. 185). And, it benefits learners: The more we can recognize and understand working-class culture, the more clearly we can recognize
the strengths of our working-class students and . . . better our chances of engaging
and inspiring them (Linkon, 1999, p. 6).

CONCLUSION
As a recent series of articles in The New York Times (2005) indicated, class is still
a powerful force in the United States. The gap between rich and poor grows ever
wider. And, despite the ideological cornerstone of U.S. society that all people are
created equal, women are still not equal to men, minorities not equal to Whites.
Such inequalities are manifested in terms of income and wealth but also in terms of
occupation, health care, and educational attainment. Yet, despite overwhelming
evidence to the contrary, too many still claim that the idea of class has outlived its
usefulness.
Examining the intersections of class and adult education can alert us to the unexamined patterns of behavior through which society produces and reproduces social
classes in the dynamics between educational activities and the wider cultural politics of societies. It can also expose to thoughtful scrutiny the superficiality of a variety of currently prescribed educational reforms: the individualizing of educational
opportunities, increased commercial involvement determining educational goals,
privatization of schools and colleges, a return to so-called basics, the streaming of
learners of all ages into cultural or functional literacies or core competencies, and
the increasing pressures to work harder and longer.
It is clear that class analysis in adult education might not be dead but is certainly
deeply buried. Yet, knowing where to dig can yield productive results. The studies
mentioned in this article provide examples of analyses that tie adult education practices to class concerns. However, this never can be enough. Still too many adult
education researchers are more concerned with what divides rather than what
unites or how everyday life and educational approaches reflect and maintain hierarchical distinctions rather than a shared solidarity of purpose. More adult educators
introducing a class perspective into their work might expose capitalism as not simply an economic system but rather as a totalizing system of social relations. Adult
educators must also resist what Allman (2001, p. 209) calls the postmodern condition: skepticism, uncertainty, fragmentation, nihilism, and incoherence. This is
no easy task. The totality of capitalism renders it difficult to challenge. However, it
also underscores the necessity of doing so if we want to create a fairer and safer
world built on more than economic values.

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Nowadays, people often regard approaches that focus on class and other forms
of oppression as misguided or even sinister. Instead, some encourage us to accept
limited and partial integrations into and accommodations to social orders based on
systemic inequalities. Yet, we are not bystanders to political contexts but vital and
essential members of them. Educators of adults have a responsibility to raise important and challenging questions and to build upon their students lived experiences
about how inequalities play out in communities, lives, and workplaces. They must
also challenge the current directions that capitalist education is taking and resist all
attempts to confine adult education to the production and maintenance of human
capital. Above all, they must reassert a class-based approach to adult education that
is grounded in the struggles of those who seek to build a fairer, safer, and more
democratic society for all.

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