The School Curriculum and Its Role in Reproducing Social Classes

The School Curriculum and Its Role in Reproducing Social Classes
Joan Anyon in this article claims that the curriculums in schools tend to "reproduce the system of relations in society" (185) based on the socio-economic background of their students. The article, which first appeared in the Journal of Education in 1980 details Anyon’s observations in five different schools and talks about the hidden curriculum in schools which develops and rewards different behaviors. Anyon’s research involved a full school year of observations in fifth grade classes where students come from families with different economic backgrounds. By checking the average income of families in the fifth grade classes and surveying the occupation of the parents of the students, Anyon was able to classify the schools in four categories: working class school (average income of families is $12,000 and below, occupation of parents were generally semiskilled or unskilled jobs), middle class school (with incomes between $13,000 to $25,000, parents employed in skilled blue collar and middle-class white collar jobs), affluent professional schools (average income of families at $40,000 to $80,000, parents are employed in mid-management positions or have their own businesses), and executive elite schools (children belong to the upper 1% of families, whose parents are top executives and are earning over $100,000 in income).
By looking at the way teachers instruct and interact with their students in the subjects of Math, Science and Language Arts, Anyon saw that there was a huge disparity in the way the students were being developed educated. For example,...