Since the early 1980s, students at William Paterson University have been required as part of their general education program to take at least one course specifically focused on issues of racism and sexism. Courses from which they choose also address classism, heterosexism, and the other "isms" that frame discrimination in the United States. The courses include Racism and Sexism in the U.S., Women's Changing Roles, and Justice and Racism. Faculty who teach the courses are either from the Women's Studies or African, African American, Caribbean Studies departments, or are faculty affiliated with these departments. The courses are also taught by adjuncts.

The authors of this article, Dr. Arlene Holpp Scala and Dr. Jean Levitan, have been teaching Racism and Sexism in the U.S. for over ten years and share with other faculty the challenge of engaging students in the issues. Dr. Arlene Holpp Scala is the current chairperson of the Women's Studies Department and the first full-time Women's Studies faculty member, and Dr. Jean Levitan is a former Women's Studies chairperson who is an affiliated Women's Studies faculty member.

The majority of students at William Paterson University come from working class families, tend to be first-generation college students, and are working anywhere from 10-40 hours per week themselves to help pay for college. They expect graduation from college to lead them to a well-paying job. As students choose majors, they often inquire about what kind of salaries accompany positions related to a particular field of inquiry; parents who accompany students to Open House and/or Orientation programs regularly inquire about the job market and what income their children can expect to earn when choosing a particular major. The prevailing value seems to favor the vocational components of higher education, with learning for the purpose of intellectual growth perceived as an extravagance.

Class is also a very hidden issue in the curriculum in U. S. education. Furthermore, when class is addressed, there is much discomfort among students in the classroom. "Whether middle or working class, they are reluctant to acknowledge the demographic, political, or economic factors in the United States that may make their future work lives unstable financially," according to Jennifer Scanlon, who has published widely on feminist pedagogy (1996, p. 7). And bell hooks, the feminist theorist, adds, "Class is rarely talked about in the United States; nowhere is there a more intense silence about the reality of class differences than in educational settings" (1994, p. 177).

Consequently, the subject of job discrimination works as a useful vehicle to teach how class, in addition to discrimination based on race, gender, and ethnicity, impacts individual lives. The text Race, Class, and Gender in the United States: An Integrated Study (4th ed.) edited by Paula S. Rothenberg, includes essays on individual lives and experiences, theoretical articles, and reproduced information from a variety of governmental reports, newspapers, etc., that provide up-to-date statistics on the status of various groups within the U.S. The section used to teach issues of class incorporates a strong statistical approach, highlighting job choices and salaries based on gender, race, and ethnic background.

In an effort to add meaning to the statistical information, the authors developed exercises to help students frame their own realities. We find that exercises that take students from intellectual concepts to their own experiences seem to be particularly effective in teaching about systems of oppression. While we have found that students soon recognize the workings of sexism, racism, and heterosexism, classism is typically a more hidden issue. There are invariably some students in the class who are living independently, working close to full-time, and who are familiar with basic living expenses. The majority, however, seem not to have given much thought to what it may cost to fully take care of themselves, much less other dependents.

Each of us has an approach to teaching about the issue of class that includes readings, films, class discussions, writing assignments, and interactive classroom activities. When we decided to collaborate on this article, we made the decision to write individually about our unique approach in the classroom.

We decided that each of us would tell our pedagogical stories in our own voices in order to more clearly share our approach to teaching about the challenging topic of class.

Dr. Jean Levitan

On day one of classism exploration, the students are given the following scenario -- an optimistic description of life after graduation.

"You have just graduated and have been able to secure an entry level position related to your major. You will be living on your own, paying your own bills. Your task is to develop a personal budget."

In a large group, students begin to brainstorm the categories of expenses they will face to be calculated on a monthly basis. Items that would get paid quarterly or annually are reformulated for a twelve-month period. Students quickly identify rent/mortgage, electricity, phone, and food. Transportation, recreation, and loan payments are also obvious to most. Slowly students add other items, such as a working wardrobe, costs for laundry/cleaners, vacation, and holiday/gift expenses. It takes time to tease out living expenses such as furniture and other household items, start-up expenses such as deposits with landlords and the phone company (one-time expenses but required in the first year of independence), and various forms of insurance requiring payment. Invariably at some point taxes -- federal, state, local, etc. -- get added to the list of expenses.

Before the next class, students must conduct "practical" research. They are instructed to find out the annual salary for an entry level position in their fields, rental payments on apartments or houses in the communities where they would like to live, and to interview their families about the current cost of various living expenses.

The second meeting involves the class compiling a range of costs for each expense category. The students begin with income. My most memorable report came from a music major who was sure she would be getting a record contract, and making over $80,000 her first year. Most students, however, expect to be earning in the mid-$20,000 range, with nursing students almost doubling that figure. As a conservative safety measure, I tell students to deduct a third of their annual salaries for taxes, social security, health and pension contributions, etc. and the students work with the net income. Not surprisingly, the difference between gross and net income is "news" to some students.

The exercise progresses with monthly calculations made for rent, phone, etc. There is an on-going effort to provide qualitative judgments for each category. For example, rent can be divided among roommates. Students begin to see that they may be able to afford to live in the town of their choice, but not have as much living space and privacy as they'd like. Food expenses vary depending upon where one shops and how often one eats out in restaurants, fancy or otherwise. The allowances given for telephone bills vary tremendously, with some students having both home and cellular phone bills.

As the class works together, it becomes apparent that expenses are greater than income for the majority of students. At this juncture, issues of class and privilege start to become more apparent. Something as basic as "balancing the monthly budget" becomes the vehicle for understanding opportunity and privilege. "Living within one's means," an expression often carrying some judgmental overtones, requires increasing income and/or decreasing expenses. Living beyond one's means -- having the buying power to initially develop "credit" -- and then developing debt, provides an opportunity to examine class differences. Students can contrast the debt of someone like Donald Trump with his continued borrowing power against that of their peers, who develop debt resulting from credit-cards and student loans.

When the class examines how income can be increased, students quickly volunteer "you live at home for awhile." The class then discusses whether or not young working adults pay their parents any rent, and if so, how much. The ability to live at home is presented as a privilege, along with paying "no rent" or a rent that is heavily subsidized.

Discussing other ways to "legally" increase income facilitates further discussion of privilege. Students at WPUNJ generally do not have trust funds or large inheritances, although an occasional student does have income from an accident settlement. What most do have is the experience of getting presents. The class discusses what is given, whether in cash or material objects. "Happy Birthday -- here's a car. Happy Birthday -- here's a sofa bed. Happy Birthday -- here's a coat. Happy Birthday -- here's a cake." The point can again be made that what friends and family have to give represents levels of privilege. Even when one returns from a family gathering with enough leftovers to eat for the week, or does the laundry at one's parents, a student is reminded that income is being supplemented.

The students find the topic of clothing engaging. What must be worn for work? Class differences surface around the cost of uniforms for some jobs versus the white collar uniforms of suits and dresses. The "need" to have lots of clothes and change outfits can be examined, as are laundry bills and the gender gap in dry cleaning, with being charged more than men are to have comparable items dry cleaned.

Privilege is powerfully highlighted when discussing health insurance, car insurance, pensions, and savings. While many employees today must contribute to their health insurance, the difference in individual coverage versus employer group plans is remarkable. What kinds of jobs provide what kinds of benefit packages? If one has to pay out of pocket for health care, what are the costs? Discussion can expand to include the impact of race, gender, and class on illness.

The statistical information provided in the text and supplemented by more current data provides "facts" on a societal level. With a personal framework of what things cost, it becomes more relevant to then examine issues of discrimination and inequity in jobs and pay. What percentage of whites work in high paying jobs? Where are women most likely to be employed? Why are Latinas over represented in cleaning and sewing occupations and Asian men over represented as engineers and launderers? What do the statistics have to do with the students getting their own lives in order?

A significant percentage of the students are working to put themselves through school, and there is sometimes great resistance to sympathizing with the difficulties faced by poor people. Students want to believe that if people will only "pull themselves up by their bootstraps," they will succeed. Also, there is resistance to critiquing the injustices of privilege. It is as if the "American dream" will pass to them, and their middle class jobs will somehow convert to a chance to be rich. However, when the budget analysis indicates that for one graduate to live decently -- not extravagantly -- a base salary of $36,000/year seems a necessity and then when students learn that the government sets the poverty level for a family of four at $16,029, the point starts to hit home (Mantsios, 1998, p 20467). The class examines what kinds of supplementation are provided if one qualifies for food stamps and Medicaid, what subsidized housing translates to in terms of quality of life, and how welfare recipients' realities may compare to the students' preconceived notions.

An examination of the realities of job discrimination and how it functions follows the budget exercise. While this could become demoralizing, (not a place to leave students), it expands instead into a discussion of both individual strategies and needed public policies that can counter the powerful forces of privilege. An overall goal for students is to have them question entitlements -- i.e., what they feel they are entitled to have in life -- and to question the structure and morality of a society that rewards some and denies many.

Dr. Arlene Holpp Scala

I conduct a similar exercise to help students understand the realities of class in their own lives. Although the issues of race, class, sex, and sexuality are integrated throughout the semester, the focus of the course varies as the systems of oppression are addressed. During the second class session, classism is defined in the context of going over discussion ground rules and defining each of the major systems of oppression addressed in the course. I present the following definition to the students in order to have a shared reference point for conceptualizing class:

Classism is a system of oppression which privileges the wealthy and elite and discriminates against those with less wealth, especially the poor and working classes, and those with less prestige. Furthermore, "it is a specific oppression where the rules, values, mores, and ideals of one class are imposed upon another, within the hierarchy of class values". (Kramarae and Treichler 1992)

By the sixth week of the semester, students have read numerous articles in the Rothenberg anthology which address class issues (Sklar, Mantsios, Cassidy, Johnson, Wilkerson, The National Committee on Pay Equity, Kaufman, Lopez, Newman) as well as an excerpt on welfare from Don't Believe the Hype: Fighting Cultural Misinformation About African-Americans (Chideya 1995). As part of their reading assignment, students write reader-response logs. The logs include a brief summary of each reading and the students' responses to the readings. The responses can focus on one reading, each of the readings, or on themes that emerge from the readings as a whole. I encourage students to freely associate the reading with their thoughts, feelings, life experiences, observations, etc.

After discussing the readings during two class sessions, I ask students to write down the salaries they think they will earn in their careers within a year after graduation. I then ask them to project their salaries five years after graduation. When the salaries are placed on the board, it is evident that most students plan to earn between $32,000 and $38,000 soon after graduation. They list careers including teaching, nursing, middle-management, journalism, publishing, television production, exercise physiology, technology consulting, advertising, business administration, athletic training, occupational therapy, law enforcement, social work, law, and accounting. Within five years, most students plan to be earning at least $50,000. One student, who is planning to be an independent business owner, projected a salary of $20,000 the first year and $80,000 within five years. I put the students' projections up on the chalkboard and later prepare copies of the projections for the class. I find it helpful to look at the board with the students as we speculate about the accuracy of the projections. I ask students if the projections look realistic. At this time, some students tell stories about friends and their employment realities. I urge students to save their personal salary projections for future reference.

The class then returns to their readings and students are asked if their projections match the information provided in a variety of texts. Most students acknowledge that their projections do not match the information provided in Rothenberg's selections. One African American woman student, Regina, wrote in a reader-response log, "A white male has power over females and minorities no matter how you look at it. Therefore he is less likely to be oppressed and of working class and lower class status just because of racial domination." She questioned the facts about the economic disparity between people based on their race and sex: "How is it that Latina and African American women who have graduated college and are working full-time jobs have a lower salary than white males who never even graduated from college?" Regina is planning for a career in nursing and wrote that she is convinced that she won't be impacted by the racist and classist climate. It is interesting that while acknowledging the persistence of racism and classism, Regina thinks that she will not be victimized by them. It is not unusual for a working or middle-class student to believe that they will be immune from sex or race discrimination in the job place when they have a degree in hand (Scanlon, 1996, p. 7).

After reading Regina's log, I decided to anonymously present her response to the class. (I check with students, asking if it is all right for me to read from their work, before reading any of their signed writing.) Students agreed that the writer of the response was deluding her/himself. I then asked the class why a person would think that they would be immune to the sexism and racism impacting others. Most of the students who responded to my question indicated that the person was probably buying into the myth that everyone can be economically successful in society if they worked hard enough. However, one student agreed with the writer of the log, stating that the writer was correct to believe that she/he could achieve whatever she/he wanted to achieve.

One of the challenges facing a professor who is trying to make evident the impact of classism as it intersects with sexism, racism, and heterosexism, is to work with students to find solutions to classism in the U.S. While acknowledging that the struggle for more economic equity will be a long one, not likely to be won even in the youngest student's lifetime, I encourage students to think about solutions to the problems of classism and ask the class to brainstorm for solutions on the institutional and individual levels.

A recent brainstorming list included the following for institutional solutions: raising the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour to a living wage of $10; revising the income tax system so that a seriously graduated income tax would require the rich to pay a much larger percentage of income tax; implementing a national health care system funded by taxes; making public higher education free; demanding full employment; providing adequate low-income housing; and providing government-sponsored childcare and elder care. The same group of students came up with the following individual solutions: becoming more informed about jobs and careers by visiting the Career Development Office at WPUNJ; completing an undergraduate, and perhaps graduate, education; reading to become more informed about issues relating to economics and class; critiquing media messages; becoming more informed about political candidates and voting.

Film has been another helpful medium to make clearer issues of class. I show my students a film entitled The Status of the Latina Woman. This twenty-six-minute film gives the class time to discuss issues raised before the 75-minute class concludes. The documentary presents glimpses at the working lives of Latinas. Several of the women work in factories sewing. When they are interviewed, each one indicates her awareness that a college education would have given her the possibility of a better life, and the women want their children to have this opportunity. There is also an interview with a Latina community activist from California, Rosie Castro, who talks about Latina issues, including the need for community mobilization. In the film, the issue of class differences is revealed by the juxtaposition of images of women working at machines with images of white men in business suits lunching in the park and walking along city streets. The implication is that the successful upper middle-class men men wear the garments made by working class women. In another segment while women sew to the whirring of machines, a movie clip of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing to the tune of ballroom music appears. Again, issues of class are implied. After watching the film, students write anonymous responses, and then we have a discussion of the film. One student, who identifies as a single mom, wrote the following response:

I really in particular appreciated the inside look at the three generations of women of the family working in a sewing factory. It seemed to be more realistic as far as society as to how we know of it. I understand how the one single mom of two children felt about not being able to fulfill her goals of going to school because she had to work two jobs. However, myself also being a single mom do all I can, not only to provide for my child's needs but also be an example or a model for my son to see that education is important to reach my goals!

The film allows this student and others like her to make connections between the lives of the women in the film and their own lives. I always read excerpts from anonymous responses to films to the class. When I read this student's response, one other student shared her story about how she works while attending college. When students can make connections in writing and during discussions, there is an opportunity to teach about the value of education for people who are trying to move from a place of less privilege to a place of more empowerment.

Other students also reveal class awareness in the context of viewing this film. One wrote, "The women made it clear that they had to face both classism and racism." Making connections about the interlocking character of racism and classism is key to this course.

Another student, who identified as female, made a connection between the film and one of the readings in Rothenberg: "It reminds me of the reading about the working poor who create the wealth for our nation." I think it is very significant that the film helped the student to better understand the role of workers in a capitalist economy. The student's awareness leads to a teaching moment. After reading the comment aloud in class, I could further explain how the wealthy class is maintained by the less privileged classes.

However, not all students understand the systemic problems in society. One student wrote,

Most Latin women don't make a lot of money because they didn't go toschool because they have to work two jobs to support their kids. Maybe they should try harder to not have so many children. Maybe the government should help provide for these unfortunate Latin women.

While the student seems to blame the women for having "so many children" and not being economically successful, the student does indicate a social awareness in terms of expecting the government to help those who are poor. Throughout the semester we talk about the problem of blaming the victim. After reading this comment aloud, I was able to ask more questions: Why do some poor women have so many children? What can be done to politicize poor women? What can more privileged people learn from poor women?

I find that at times student responses to this film show that they are struggling to find solutions to class issues. The following response reveals this:

It seemed like the troubles for women are greater than for men immigrants. I know that this is an awful thought, and I don't think they deserve to be in this situation, but I keep thinking that part of their culture is their problem. I mean if they had not had children, then they could be saving money to go to school. When I see a story like this, I want to find one of the actors on Friends who gets like two million an episode, and say why can't you give like $50,000 to this family. That money could take them a long way. Every celebrity could spare that much money. Instead of just donating to a big charity to get their name out, they could go into these factories and homes and really help people. These are probably stupid ideas, but these are the thoughts that keep popping into my head.

When discussing systems of oppression, it is essential to also find solutions. This response shows that the film troubled the student who then rummaged in her or his mind to come up with a possible solution. The student moved from acknowledging difficulties faced by women to blaming the victim's culture and finally to suggesting that solving a class issue requires individual responses (donations). After reading this student's response to the class, I was able to discuss the possibility of finding both individual and institutional solutions to classism.

The responses of my students to discussions about class have been varied. In general, there seems to be more shared understanding of this issue than issues of race, sex, and sexuality. Although the students have different race, sex, and sexual identities, they develop some awareness of a class identity that is more alike than different. The students know that they are not at the top of the economic pyramid, among the 20% of the population who owns 80% of the wealth. The reader-response logs and class discussions make clear the gross inequities in the U.S. economic system, and almost every student places her or himself among the group that is treated "less than fair" by the system. Mantsios's article in the Rothenberg anthology helps students to understand the vast differences between the rich and owning classes in contrast with the middle, working, and poor classes. When talking about this, I draw an economic pyramid in the chalkboard to provide an image for the economic disparities among the classes.

Recently, I was impressed by one's student awareness of the significance of class issues. Following a collaborative presentation by a group of six students on the topic of police brutality, Jill asked group members if they were aware of the class identity of most police officers. Group members said middle class. I encouraged the group to think a bit more deeply based on their "new" knowledge learned from readings and discussions. They decided that most police officers probably come from the lower middle class. Group members then went on to talk about the socioeconomic class of most imprisoned people, and they concluded that police officers typically arrest people from their own class or lower classes. This led to a powerful class analysis of the criminal justice system. Students concluded that lower middle class police officers often protect the interests of the wealthy while penalizing poor, working, and lower middle class people whose crimes are often motivated by class-related issues.

Our Conclusions

We find that class continues to be one of the most difficult issues to confront in the classroom. Many students seem to feel shame about their own socioeconomic class once class issues are made visible. Other students get angry about the vast inequities in our society, inequities that are addressed in the readings as well as in class discussions. Some students seem to become empowered by their new information. There are also students who see nothing wrong with the class structure of U.S. society since they continue to believe that one can achieve whatever one is willing to work for, even after learning new information about structural classism.

We recognize that the students with whom we have worked reflect a limited socioeconomic diversity. For educators working with students from economically privileged classes, different pedagogical challenges may arise. For example, privileged students could be asked to critique their lives and be asked questions about how they achieved their socioeconomic status. It is likely that most privileged students would reveal that they had been born or adopted into more privileged families. Students could then be presented with "what if" scenarios. For example, "What if the value of the family portfolio was decimated due to a stock market crash?

Could you continue to study at this institution? Would your home still be there at holiday break? What material possessions would have been sold off? What plan of action would you take to go forward with your life?"

Another approach could ask the students to engage in a study of ecofeminism. Although we have noticed that many students are concerned about the environment, we think that environmental issues might be of greater interest to the more privileged, perhaps because they have the "luxury" to be concerned about air and water quality, etc. When discussing environmental issues, students could be asked to research which areas have the most environmental-related problems, such as high cancer rates. They could be asked why poor and working class people are more likely to be living in or near highly toxic areas. They could also be asked to research environmental issues in their home areas and then be asked to compare their studies.

We hope that more educators will research their students' perceptions of socioeconomic class, and that others will share what has worked for them in making class issues more accessible for students. We all also need to work to find more solutions to the problem of classism in our society while making connections between classism and other systems of oppression.

Suggested Readings

Appropriate readings can be found in each of the three major texts for this course.

1. Rothenberg, P. (1998). Race, class, and gender in the U.S., 4th ed. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Cassidy, J. "Who killed the middle class?"

Gans, H. "Deconstructing the underclass."

Hout, M. and S.R. Lucas. "Narrowing the income gap between rich and poor."

Jensen, R.H. "Welfare: Exploding the stereotypes."

Johnson, D. "Family struggles to make do after fall from middleclass."

Kaufman, J. "How workplace may look without affirmative action."

Lopez, J.A. "Women face glass walls as well as ceilings."

Lorde, A. "Age, class, and sex: Women redefining difference."

Mantsios, G. "Class in America: myths and realities."

National Committee on Pay Equity. "The wage gap: myths and facts."

Sklar, H "Imagine a country."

Sidel, R. "Toward a more caring society."

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. "The problem: discrimination."

Wilkerson, I. "Middle class blacks try to grip a ladder while lending a hand."

Woo, D. "The gap between striving and achieving: the case of Asian American women."

2. Cyrus, V. (1993). Experiencing race, class, and gender in the United States. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing.

Bingham, S. "The truth about growing up rich."

Glennon, L. "Yale: reflections on class in New Haven."

Sidel, R. "Who are the poor?"

Mohr, N. "Nilda at the welfare office."

3. Anderson, M. & Collins, P. (1995). Race, class, and gender, 2nd ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing.

Langston, D. "Tired of playing monopoly?"

Ehrenreich, B. "Are you middle class?"

Sklar, H. "The upper class and mothers in the hood."

Zinn, M. and Eitzen, D. "Structural transformation and systems of inequality."

REFERENCES

Chideya, F. (1995). Don't believe the hype: Fighting cultural misinformation about African-Americans. New York: Penguin Books.

hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom.

Kramarae, C. and Treichler, P.A. (1992). Amazons, Bluestockings and crones: A feminist dictionary. London: Harper Collins Publishers.

Mantsios, G. (1998). Class in America: Myths and realities. In P. Rothenberg, Race, class, and gender in the United States: An integrated study, 4th ed. (pp. 202-214). New York: St. Martin's Press.

Scanlon, J. (1996). Empathy education: Teaching about women and poverty in the introductory women's studies classroom. Radical Teacher, 48, 7-10.