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Taking action to build agency and belonging among high school students who want to make an impact in their communities
Class Matters
“Just (use your iPhone to) take an Über to the party. And don’t forget to dress up!”
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“Let’s start a rotation for bringing bagels for the class every Monday.”
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“Where did your family go over vacation?”
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“Where did your parents go to college?”
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Innocent remarks like these are just one kind of example of the ways class can sneak into school life. But what does the term class mean? Is it economic? social? something else? Does class mean the same thing in the United States as in other countries? in Southern California as in other regions? in one San Diego community as another? How much do you have to know about me to identify my class status? We will look at some basic underlying concepts of class and socio-economic status, sift through a small bit of data about what terms like working class, middle class, etc. mean, then discuss whether, how, and why class matters at school and beyond.
Jared D'Onofrio
Jared D'Onofrio earned his BA in English and Textual Studies from Syracuse University and his MFA in Creative Writing (fiction concentration) from the University of Pittsburgh before returning home to San Diego, where he has taught at Francis Parker School for twenty-five years. He was the first member of his family and the first among the kids in his neighborhood to go to college, and has fostered and followed the careers of first-generation college students of his with keen interest and pride. He served two terms as an inaugural member of Parker's Diversity Leadership Team and remains devoted to ensuring students see themselves as well as a wide variety of others in the literature they read.