From criticality to shame: Childhood memories of social class and how they matter to elementary school teachers and teaching

ABSTRACT

In the United States, economic inequality in education is well-documented. However, less is known about the experiences of elementary school teachers who have broached issues of social class with their students. At the same time, the classed identity of teachers is still under-developed. This study takes a phenomenological approach to teacher subjectivity and examines how 57 New York City elementary school teachers narrated memories of class in their own childhoods and how such memories were linked to their perspectives on addressing economic inequality as it appears in their classrooms. Drawing on open-ended responses from an online survey, teachers responded to economic inequality in five general ways: a call for systemic critique, the need for empathy and inclusion, shared experiences with students and families, greater access to resources and opportunity, and a sense of hesitation and discomfort. Implications for teacher education, teacher diversity, and educational research are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Economic inequality
• elementary school
• neoliberalism
• teacher subjectivity
• teachers

Acknowledgement

I am grateful to Dr. Karen Zaino and the Advanced Research Collaborative (ARC) Fellowship at the Graduate Center, CUNY for their support of this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Spencer Foundation under Grant [#202100278].