Chapter 6: Why Teaching Class Matters

Class is undeniably important in understanding the human enterprise over time and space. It is perhaps the single most important variable in society. Class affects individuals and society across the spectrum of social issues including health, social mobility, education, crime, who fights in wars, economy, as well as trust, social and civic participation, attitudes, and happiness. Despite its importance in every practical sense, class is not a keyword in the social studies curriculum. Social class historian Howard Zinn observed the “history of working people and the labor movement is not taught.… It’s not in the schools books and it’s not in the mass media. So workers are unaware of past labor struggles, and this can have a debilitating effect” (Peterson, 1999, p. 73). A school textbook editor told James Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me, “There are three great taboos in textbook publishing, sex, religion, and social class” (Loewen, 1995, p. 34).