CHAPTER
44
Working Class, Social Class, and
Literacy Classism
Je f f Za c h a ra k i s , Ma r ga re t Patte rson, and Allan Quigle y
An invisible caste system exists in North American
society, one that is burdened by wage inequalities,
educational discrepancies, and government policies
and is forgotten in most university and college adult
education degree programs. Another term for this
“caste system” is social class, whereby lower “castes”
are typically the undereducated, underemployed or
unemployed, low-wage earners. This caste system
has major implications for adult education since, as
Boshier (2018) describes, “sociocultural impediments
to learning and education are deep-rooted and related
to socioeconomic status” (p. 7). Nesbitt (2006) argues
that we need to be aware of social class, its implica-
tions to adult and continuing education, and how it
shapes not only our curricula but also our policies. He
posits that education can be a liberating and empower-
ing experience, or it can be designed to maintain status
quo and keep students within existing class bounda-
ries. In a society that values individualism, hard work,
and personal motivation, the issues and problems of
social class are often not discussed or analyzed as struc-
tures that underlie our career and educational path-
ways, behaviors, or social networks.
As adult educators, we regularly see class differences
among our students—how they dress, speak, present
themselves, and act can affect their academic perfor-
mance (Nesbitt, 2006). Beyond our classrooms, we
see how those without a formal education, including
the millions of adults living with low literacy skills, are
Rocco.indb 420
often ignored in our discourse (Patterson, 2016; Quig-
ley, 2017). Depending upon our personal biases and
political values, some believe we should not use social
class to analyze and address social problems, arguing
that one’s class is not a barrier to achieving one’s goals.
By contrast, in this chapter we explore the relation-
ship between class, classism, and adult education using
adult literacy education (ALE) to illustrate how related
government policies can shape our practice. Our thesis
is that class does matter, and classism does affect adult
education policies, practices, and outcomes.
What Is Class and Classism?
What is class and how does classism manifest itself?
Bourdieu’s (1987) notion of class is consistent with
Marx and Durkheim’s views: social structures that dif-
ferentiate people and communities by their economic,
cultural, and social status. Bourdieu defines these rela-
tions as capital, that which is fungible (i.e., has exchange
value), and explains class structures as invisible and
obscure, meaning that most people are unconscious
of their own class other than having a “sense of one’s
place” and “a sense of the place of others” (p. 5). Using
his sociological framework, a social class is a group of
people who share the same three-dimensional space
defined by economic, cultural, and social capital. Each
class is shaped in part by its educational structures.
420
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 WORKING CLASS, SOCIAL CLASS, AND LITERACY CLASSISM
Social class shapes goals and beliefs, defines power,
and determines access to resources required to make
basic decisions and frame choices. Class divisions at
their most basic level are divided into lower (unem-
ployed and low-wage earners), lower middle, middle,
upper middle, and upper classes (Reeves, 2015). The
American Psychological Association Task Force on
Socioeconomic Status (Saegert et al., 2006) defines
social class by income, occupation, and education,
concluding: “Socioeconomic factors and social class
are fundamental determinants of human functioning
across the life span, including development, well-being,
and physical and mental health. These are all primary
concerns for psychological research, practice, educa-
tion, policy, and advocacy” (p. 1). A recent Brookings
Institute report (Reeves, 2015) showed the top 20%
of society has seen consistent income and wealth grow
from 1973 to 2013, especially the top 1%, while the
lower 80% have seen stagnation and declining income
and wealth. This report also shows a strong correla-
tion between income and education, especially related
to professional and graduate degrees. And, income
disparities have especially widened between the top
20% and lower 80% between 1983 and 2013. Moreo-
ver, the income disparity between working and mid-
dle class is not large, nor has it changed in the last
30 years. Education results in only a small percent-
age of students rising from a lower class and, in fact,
serves more effectively in reproducing class structures
(Chetty, Friedman, et al., 2017). These trends have
been exacerbated since World War II, as each group
of adults is less and less likely to earn more than their
parents (Chetty, Grusky, et al., 2017). The essence of
these reports is that educational level not only corre-
late with income but can strengthen class boundaries
for lower socioeconomic groups.
Associated with social class is classism, denoting a
negative relation between classes where one class treats
another class differently based on the first group’s per-
ception of a second group’s cultural values and social
status. According to Lott (2012), members of each
class see value and power in their own class, which
gives significance to their membership and reifies
the social-cultural boundaries between classes. Clas-
sism is amplified by conscious and unconscious biases
that reinforce one class as better than another. Lott
points out that higher-class membership allows access
to and benefits from “society’s economic and politi-
cal resources” while enhancing the member’s sense of
Rocco.indb 421
421
power and self-worth (p. 650). As these boundaries
become more distinct, they become more impenetra-
ble. Movement from lower class to higher classes sel-
dom occurs spontaneously.
As noted, education is an important form of capi-
tal and, when accumulated, sometimes enables one to
move from one class to another (Chetty, Freidman, et
al., 2017). Yet the proportion is small, with 90% of
early school leavers not pursuing education (Patterson,
2018). Of those who do pursue adult education, low-
income students are especially disadvantaged in the
ALE system due to textbook shortages, overcrowded
classrooms, low academic expectations and chronic
underfunding (Quigley, 2017). If they enroll in 4-year
institutions, low-income students are often less likely
to graduate than peers from families with the high-
est incomes (Snyder et al., 2018). When 4-year col-
leges are not academically or financially attainable,
students will often apply to community colleges and
trade schools, take low-skilled, low-pay jobs or, if they
qualify, enlist in the military. Compounding this edu-
cational disparity, approximately 45% of low-income
students in the United States leave 2-year institutions
without completing degrees (Snyder et al., 2018).
Classism also manifests itself in state and national
policies and programs, often reflecting the biases of
elected officials and policy makers who predominantly
represent upper classes. Jensen (2012) describes clas-
sism as a form of prejudice permeating all aspects of
civil society and reproducing structures that strengthen
class divisions and class identities. In short, classism
not only shapes one’s identity, values, and beliefs, it
also sets up power relations that benefit certain classes,
as seen in many state, provincial, and national literacy
policies and resource disparities.
Historical Context of Adult Education
and Literacy
To illustrate how social class has shaped the develop-
ment of adult education as a field of study we examine
the historical roots of ALE. The genesis and purpose
of adult literacy education in the early 20th century
United States was aligned with serving the impover-
ished and working class. Roots can be traced to Walter
Rauschenbusch (1908) and the social gospel, which
strongly influenced progressive educators such as John
Dewey, Jane Addams and, later, Reinhold Niebuhr and
06-06-2020 00:38:49
 422
Myles Horton (Fisher, 1997; Zacharakis & Holloway,
2016). Similarly, in Canada, the social gospel was the
driving force for ALE landmarks such as the YMCA,
Frontier College, and the Antigonish Movement
(Quigley, 2006). Providing necessary literacy educa-
tion for new immigrants and the underclass was an
important strategy to enfranchise the disenfranchised
into civil society. However, the struggle to achieve this
in the face of literacy classism has deep historical roots.
During the Roman Empire, considered the first lit-
erate empire: “An illiterate was not a person who could
not read, but someone who could not read Latin, the
vehicle of Christendom and all learning. Only some-
one who could read Latin was a litteratus” (Fischer,
2003, p. 149). As Fischer observed, privileging a dom-
inant language “demonstrates how literacy in any soci-
ety is not simply a question of who can read and write,
but rather the accommodation of prevailing values”
(p. 149). In the United States today, “literacy” means
instruction in English, no other written language. In
Canada, English and French alone formally qualify
as “literacy.” No native or Indigenous languages, no
other European languages, not even regional majority
languages such as Spanish or Chinese officially qual-
ify as “literacy” in North America. This century’s old
social construct is still defined and quantified by the
dominant classes—today’s litteratus (Quigley, 1997).
Significantly, the starting point for ALE through
history has been to first “justify” its social benefits. As
early as 1816, Thomas Pole argued the case for adult
literacy for the “illiterate poor” by discussing the suc-
cess of the Bristol School Movement (Verner, 1967).
Here was the archetypal justification for adult literacy
education. According to Pole, teaching the “illiterate
poor” to read using the Bible would increase the moral-
ity of the illiterate lower classes: “Industry, frugality,
and economy will be their possession. They will have
also learned better to practise [sic] meekness, Christian
fortitude, and resignation” (Pole cited in Verner, 1967,
p. 19). In addition, England would see economic
benefits: “Our poor rates will thus be lightened, our
hospitals, alms-houses, dispensaries, and other public
charities less encumbered” (Pole cited in Verner, 1967,
p. 19). The justification of literacy education for the
economy and morality were the first imperatives for
sponsoring ALE. Lead by various religious groups,
especially the Methodists, the Bristol School model
swept England, Sierra Leone, China, New York, and
Philadelphia, becoming the 19th century model for
Rocco.indb 422
CONTEMPORARY ISSUES
countless adult education programs across North
America (Quigley, 2006).
In March 1862, Rev. William Richardson and 40
members of the Gideonite religion sailed from New
York to Port Royal to establish adult schools for the
more than 10,000 freed slaves. The goal of this “Port
Royal Experiment” was to help Freedmen learn to read
and write (with the Bible central to the curriculum)
and encourage a postwar takeover of plantations and
farms by freed slaves (Rachal, 1986). Importantly, the
controversy around this “experiment” was whether
freed slaves were even capable of learning to read and
write (Quigley, 2006). Richardson and colleagues
found themselves working tirelessly to try to convince
Northerners that African Americans were their intel-
lectual equals.
Likewise, in 1889, Jane Addams and her female col-
leagues established Hull House, a landmark settlement
house in Chicago’s worst slums. They sought to help
immigrants learn English and gain citizenship but faced
fierce social class opposition. They began by inviting
Chicago’s elite to witness the poverty surrounding Hull
House, and focused their efforts on teaching English,
adult literacy, and trades training. But they ultimately
realized that the struggles of thousands of immigrants
were not due to lack of motivation or intelligence, but
to an exploitive class structure. The very concept of an
eight-hour workday was “connected in the minds of
many employers not only with laziness but with anar-
chy” (Linn, 1935, p. 101). Addams and her colleagues
ultimately led the fight for rights of immigrants and
the working class (Linn, 1935) and are today credited
with leading the way into the 20th century for rights
for the disenfranchised.
A final example, in 1911, superintendent of schools
and editor of the local newspaper, Cora Wilson
Stewart, created a night school movement in Rowan
County, Kentucky, that swept America. If the moon
was shining, adults were invited to rural schoolhouses
to learn to read and write. The Moonlight Schools of
Kentucky saw 1,200 engage across Rowan County in
its first year. The movement swept the entire United
States within a decade (Cook, 1977; Quigley, 2006).
Nevertheless, despite her successes both nationally
and internationally, including being named advisor to
President Calvin Coolidge for the first national literacy
crusade in 1926 and Army advisor on literacy through
World War I, when Stewart requested further funding
to continue her work, her Kentucky superintendent
06-06-2020 00:38:49
 WORKING CLASS, SOCIAL CLASS, AND LITERACY CLASSISM
colleagues refused her request, calling the Moonlight
Schools a quixotic “fad and a failure” (Estes, 1988, p.
251). They argued adults would not learn to read and
write, insisting all funding should go to the school sys-
tem, a policy argument still heard today.
The goal of these North American adult educa-
tion pioneers was not only to address individual issues
of poverty, exploitation, and access to education and
civil rights, it was also to enfranchise every citizen
into civil society. These ideals helped shape President
Roosevelt’s New Deal and gave life to Land Grant uni-
versity extension programs, post-World War II veteran
education programs, the community college move-
ment, and the higher levels of state/federal assistance
for education. These ideals spawned an adult educa-
tion movement in the 1950s, as exemplified by the
Center for the Study of Liberal Education for Adults
(Liveright, 1961) and the first graduate programs in
adult education in both the United States and Can-
ada. The unifying theme across both nations has been
high-quality educational opportunities at an afford-
able cost that should extend to everyone, regardless of
class or social status. Education was to be a primary
pillar of an equitable, fair, democratic society.
Historically, literacy classism has been ever-present.
However, while today’s mainstream adult, postsecond-
ary, and higher education is realizing such goals for
some, for the voiceless millions living with low literacy
and undereducation, their best hope is today’s mar-
ginalized system of ALE—a system that has become
dependent on competing ideologies and the politi-
cal will of government sponsors on both sides of the
United States–Canadian border.
Political Context in Adult Education
and Literacy
During the 1960s and 1970s, “it seemed the years of
struggle were over” (Thomas, 2001, p. xiii). President
Johnson’s 1964 Economic Opportunity Act initiated
a surge of literacy campaigns promising to “eradicate
illiteracy” (Quigley, 1997, p. 17). U.S. Commissioner
of Education James Allen, called the federal Right
to Read campaign the “moonshot for the seventies”
(Harman, 1987, p. 1). In Canada, the 1967 federal
Adult Occupational Act saw, “Media attention . . . at
an all-time high with new partners, new alliances, new
coalitions, everything from, travelling musicals . . .
Rocco.indb 423
423
to T-shirts and mugs making adult literacy initiatives
extremely popular” (Thomas, 2001, p. xxiii). North
America’s war on illiteracy would be won with an
army of volunteers and supported with an infusion of
federal funding to build ALE programs across North
America. By the late 1980s, this surge was over.
Despite the heroic efforts of individuals and inno-
vative programs through time, literacy education has
come to be shaped by neoliberal government policies
that often reproduce the dominant patterns of lit-
eracy’s history. In the United States, ALE programs
are primarily funded by federal government through
the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act
(WIOA, 2014) with varying levels of matching funds
from individual states, much of which is dedicated to
increasing the number of adults who can gain skills
and credentials for high-demand jobs. The purpose
of federal funding is articulated on the U.S. Depart-
ment of Education’s webpage: “WIOA is designed to
strengthen and improve the nation’s public workforce
development system by helping Americans with bar-
riers to employment, including individuals with dis-
abilities, achieve high quality careers and helping
employers hire and retain skilled workers” (OCTAE,
2019, Overview section, para. 1). At the same time,
minimal funding through Title II of WIOA, approxi-
mately $509 million in 2017–2018, or $364 per adult
learner, is awarded for ALE. As a result, fewer and
fewer adults who qualify for these programs and need
skills actually receive services. By our calculations of
National Reporting System data, enrollment in Title
II programs has declined nationally from 2.5 mil-
lion adult learners in 2005–2006 to 1.4 million adult
learners in 2017–2018.
Canadian federal and provincial/territorial policies
have followed a similar path over the past two dec-
ades. ALE programs in Canada are today supported
by the National Office of Literacy and Essential Skills
(OLES), the mandate of which is: “to help adult Cana-
dians improve their literacy and essential skills to better
prepare for, get and keep a job, and adapt and succeed
at work” (OLES, 2017, From employment and social
development Canada section, para. 1). Federal funding
exists to support “the integration of essential skills into
employment and training programs” (OLES, para. 1).
While Canada’s provinces and territories have the con-
stitutional mandate for adult literacy education, their
policy priorities today basically mirror the human cap-
ital formation goals of the federal government.
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 424
Implications to Adult Education and Literacy
As we move further into the 21st century, the skills
gap continues to widen between income levels of the
educational “haves” and “have-nots” (Patterson &
Paulson, 2016). In the United States, 1 in 7 young
adults leaves high school early, and only half of this
group receive a high school equivalency (HSE) cre-
dential. Of those with an HSE credential, 45% enroll
in postsecondary education by age 26, and only 18%
of those earn a postsecondary certificate or associ-
ate degree (National Center for Education Statistics,
2016). It is not surprising then, that by age 26, 4 in 5
of these graduates were earning no more than $35,000
annually. Moreover, the more a family relies on the
income of an adult learner, the less likely the adult
learner is to enroll in and complete college (Smith
& Gluck, 2016). Without credentialed skills, adults
remain firmly “have-nots” with minimal economic
opportunities (Patterson & Paulson, 2016).
Despite historical examples of heroism and peda-
gogical exceptions, the fact is that the voices of adult
literacy learners and the disenfranchised have been
rarely heard at the practice level, and are absent at
the level of policy making (Patterson, 2016, 2018;
Quigley, 2006). This is not something new. In the
first nationwide U.S. evaluation of adult basic educa-
tion, Mezirow et al. (1975) wrote that “involving stu-
dents in any kind of evaluation of methods, materials,
teacher performance, scheduling, classroom facilities
or anything else for that matter, is almost unheard of ”
(p. 28). While the field of adult education has long
prided itself in seeking to meet the needs of adult
learners, policy-makers and sponsors influence and
determine funding levels, curricula, delivery methods
and the very purposes of ALE programs.
As practitioners of adult education and ALE, we
understand the importance of being able to support a
family, earn an income, and have the reading, numer-
acy, and career skills needed for employment. We
understand that millions of adults have been helped
to achieve those objectives through ALE programs.
However, we also understand that a fundamental
social value and first principle of contemporary adult
education is that adult learning is a personal choice.
Zacharakis and Holloway (2016) deconstructed
how neoliberalism has become the dominant para-
digm in adult education practice today at all levels,
including preparing future educators in ALE, higher
Rocco.indb 424
CONTEMPORARY ISSUES
education, and human resource development. Using
Rhoades and Slaughter’s (1997) concept of academic
capitalism and Bagnall’s (1999) critique of open mar-
keteering, they argue that faculty in higher education,
including adult education faculty, often are reduced to
recruiting students who have financial means to pay
for education. A situation exists where only “entrepre-
neurial faculty and universities will survive” (Zachara-
kis & Holloway, 2016, p. 228). This reality is reflected
in how choices that enhance an adult student’s oppor-
tunity to increase status, income, and marketability are
often made at the expense of other courses that would
prepare them to work in low-status positions, such as
teaching in ALE programs. Adult education programs
in higher education increasingly reflect societal priori-
ties and the norms of literacy classism. Students that
faculty are most likely to recruit are rarely interested
in literacy education because ALE typically serves the
unemployed and low-wage earners. As such, ALE is
not a high social priority in higher education unless
attached to research grants and contracts. It is hardly
surprising that very few departments of education in
universities across North America today offer degrees,
majors, or even standalone courses on adult literacy.
The question that we raise for further discussion is,
“Do these trends in educational policies and programs
create a more equitable society or do they reify existing
class structures?” If the future of ALE is to be built on
learner needs as well as societal and economic priori-
ties, a literacy pedagogy that builds critical thinking
and increases adults’ life chances will be essential. Nar-
rowing ALE programs to be “the handmaiden of job
training” (Mezirow et al., 1975, p. 141) does not fulfill
this promise. We argue for a pedagogy that introduces
how social structures can become personal barriers.
We advocate for more politically based curricula to
help adult learners understand and access the politi-
cal system, to help them identify their rights as adult
citizens, and build their capacities to see and challenge
literacy classism into the 21st century.
One promising approach for doing so is through
development of adult learner empowerment where the
impoverished and working class can establish control
over their own learning and success. If adult learner
leadership was a central objective—defined as involve-
ment in all components of an ALE program (Patter-
son, 2016)—the experiences and prior knowledge of
adult learners could lead them to become advocates
for ALE and mentors to others. We need pedagogy in
06-06-2020 00:38:49
 WORKING CLASS, SOCIAL CLASS, AND LITERACY CLASSISM
ALE that provides adequate opportunities and prac-
tice in building leadership (Greene, 2007). Leadership
skills such as problem-solving, critical thinking, com-
munication, and interpersonal skills are critical for the
future of ALE. An example is an ALE program that
is showing real promise as learners develop transfer-
rable skills for the workplace, family, and community
(Black et al., 2006; Jurmo, 2010; Toso et al., 2009).
Engaging adult learners in supported and structured
leadership activities encourages them into more for-
mal positions of leadership and community activism
(Bolívar & Chrispeels, 2011; Toso & Gungor, 2012).
Findings from a recent experimental evaluation
could expand the limited ALE knowledge base of adult
learner leadership in the United States (Patterson,
2016). Envisioned and developed by VALUEUSA,
a nonprofit organization comprising adult learner
alumni, this evaluation allowed 13 ALE programs
in 7 states to be randomly selected for an interven-
tion including leadership training and developing a
learner-led project. By the final year of the evaluation,
adult learner leaders had heightened scale scores in
both reasoning and information processing measures.
After controlling for first-year scores in information
processing, growth on information and processing
scale scores was also higher.
Over time, adult learner leaders from such programs
have found their voice in leading interactions within
learning settings where teachers have traditionally
led, and learners have passively listened. Adult learner
leaders experienced significant growth from baseline
to final year in proportion of time in leading inter-
actions, compared with control learners who tended
to lead fewer interactions as time went on (Patterson,
2016). Adult learners who participated as leaders also
saw themselves as more inclined to volunteer to help
in the program or lead an activity than staff thought
they would (Patterson, 2016). Based on these findings,
VALUEUSA is expanding leader-training efforts with
a goal of involving even more adult learners in ALE
program administration and capacity building in the
2020s.
In closing, over the past half-century, we have seen
marginalized groups with disabilities, African Ameri-
cans and African Canadians, Canadian First Nations,
Métis, Native Americans, and the LGBTQ commu-
nity gain greater voice and more rights by challenging
classism. This type of counter-hegemonic challenge
is needed in adult literacy. As Cervero (2017) stated,
Rocco.indb 425
425
“Learning needs should not be treated as deficiencies
. . . . Rather, learning needs should be treated as the
adult’s right to know” (p. 39). In a 2018 study on rea-
sons why adults do not participate in adult education,
a low-income adult addressed national policymakers
saying:
Everybody needs an education. Provide the edu-
cation for people who want one. Make sure you
go all out for them. Because they [at the national
level] are the ones saying it is very important to
have education, so provide the way so people are
able to get it. (Patterson & Song, 2018, p. 67)
In this chapter we explored working class, social class,
literacy classism and their combined influences on
teaching and learning in adult literacy education.
We introduced invisible caste as a metaphor for class
and classism using adult literacy in both Canada and
the United States to illustrate the complexities of this
issue. We argue that we have a choice to either sup-
port a status quo that often sustains income disparity
and maintains class structures, or seek programs that
emphasize that all citizens have a right to know and a
right to act on the political and social structures that
shape their life chances.
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