A Class Divided Summary

“A Question of Class” focuses on Dorothy Allison’s struggle of identifying herself as a poverty stricken individual, and breaking free from her predetermined destiny while simultaneously accepting her past. Allison understands the prejudice that comes with being poor with the statement, “I have learned with great difficulty that the vast majority of people pretend that poverty is a voluntary condition, that the poor are…less than fully human…” The quote fundamentally means that society does not view the poor as their equivalents to the world, and one chooses to live in such conditions. Although the remark was made in the 1950’s, it still rings true in the societal ideology of present time. Changes have not been

A CLASS DIVIDED Thirty years ago Jane Elliott taught the third grade in the white, Christian community of Riceville, Iowa. The day Martin Luther King Jr. was killed she planned an exercise that wouldn't just show her students what racism is - rather, it would give them first-hand experience of what it felt like to be oppressed for something out of their control. Elliott divided her class by the color of their eyes, marked them with armbands and proceeded to treat one group as if superior in capabilities to the other. The superior students performed better than they ever had before, while the inferior students' performance dropped. The next day, the third graders traded ranks and their performance reversed in accordance to their

Everyone is likely to experience some form of discrimination or prejudice; as is anyone capable of acting prejudiced towards others. On April 5th, 1968, a teacher in Riceville, Iowa named Jane Elliot conducted an experiment with her third grade class that dealt with the concept of discrimination; and was documented in Peters’ 1985 ‘A Class Divided’. The exercise originally took place the day after Martin Luther King was assassinated. The documentary is an eye opener to the world of racism and discrimination. Bucher (2010) describes racism as “discrimination based on the belief that one race is superior to another” (97). According to Bucher (2010) “discrimination is defined as the

On April 5 1968 Jane Elliot preformed the historical experiment in her 3rd grade classroom separating blue-eyed and brown-eyed children. After the death of Martin Luther King her students raised quiestions and she wanted to think of a way to make her students understand what minorities in the U.S feel like. Jane believed that her students would understand what it felt like to be discriminated against by separating them by their eye color. She asked her students if they wanted to be treated like a person of color for a day, judging their peers by the color of their eyes. The students went along with it and that coined the experiment that would later be known as “A Class Divided”.

Throughout the book, Class Matters Where We Stand, she emphasizes on recognizing the difficulties of how classism, racism, and sexism interlock one another. Although most people like myself think of America as one of the richest and most developed countries in the world, Hooks shows the negative side of our society. Before reading the book Where We Stand Class Matters, I thought of this country as having equality, diversity, and freedom. Hooks describes a contrasting side to my thoughts of our society. Hooks really made me rethink and question my images of American

In the reading, Jones explores the relationship between class, race, and gender. She states that African Americans, in general, are oppressed, however, black women

In her book "Where We Stand: Class Matters", Bell Hooks address the issues of classism interlocking with racism, white supremacist ideology and sexism in contemporary American culture. Her arguments in this book are greatly tied to her personal experience that she moved up from working class to the upper class as she succeeds in academic life and writing many books.

Inequalities in skin color at Wilson were very prevalent. This wasn’t because of the teacher, but the world around them. Each different color segregated themselves to “keep with their own.” The differences like this kept the students at Wilson from reaching their potential. When

Who we are and how we are treated as children is directly correlated to who we will become as adults. Spoken by Lyndon B. Johnson, “Until Justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men’s skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.” These words are echoed throughout the educational system that is put in place today. Jonathan Kozol, an award-winning writer and public lecturer who focuses on social injustice in the United States, reverberates these words in his article, “From Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid”. Kozol proves his mastery in persuasion by the facts he provides and the personal anecdotes from teachers and students.

A Class Divided: The students did recognize that in these United States, “black/nigger and Indian” people are not treated as their brothers. One little boy responded to the question of, “How are people who are of a different color treated” with “They don’t get everything of this world because they are a different color.”(“A Class Divided”, 1968)

In this chapter, bell hooks describes her experience with class privilege in college. Her race and socioeconomic status made her stick out from her classmates, which made her a target for their stares and torments. Her financial situation also made it hard for her to get into a college that she felt comfortable at. Hooks’ struggles ultimately made college hard for her, and left her feeling bitter and troubled about her achievements.

Connor opted to use a narrative as a means of expression since most people understand issues better when they are conveyed as a narrated story. Michael, the participant researcher, narrates the discrimination he went through during his time in school. Being a student with a learning disability, he was segregated from the other “normal” students, and they always taunted him because of his condition. The fact that he is black, physically challenged and comes from a working class background makes him feel less entitled to receiving a decent college education (Connor, 2006). His situation that even in the education sector, the playing field is not fair as far as minority groups are concerned.

Since the colonists landed on the eastern shore of what is now the United States, there has been conflicts between the different races. White people assumed a dominant role. They wiped out most of the Native Americans and enslaved the African people after bringing them to their colonies. These social dynamics changed over time but it has been a slow process. In Angela Davis’ book Women, Race, & Class, she delves into the oppression that was faced by people due to their social identities. She believes that people do not suffer because of class status, racial or gender identity alone but rather they suffer because of different combinations of the three.

I have grown up in a predominantly white, well-resourced, private school in suburban Maryland; therefore, inequality has been an inevitable factor in my educational experience. Although my school tried to include me, I still often felt isolated. From the time I was able to comprehend the idea of inequality and injustice, I developed an intense desire to fight for others if unfair actions were taken against them. As I grew older, this passion grew stronger, and I came to realize that fighting for justice is what I hope to be doing for the rest of my life.

A Class Divided is a documentary about Jane Elliot, a third grade teacher who changed the view on discrimination for many. Following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, her students were confused as to how someone could do such a thing to their hero of the month, this is when Jane knew she had to do something. She realized that her students had no firsthand experience of discrimination, and has thought about her experiment for quite some time. This is when she finally decided it was time to make a difference, and change the lives of her students for years to come. Her lesson was focused on “taking the role of the other”, as discussed in our class. This term means “putting yourself in someone else’s shoes; understanding how someone else feels and thinks, so you can anticipate how that person will act”. (Henslin)