Solace, Mobility Strategies, and Meritocracy: High School Seniors Acquiring Social Class Literacy Through Young Adult Literature

Abstract

Addressing social class in literacy education through literature instruction matters because of the rich classed experiences in the texts taught, but also because of the social class messages gleaned from such texts. In a U.S. culture which propagates the dominant ideology of meritocracy, complicating students' understandings of social class in the meanings they draw from texts and those they draw about themselves matters. This high school study featured a social class literacy curriculum that foregrounded cultural understandings of social class focused on cultural and social capital. Students took up complex understandings of social class which they applied to their lives in three ways: they gained solace from their learning, and they appreciated learning mobility strategies to apply to their lives. Most significantly, they reinforced problematic meritocratic discourses reflecting a need for a structural critique of class in curriculum.