ABSTRACT
My long-term interest in how social class influences intergroup relations and life outcomes turned into a formal research agenda when I observed friends and neighbors’ reactions to a series of school closings in Hillsdale in the early 1980s. Because lowincome families rarely attended the school board meetings and did not air their views in letters to the editor of the local newspaper-as their affluent counterparts did-I decided to go to low-income people to find out how they felt about the state of educational affairs. The events surrounding the school closing and the ramifications from them are described in somewhat more detail in a brief recent history of administrative and board actions in chapter 7. To clarify what aroused my interest in social class issues and particularly what motivated me to study social class relations in Hillsdale, I begin this chapter with an autobiographical sketch before I detail the methods used in the studies of parents and school personnel.
