ABSTRACT
This chapter explains Americans’ continued commitment to the American Dream in spite of evidence of increased stratifications over the last 40 years. Given what the authors term the egalitarian myth, they suggest that the general American public needs to be better prepared to talk about social class issues. They note that there is a clear correlation between social class status and educational success but disagreement over how to explain this relationship. Rather than rely upon economic analysis on cultural deficit theories, the authors rely upon social, cultural, and personal aspects to explain the complex ways social class shapes educational experiences and outcomes. They explore social class as an identity that invokes ideologically mediated action, a moral relational constitution, and available ideologies. As such, they describe social class identity as performed. They close by emphasizing that social class is as much a lived experience as it is the result of economic factors and therefore requires the study of cultural forces that reproduce unequal relations.
