Schools should prepare working-class students for being shamed by the more affluent, argues Andy Griffith…
Class shaming is something all working-class people experience at some point in their lives. In our book, The Working Classroom (Crown House Publications, 2023) both authors have experienced class shaming, which has motivated us to teach others about it. We undertook a lot of primary research for our book by interviewing fellow working-class people; being shamed by more privileged people is a universal experience for them too.
Our research indicates that shame can be evoked when a privileged person tries to devalue or delegitimise someone whom they perceive to be less important or less entitled than them. Through their words or actions, the privileged can, if successful, contribute to making another person feel unwelcome or unworthy. Many cite experiences from settings such as academia, social situations and the workplace.
We think it’s essential that schools and colleges teach working-class students that they in all likelihood will meet people who will try to make them feel bad about their background. Some will do this out of ignorance but others will be deliberately malicious. They then need to also help them to develop vital coping strategies in the face of that attempted shaming.
Sociologists such as Pierre Bourdieu explained how the privileged often rig the rules within certain fields to make it harder for working-class people to thrive within them. One tactic they use is to try to embarrass or humiliate others. When the privileged are successful, working-class people tend to quit and remove themselves from the field, thus leaving the way open for the elites to further dominate that sphere. It’s part of the reason why there is a class ceiling in many elite occupations.
According to the Office for National Statistics (2019)[1], only 10% of those from working-class backgrounds reach Britain’s higher managerial, professional, or cultural occupations. You are 17 times more likely to go into law if your parents are lawyers, while the children of those in film and television are 12 times more likely to enter these fields. Children of doctors are 24 times more likely than their peers to become doctors themselves[2].
Our job is to help prepare working-class students so that these attempts at class shaming fail.
In The Working Classroom we have created seven lessons or sessions that we think every working-class student should be taught. Dealing with those whom try to shame you is one of them.
The full lesson plan is downloadable in a pdf format here.
We recommend using drama or skillstreaming, as a way of dealing with this issue. Both are effective pedagogies for dealing with challenging social situations.[3] If you aren’t comfortable using drama as a pedagogy to address class shaming, don’t worry, the strategies can also be taught through discussions or debates. Having said that, we do think some role play helps the students to appreciate different ways to respond.
A session needs to address this core question: So how might someone more affluent try to shame a working-class person?
Possible answers might include: Ridicule/make fun of their accent, their clothes, their lack of money, their lack of experience (such as travel), their lack of connections.
You might add: In certain situations, people from a privileged background may try to make you feel uncomfortable or unwelcome. Sometimes this is accidental, but sometimes it is deliberate.
The rest of the lesson could take the students through a series of modelled responses. Explain that the lesson will look at some scenarios in which the students may find themselves in the near future. Indeed, it is worth asking if they have already encountered such situations. Explain that the modelled responses are tactics or tools: you use them when you need them. In the book we recommend five modelled responses or strategies that can be used across multiple shaming situations. They are:
- Being awkward, not feeling awkward.
- Being stoic in the face of insults.
- Responding with pride.
- Responding with information/knowledge.
- Using humour as a shield.
All five strategies will need to be explained before allocating a group to each one. Either in front of the whole class or with each small group, model an example of how this strategy might be used. Explain to each group that their job will be to demonstrate that strategy in an upcoming scenario.
Strategy 1: Being awkward, not feeling awkward
Explain that awkwardness can be viewed in two ways. It can be something you feel or something you are. A common insult to working-class people (and others who are oppressed) is that we have ‘a chip on our shoulder’. Quite a few people we interviewed certainly play this card when they sense that someone is trying to put them in their place. Having a chip on your shoulder isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It is the very epitome of being awkward; it can be used as a tactic to signify that you aren’t going to simply take the abuse or insulting behaviour.
Strategy 2: Being stoic in the face of insults
Stoicism is an ancient philosophy that has a lot of modern-day admirers. One of the main Stoic philosophers, Epictetus, wrote, ‘we ought not to yearn for the things which are not under our control’ (Discourses, 3.24).[4] He and other Stoics believed in the importance of undertaking daily thought exercises that can be rehearsed over and over. This rehearsal can happen in your head, through discussions or through journalling. These daily practices can help to reduce the possible fallout from situations such as when another person tries to shame you. Preparing for adverse events such as class shaming is known as premeditatio malorum by the Stoics. It is like a pre-mortem – preparing for things to go wrong.
Strategy 3: Responding with pride
We think there are lots of reasons to be proud of coming from a working-class background. Knowledge of where we have come from and the sort of lives led by our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents can help us to appreciate them and their struggles. In recent years, there has been a growth in interest about genealogy and heritage. Television programmes such as the BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? attract millions of viewers. Learning about our families, their occupations and the times they lived through can provide insights and be the source of much pride and gratitude at an individual level.
The working classes are people who have historically built things, created things, fixed things and maintained things, so that everyone in society can live their lives more easily. Remind the students that the room they are sitting in, the vehicles they travel in, the streets, drains, shops, sports facilities and so on were all built by working-class people.
Strategy 4: Responding with information/knowledge
This is when the person being shamed comes back with information that humiliates the person who is trying to humiliate them.
Knowledge not only acts as a shield against fake news and misinformation, but it also acts as a weapon against those who seek to denigrate us because we aren’t wearing the right clothes for the occasion, or we have made a faux pas with a fork at the dinner table. That is why, like all educators, we are great advocates of encouraging students to stretch themselves in terms of what they read, listen to and watch.
Do your students know how many things we might currently take for granted in society have been achieved through working-class struggle – such as the universal franchise, the welfare state, paid holidays, bank holidays, employment laws and so on – there is much more to the working-class, including creative achievements in fields such as music, literature, the arts, business, sport and so on.
Strategy 5: Using humour as a shield
Humour can be a great coping mechanism. The group using humour can use it in a variety of ways – to belittle, to confuse or to correct the aggressor in their ignorance.
The working classes have a rich history of creating humour. Certainly, many comedy writers are proud to call themselves working class and create comedy about working-class people. We can also use humour to laugh at privilege and deal with stressful or challenging situations. In fact, there is a long tradition of lampooning the upper classes in Britain that you can lean on in this strategy.
There are several types of humour that students can use: witty wordplay, imitation or even physical comedy.
Now introduce the some possible scenarios to students.
Scenario 1: The first day
It is your first day at college. You are nervous, and you overhear someone from a more affluent background make a negative comment about you to others. Ask each group to speculate what they might do in this situation.
The main character should try to model an excellent response to the given scenario (chosen from any on the recommended responses list). At the end of the scene (or throughout), the observers can suggest alternative or improved responses. The main character can freeze the scene at any time, have another attempt or interact with the audience to seek feedback.
Scenario 2: I can’t afford to …
This scenario is about affordability. Others from a more privileged social class say something sneering to the main character, such as:
- ‘What do you mean you can’t afford a laptop or better laptop?’
- ‘Why do you have to have a part-time job at uni?’
- ‘Did you get to university on a scholarship? How can someone like you afford it?’
As with scenario 1, the students should help the main character to develop the best response to this situation. What might they come back with? What could they say to the shamer(s) that would potentially shame them in return? Again, use the five modelled strategies, and encourage the groups to swap over and model a different strategy. Again, support each group with advice and feedback before, during and after the performance.
After (or throughout) each performance, the main character may freeze and seek advice or feedback from the main audience. This means that no performance must be polished; the groups can simply show what they have produced in the time they have been set.
Finally, transfer. After all the performances, ask the students to once again speculate how they might transfer this skill to real-life situations. Ask the whole class to consider which of the five responses was the best or most suitable.
Conclusion
Explain that this lesson has provided the space to rehearse different responses to being shamed. Hopefully, it will build the students’ confidence. Many working-class people suffer from imposter syndrome – a feeling of not deserving to be in certain places or to be in receipt of accolades. Nevertheless, emphasise to the students that millions of people around the world fight forms of discrimination such as classism on a daily basis. They do it because it makes the world a better and fairer place. Encourage them to support others, not just friends, who are being shamed because they are different in some way.
Questions to consider
- Where in your school’s curriculum are the students taught about class shaming?
- When does this take place? How much time is allocated to it?
- What type of pedagogies are used to teach about these issues and concepts?
- Does your school curriculum recognise the contribution that the working-class make in our society?
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/elitism-in-britain-2019
[2] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/children-of-doctors-and-lawyers-get-leg-up-as-elite-hoard-top-jobs-rr3v6zncm
[3] See A. P. Goldstein and E. McGinnis, with R. P. Sprakin, N. J. Gershaw and P. Klein, Skillstreaming the Adolescent: New Strategies and Perspectives for Teaching Prosocial Skills, rev. edn (Champaign, IL: Research Press, 1997).
[4] Epictetus, The Discourses as Reported by Arrian: The Manual and Fragments, vol. 2, tr. W. A. Oldfather (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press and London: William Heinemann, 1925).
The Working Classroom 