Social Class: A bibliography for composition and rhetoric


Rebecca Moore Howard
The Writing Program
Syracuse University



Please note: I'm increasingly using CiteULike and del.icio.us for my bibliographic work. (On both sites you'll need to click on tags of interest.) Browse what's on this page and then check out CiteULike, del.icio.us, CompPile, and the MLA International Bibliography (requires SU ID) for more. A list of all the static bibliographies that I've put online is here.


Please email suggestions, corrections, or additions.


Last updated 28 December 2007

Abel, Elizabeth.  "Race, Class, and Psychoanalysis?  Opening Questions."  Conflicts in Feminism.  Ed. Marianne Hirsch and Evelyn Fox Keller.  New York:  Routledge, 1990.  184-204.

Apple, M.W.  Teachers and Texts:  A Political Economy of Class and Gender Relations in Education.  New York:  Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986.

Aronowitz, Stanley. "Against Schooling: Education and Social Class." Social Text 22.2 (Summer 2004).

Batsleer, Janet, Tony Davies, Rebecca O'Rourke, and Chris Weedon.  Rewriting English:  Cultural Politics of Gender and Class.  New York:  Methuen, 1985.

Bernstein, Basil. 

Bledstein, Burton J.  The Culture of Professionalism:  The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education in America.  New York:  W.W. Norton, 1976. 

Blitz, Michael, and C. Mark Hurlbert.  "Class Actions."  Composition and Resistance.  Ed. C. Mark Hurlbert and Michael Blitz.  Portsmouth, NH:  Boynton/Cook, 1991.  167-174. 

Bloom, Lynn.  "Freshman Composition as a Middle-Class Enterprise."  College English 58 (1996):  654-75. 

Boiarsky, Carolyn R., ed.  Academic Literacy in the English Classroom:  Helping Underprepared and Working Class Students Succeed in College.  Portsmouth, NY:  Boynton/Cook, 2003. 

Bookman, Ann.  "Unionization in an Electronics Factory:  The Interplay of Gender, Ethnicity, and Class."  Women and the Politics of Empowerment.  Ed. Ann Bookman and Sandra Morgen.  Philadelphia:  Temple UP, 1988.  159-179. 

Borkowski, David.  "Class(ifying) Language:  The War of the Word."  Rhetoric Review 21.4 (2002):  357-383. 

Borkowski, David.  "'Not Too Late to Take the Sanitation Test':  Notes of a Non-Gifted Academic from the Working Class."  College Composition and Communication 56.1 (Sept. 2004):  94-123. 

Borman, Kathryn M., Elaine Mueninghoff, and Shirley Piazza.  "Urban Appalachian Girls and Young Women:  Bowing to No One."  Class, Race, and Gender in American Education.  Ed. Lois Weis.  Albany:  SUNY UP, 1988.  230-48.

Bottomley, Gill, Marie de Lepervanche, and Jeannie Martin.  Intersexions:  Gender/Class/Culture/Ethnicity.  Allen & Unwin, 1991.

Bourdieu, Pierre.

Brodkey, Linda.  Writing Permitted in Designated Areas Only.  Minneapolis:  U Minnesota P, 1996. 

Charlesworth, Simon.  "Bourdieu, Social Suffering and Working-Class Life."  Reading Bourdieu on Society and Culture.  Ed. Bridget Fowler.  Malden, MA:  Blackwell, 2000. 

Childers, Mary, and bell hooks.  "A Conversation about Race and Class."  Conflicts in Feminism.  Ed. Marianne Hirsch and Evelyn Fox Keller.  New York:  Routledge, 1990.  60-81. 

Crowley, Tony.  Language in History:  Theories and Texts.  New York:  Routledge, 1996. 

Dewey, John.  "Class Struggle and the Democratic Way."  The Social Frontier 2.8 (1936):  241-2.

Dimock, Wai Chee, and Michael T. Gilmore, eds.  Rethinking Class:  Literary Studies and Social Formations.  New York:  Columbia UP.

Duberman, Martin.  Left Out:  The Politics of Exclusion/Essays/1964-2002.  Cambridge, MA:  South End P, 2002. 

Ehrenreich, Barbara.  "Class Struggle 101."  The Progressive (November 2003).  <http://www.progressive.org/nov03/ehr1103.html>. 

Ellis, Donald G.  Crafting Society:  Ethnicity, Class, and Communication Theory.  Lawrence Erlbaum. 

Epstein, Barbara.  "Radical Democracy and Cultural Politics:  What about Class?  What about Political Power?"  Radical Democracy:  Identity, Citizenship, and the State.  Ed. David Trend.  New York:  Routledge, 1996.  127-139. 

Erlichman, Lauren. "What Lies between Us." Reflections 4.1.

Finn, Patrick J.  Literacy with an Attitude:  Educating Working-Class Children in Their Own Self Interest.  Albany: SUNY, 1999.

Fowler, Bridget  "Reading Pierre Bourdieu's Masculine Domination:  Notes Towards an Intersectional Analysis of Gender, Culture and Class."  Cultural Studies 17.3-4 (May/July 2003):  468-494. 

Francis, W. Nelson.  "Social and Educational Varieties in English."  The English Language.  1963.  Excerpted and rpt. Aspects of American English. Ed. Elizabeth M. Kerr and Ralph M. Aderman. 2nd ed. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1963, 1971. 326-335.

Freire, Paolo.  The Politics of Education:  Culture, Power, and Liberation.  Intro. Henry Giroux.  Trans. Donaldo Macedo.  South Hadley, MA:  Bergin and Garvey, 1985.

Fuss, Diana J.  "Gender, Role, and Class:  In Quest of the Perfect Writing Theme."  Teaching Writing:  Pedagogy, Gender, and Equity.  Ed. Cynthia L. Caywood and Gillian R. Overing.  Albany:  SUNY UP, 1987. 107-112.

Gale, Xin Liu.  "'The Stranger' in Communication:  Race, Class, and Conflict in a Basic Writing Class."  JAC:  A Journal of Composition Theory 17.21 (1997):  53-68. 

Gibson, Michelle, Martha Marinara, and Deborah Meem.  "Bi, Butch, and Bar Dyke:  Pedagogical Performances of Class, Gender, and Sexuality."  College Composition and Communication 52.1 (September 2000):  69-95. 

Gibson-Graham, J.K. The End Of Capitalism (As We Knew It): A Feminist Critique of Political Economy. U Minnesota P, 2006.

Giddens, Anthony, and Gavin Mackenzie, eds. Social Class and the Division of Labour:  Essays in Honour of Ilya Neustadt.  New York:  Cambridge UP, 1982.

Glenn, Cheryl.  "Social Place and Literacies in John Foxe's Actes and Monuments."  Popular Literacy:  Studies in Cultural Practices and Poetics. Ed. John Trimbur.  U Pittsburgh P, 2001.  94-106.

Green, Ann E.  "Difficult Stories:  Service-Learning, Race, Class, and Whiteness."  College Composition and Communication 55.2 (December 2003):  276-301. 

Green, Ann E.  "The Places We've Come From, The Places We're Going:  Class, Race, and Writing."  The Personal Narrative:  Writing Ourselves as Teachers and Scholars.  Ed. Gil Haroian-Guerin.  Herndon, VA:  Calendar Islands, 1999. 

Greer, Jane.  "'No Smiling Madonna':  Marian Wharton and the Struggle to Construct a Critical Pedagogy for the Working Class, 1914-1917."  College Composition and Communication 51.2 (December 1999):  248-271. 

Heath, Shirley Brice.  "Work, Class, and Categories:  Dilemmas of Identity."  Composition in the Twenty-First Century:  Crisis and Change.  Ed. Lynn Z. Bloom, Donald A. Daiker, and Edward M. White.  Carbondale:  Southern Illinois UP, 1996.  226-42. 

Hennessy, Rosemary, and Chrys Ingraham, eds.  Materialist Feminism:  A Reader in Class, Differences, and Women's Lives.  New York:  Routledge, 1997.

Holzman, Michael.  "Observations on Literacy:  Gender, Race, and Class."  The Politics of Writing Instruction: Postsecondary.  Ed. Richard Bullock, John Trimbur, and Charles Schuster.  Portsmouth, NH:  Heinemann, 1991.  297-306.

hooks, bell.  Teaching to Transgress:  Education as the Practice of Freedom.  New York:  Duke UP, 1994. 

Horner, Bruce. "Class, Class Consciousness, and 'Good Teachiing Jobs': A Response to Bill Hendricks." JAC 26.1-2 (2006): 139-55.

Hourigan, Maureen M.  Literacy as Social Exchange:  Intersections of Class, Gender, and Culture.  Albany:  SUNY UP, 1994. 

Kells, Michelle Hall, and Valerie Balester, eds.  Attending to the Margins:  Writing, Researching, and Teaching on the Front Lines.  Portsmouth, NH:  Heinemann Boynton/Cook, 1999. 

Kerr, Elizabeth M., and Ralph M. Aderman, eds.  Aspects of American English.  2nd ed.  New York:  Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,  1963, 1971. 

King, Paul G., Kent Maynard, and David O. Woodyard.  Risking Liberation:  Middle Class Powerlessness and Social Heroism.  Atlanta, GA:  John Knox, 1988. 

Krebs, Paula M.  "The Faculty-Staff Divide."  Chronicle of Higher Education 14 November 2003.  <http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v50/i12/12b00501.htm>. 

Kubota, Ryuko.  "New Approaches to Gender, Class, and Race in Second Language Writing."  Journal of Second Language Writing 12.1 (February 2003):  31-47. 

Kumar, Amitava, ed. Class Issues: Pedagogy, Cultural Studies, and the Public Sphere. New York: NYUP, 1997.

Laclau, Ernesto. "Class War and After." Marxism Today (April 1987): 30-33.

LeCourt, Donna. "Performing Working-Class Identity in Composition: Toward a Pedagogy of Textual Practice." College English 69.1 (Sept. 2006): 30-51.

Lerner, Gerda.  The Creation of Patriarchy.  New York:  Oxford UP, 1986. 

Lewis, Gwendolyn, Patricia Holland, and Kathleen Kelly.  "Working-Class Students Speak Out."  Radical Teacher 42 (Fall 1992):  10-12.

Libretti, Tim.  "Sexual Outlaws and Class Struggle:  Rethinking History and Class Consciousness from a Queer Perspective."  College English 67.2 (Nov. 2004):  154-171. 

Lindquist, Julie.  "Class Affects, Classroom Affectations:  Working through the Paradoxes of Strategic Empathy."  College English 67.2 (Nov. 2004):  187-209. 

Lindquist, Julie.  "Class Ethos and the Politics of Inquiry:  What the Barroom Can Teach Us about the Classroom."  College Composition and Communication 51.2 (December 1999):  225-247. 

Lindquist, Julie.  A Place to Stand : Politics and Persuasion in a Working-Class Bar.  New York:  Oxford UP, 2001. 

Linkon, Sherry Lee, Irvin Peckham, and Benjamin G. Lanier-Nabors.  "Struggling with Class in English Studies."  College English 67.2 (Nov. 2004):  149-153. 

Luke, Allan, A. McHoul, and Jacob L. Mey.  "On the Limits of Language Planning:  Class, State and Power."  Language Planning and Education in Australasia and the South Pacific.  Ed. R.B. Baldauf, Jr., and Allan Luke.  Clevedon, UK:  Multilingual Matters, 1990.  25-44. 

Luttrell, Wendy.  "The Edison School Struggle:  The Reshaping of Working-Class Education and Women's Consciousness."  Women and the Politics of Empowerment.  Ed. Ann Bookman and Sandra Morgen.  Philadelphia:  Temple UP, 1988.  136-158. 

McCarthy, Cameron, and Michael W. Apple.  "Race, Class, and Gender in American Educational Research:  Toward a Nonsynchronous Parallelist Position."  Class, Race, and Gender in American Education.  Ed. Lois Weis.  Albany:  SUNY UP, 1988.  9-42.

O'Brien, Sheila Ruzycki.  "Writing to Learn about Gender, Race and Class."  ATAC Forum 4.2 (Fall 1992):  1-4.

Ogbu, John U.  "Class Stratification, Racial Stratification, and Schooling."  Class, Race, and Gender in American Education.  Ed. Lois Weis.  Albany:  SUNY UP, 1988.  163-82.

Ohmann, Richard.  Selling Culture:  Magazines, Markets, and Class at the Turn of the Century.  London:  Verso:  1996. 

Parks, Stephen.  Class Politics:  The Movement for the Students' Right to Their Own Language.  Urbana, IL:  National Council of Teachers of English, 2000. 

Paul, Danette, and Ann M. Blakeslee.  "Inventing the American Research University:  Nineteenth-Century American Science and the New Middle Class."  Inventing a Discipline:  Rhetoric Scholarship in Honor of Richard E. Young.  Ed. Maureen Daly Goggin.  Urbana, IL:  National Council of Teachers of English, 2000.  237-269. 

Peckham, Irvin.  "Whispers from the Margin:  A Class-Based Interpretation of the Conflict Between High School and College Writing Teachers."  History, Reflection, and Narrative: The Professionalization of Composition 1963-1983. Eds. Mary Rosner, Beth Boehm, and Debra Journet. Greenwich, CT: Ablex, 1998. 253-268.

Resnick, Stephen A., and Richard D. Wolff.  Knowledge and Class:  A Marxian Critique of Political Economy.  U Chicago P, 1987. 

Richardson, Elaine.  "Race, Class(es), Gender, and Age:  The Making of Knowledge about Language Diversity."  Language Diversity in the Classroom:  From Intention to Practice. Ed. Geneva Smitherman and Victor Villanueva.  Carbondale:  Southern Illinois UP, 2003.  40-66.

Riis, Jacob A.  How the Other Half Lives:  Studies Among the Tenements of New York.  New York:  Dover, 1971. 

Robillard, Amy E.  "It's Time for Class:  Toward a More Complex Pedagogy of Narrative."  College English 66.1 (September 2003):  74-92.

Robinson, W. Peter.  "Speech Markers and Social Class."  Social Markers in Speech.  Ed. Klaus R. Scherer and Howard Giles.  New York:  Cambridge UP, 1979.  211-50.

Rose, Mike.  The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker.  Viking, 2004. 

Rouse, John, and Edward Katz.  Unexpected Voices:  Theory, Practice, and Identity in the Writing Classroom.  Cresskill, NJ:  Hampton, 2003. 

Scherer, K.R., et al., eds.  Social Markers in Speech.  Cambridge:  Cambridge UP, 1979.

Schlauch, Margaret.  The Gift of Language.  New York:  Dover, 1942, 1955. 

Schmid, Carol L.  The Politics of Language:  Conflict, Identity, and Cultural Pluralism in Comparative Perspective.  New York:  Oxford UP, 2001. 

Sennett, Richard.  The Corrosion of Character:  The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism.  New York:  W.W. Norton, 1998. 

Sennett, Richard.  Respect in a World of Inequality.  New York:  W.W. Norton, 2003. 

Shepard, Alan, John McMillan, and Gary Tate, eds.  Coming to Class:  Pedagogy and the Social Class of Teachers.  Portsmouth, NH:  BoyntonCook, 1998. 

Shor, Ira.  Critical Teaching and Everyday Life.  Chicago:  U Chicago P, 1987.

Simpson, David, ed.  Subject to History:  Ideology, Class, Gender.  Ithaca:  Cornell UP, 1991. 

Sleeter, Christine E., and Carl A. Grant.  "A Rationale for Integrating Race, Gender, and Social Class."  Class, Race, and Gender in American Education.  Ed. Lois Weis.  Albany:  SUNY UP, 1988.  144-62.

Steinberg, Stephen.  The Ethnic Myth:  Race, Ethnicity, and Class in America.  New York:  Atheneum, 1981. 

Stephenson, Charles, and Robert Asher, eds.  Life and Labor:  Dimensions of American Working-Class History.  Albany:  SUNY P, 1986. 

Stephenson, Charles.  "'There's Plenty Waitin' at the Gates':  Mobility, Opportunity, and the American Worker."  Life and Labor:  Dimensions of American Working-Class History.  Eds. Charles Stephenson and Robert Asher.  Albany:  SUNY P, 1986.  72-91.  

Sullivan, Patricia A., and Donna J. Qualley, eds.  Pedagogy in the Age of Politics:  Writing and Reading (in) the Academy.  Urbana, IL:  National Council of Teachers of English, 1994.

Susser, Ida.  "Working-Class Women, Social Protest, and Changing Ideologies."  Women and the Politics of Empowerment.  Ed. Ann Bookman and Sandra Morgen.  Philadelphia:  Temple UP, 1988.  257-271. 

Thelin, William. "Honoring Class: Working-Class Sensitivities in Honors Composition." Composition Forum 14.2 (Fall 2005).

Tuman, Myron.  "Class, Codes, and Composition:  Basil Bernstein and the Critique of Pedagogy."  College Composition and Communication 39 (1988):  42-51.

Uchmanowicz, Pauline.  "Off the Menu:  86-ing Class Identity in Composition Studies."  Composition Forum 9.2 (Fall 1998):  1-8. 

Villanueva, Victor, Jr.  "On Writing Groups, Class, and Culture:  Studying Oral and Literate Language Features in Writing."  Writing With:  New Directions in Collaborative Teaching, Learning, and Research.  Ed. Sally Barr Reagan, Thomas Fox, and David Bleich.  Albany, NY:  SUNY P, 1994.  123-40. 

Watkins, Evan. "Class Shifts." JAC 26.1-2 (2006): 129-138.

Weis, Lois, ed.  Class, Race, and Gender in American Education.  Albany:  SUNY UP, 1988. 

Wolff, Tobias.  "Class Picture."  The New Yorker 6 January 2003:  70-79.  [file "Class"]

Wright, E.O. Class, Crisis and the State. London: New Left Books, 1978.

Zebroski, James Thomas.  "The English Department and Social Class:  Resisting Writing."  The Right to Literacy.  Ed. Andrea A. Lunsford, Helene Moglen, and James Slevin.  New York:  MLA, 1990. 

Zebroski, James Thomas. "Social Class as Discourse: Mapping the Landscape of Class in Rhetoric and Composition." JAC 26.3-4 (2006): 513-584.