Since the 1980s, the relationship between social class and education has been overshadowed by scholarship more generally targeting issues of race, gender, and representation. Today, with the global economy deeply immersed in social inequalities, there is pressing need for serious class-based analyses of schooling, family life and social structure. The Way Class Works is a collection of twenty-four groundbreaking essays on the material conditions of social class and the ways in which class is produced "on the ground" in educational institutions and families. Written by the most visible and important scholars in education and the social sciences, these timely essays explore the production of class in and through the economy, family, and school, while simultaneously interrogating and challenging our understandings of social class as linked to race, gender, and nation. With essays by distinguished scholars and questions for further reflection and discussion, The Way Class Works will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars in education, sociology, and beyond.

This collection discusses conditions of social class and the ways in which class is produced in educational institutions and families, while simultaneously interrogating and challenging our understandings of social class as it is linked to race, gender, and nation.

Section 1: Thinking/Living Class 1. Why the Rich are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer Robert B. Reich 2. The Continuing Importance of Class Analysis Erik Olin Wright 3. Behind the Gates: Social Splitting and the 'Other' Setha Low 4. The Two-in-Oneness of Class Wendy Luttrell 5. Reflections on Class and Educational Reform Stanley Aronowitz Section 2: Parenting Class 6. Class Out of Place: The White Middle Classes and Intersectionalities of Class and 'Race' in Urban State Schooling in England Diane Reay 7. Class Reproduction and Social Networks in the U.S. Fiona Devine 8. Watching, Waiting, and Deciding When to Intervene: Race, Class, and the Transmission of Advantage Annette Lareau 9. Are Middle-Class Families Advantaging their Children? Kimberly S. Maier, Timothy G. Ford, and Barbara Schneider 10. Parenting Practices and Schooling: The Way Class Works for New Immigrant Groups Guofang Li Section 3: Schooling Class 11. Persisting Social Class Inequality in U.S. Education Adam Gamoran 12. The Social Cost of Inadequate Education of Black Males Henry M. Levin 13. Social Class and School Knowledge Jean Anyon 14. Social Class and Tracking within Schools Sean Patrick Kelly 15. How Class Matters: The Geography of Educational Desire and Despair in Schools and Courts Michelle Fine, April Burns, Maria Elena Torre and Yasser A. Payne 16. Playing to Middle Class Self-Interest in Pursuit of School Equity Ellen Brantlinger 17. Class, Teachers, and Teacher Education Greg Dimitriadis 18. Social Class and Higher Education: A Reorganization of Opportunities Scott L. Thomas and Angela BellSection 4: Complicating Class, Race and Gender Intersectionality 19. Towards a Re-Thinking of Class as Nested in Race and Gender: Tracking the White Working Class in the Final Quarter of the Twentieth Century Lois Weis 20. The Ideological Blackening of Hmong American Youth Stacey J. Lee 21. Schools, Social Class and Youth: A Bernsteinian Analysis Alan R. Sadovnik 22. Spatial Containment in the Inner City: Youth Subcultures, Class-Conflict and Geographies of Exclusion Jo-Anne Dillabough, Jacqueline Kennelly and Eugenia Wang 23. Class and the Middle: Schooling, Subjectivity and Social Formation Julie McLeod and Lyn Yates 24. Rereading Class, Rereading Cultural Studies Jennifer Logue and Cameron McCarthy