Shor, Ira. “Why Teach About Social Class?” Teaching English in the Two Year College. 33.2 (2005): 161-170. Print.

In this article, Ira Shor gives a brief overview of his critical teaching method and then focuses on why he emphasizes social class in his course at the City University of New York college he teachers at. He contextualizes the Two Year College within the political and economic climate of the 1970s to the present. Pointing to the increased Harvardization/corporatization of education he asserts that most students at Two Year Colleges are trying to complete degrees under difficult circumstances at underfunded institutions and depending on shrinking promises of financial reward upon completion. These are the students that Shor says most need to understand issues of social class if they are to be equipped to advocate for themselves out in the world. This understanding, however, does not come from traditional banking educational methods, but by developing critical thinking skills.

What teachers can do, if they believe learning for democracy is our professional responsibility, is to develop students as critical citizens whose thinking and acting include tools for class analysis of their lives, their reading lists, their majors, and their society (168).