Our argument in this chapter is that contemporary debates on higher education continue to be predicated on a 'deficit' understanding of low SES students.
That is, in addressing participation rates of low SES students, low SES students themselves are frequently represented as 'the problem'. It is our contention that this representation of low SES students, in terms of a deficit model, persists even when policy and literature otherwise promote an egalitarian agenda of equal access and equal opportunity, as is the case of the Bradley Review, which we analyse below. In order to account for how it is that the deficit model persists even in egalitarian accounts of higher education, we posit the notion of 'classism'. We therefore foreground our discussion of the Bradley Review with an elaboration of this term.
'Classism' is not a term widely used in Australia. In particular, the term is largely absent from critical higher education literature. For instance, a database search of the term in Equity101, the national online repository of research and other material on social inclusion in education, does not return any material.
This absence may arise from the fact that in education literature there has been a methodological preference for talking in the language of SES rather than social class. Nor is the term 'classism' much in use in the United Kingdom either, where class-based discrimination, and the low social esteem in which low SES groups are held, is increasingly described through the language of 'social racism'. It seems this
is the preferred language for some in the UK who argue that classist derogations there demarcate and create distance from particular 'white' ethnic groups (Nayak, 2006; Tyler, 2008; Webster, 2008).
By contrast, in the United States the term 'classism' is broadly used. Here it is a term which arises in a range of literatures to name the way in which the low social esteem in which low SES people are held impacts perceptions of low SES people and, more precisely, impacts service delivery to low SES communities.
Given the current focus on increasing participation of low SES students into higher education, our purpose in this chapter is to suggest that the concept of classism and its potential impact on service delivery may well be instructive. In this context we argue that 'classism' could usefully be added to existing understandings of disadvantage and attempts to raise awareness of discrimination as well as to formulate best practice in higher education and elsewhere.
Emphasis on low social esteem and low cultural valuation, which presupposes a deficit model of low SES people, makes up the key aspects of our preferred definition of classism. At least, it forms the core of a definition on which we could both agree. We also both preferred the term 'classism' to that of 'social racism' because we consider it highly problematic to suggest that only 'white' ethnic groups are included in the category of low SES, or that social class can be made discrete from, and separate to, other politicised identity categories. However, as indicated below, existing definitions from the literature often diverge from our own as well, with different ones emphasising particular aspects of the concept. Some definitions emphasise individual prejudice, treating classism as primarily an attitudinal problem (e.g. Lott, 2002, see below). Others emphasise the way in which classism becomes internalised and the implications of this (e.g. Barone, 1998, see below).
The different emphases indicate a variety of theoretical underpinnings, and in reviewing this literature we found that we did not share an underlying theoretical position. Therefore, we are not endorsing these definitions intrinsically. Rather, we merely review them as evidence of the ways in which the concept of classism has been developed in existing literature.
In the US, use of 'classism' extends back to at least the late 1960s (Bazelon, 1969). However, according to economist Chuck Barone (1998) it was never clearly defined and while many scholars were keen to analyse class as it intersected with other categories of difference, particularly race and gender, focus was primarily on
structural or institutional class oppression. For Barone, though, what is needed is an understanding of classism operating at multiple levels in society. At the individual or 'micro' level, according to Barone, 'classist beliefs, attitudes, and behaviour' are internalised through a socialisation process (1998: 4). At the 'meso' or intra-group level, he goes on to argue, prejudices 'based on negative attitudes toward and classist stereotypes' of low SES people as well as discrimination, result in distancing and exclusion (ibid.: 5-6). Macro-level classism then results in the reproduction of the class system through social institutions, particularly education, where the epistemologies of low SES groups are 'depreciated and invalidated in schools' and 'middle and owning class' epistemologies are highly esteemed and normative (ibid.: 18). But what is termed Barone's 'ecological' understanding of classism appears not to have been taken up by other than a few academics, although US psychologist Bernice Lott has generated more interest with her definition of the term.
In 2002 Lott called on clinical psychologists to examine their professional practice for ways in which they may reproduce class-based discrimination at both interpersonal and institutional levels. Lott's aim is to show that people who are poor are usually regarded as 'Other', and as morally and personally deficient. For Lott, classism leads to exclusion from 'full participation in social institutions':
I propose that a dominant response [to people from low SES backgrounds]
is that of distancing, that is, separation, exclusion, devaluation, discounting, and designation as 'other', and that this response can be identified in both institutional and interpersonal contexts. In social psychological terms, distancing and denigrating responses operationally define discrimination.
These, together with stereotypes (i.e., a set of beliefs about a group that are learned early, widely shared, and socially validated) and prejudice (i.e., negative attitudes) constitute classism. (2002: 108)
Lott's account of classism, and her claim that clinical psychologists reproduce classism, provoked a spirited discussion. For example, in 2008 Laura Smith argued for the inclusion of classism in clinical psychology's social justice agenda, echoing her earlier attempts (Smith, 2005, 2006). According to Smith, classism needs to be added to the racism, sexism and heterosexism that clinical psychologists have already tackled. She also calls for colleagues to confront, where appropriate, their privilege and any internalised discrimination with regard to social class, including recognising social location, becoming informed about the lived experience of
low SES people, challenging assumptions and prejudices, and analysing everyday classed experiences (Smith, 2008).
Other key contributors to the move to include classism on the social justice agenda include William Liu and Saba Rasheed Ali (2005). Also clinical psychologists, their focus is on vocational counselling and they argue that without attention to classism it is easy to assume upward mobility is unproblematic and always preferable. Outside of psychology, US social worker Kathryn Newton (2010) has also called for facilitators of therapeutic and support groups to become aware of their internalised classism in order to reduce conflicts and silencing that may otherwise occur because of social class barriers (Newton, 2010).
In a rare Australian example, Smith's position is echoed by a team of Queensland psychologists. Peter McIlveen et al. (2010) argue that autoethnography — using oneself as the subject of research — is one way for psychologists undertaking diversity training to become better informed about their own class identity and related values and beliefs. Another notable contribution from Australian research is the work of Elizabeth Hatton. As early as the 1990s Hatton sought to bring attention to the way in which existing diversity training had limited impact in teacher training because potential school teachers 'come from a narrow range of relatively privileged backgrounds' (1998: 217). She claimed further that the consequent narrow range of experiences of this group limited their understanding of diversity. In Hatton's analysis, without effective intervention and training teachers from middle class backgrounds will carry with them 'classist' attitudes that potentially serve to disadvantage the low SES children and young people they work with (ibid.: 222).
From this brief review of key literature it is clear that there are multiple accounts of the concept of 'classism'. What they have in common, and what specifically interests us in this chapter, is that they identify a tendency to represent or understand low SES people in terms of a deficit model. While psychological approaches to classism identify this tendency at the attitudinal level, as a product of un-interrogated prejudice, we suggest that this is, at best, an incomplete analysis.
It is certainly likely that there exist individuals who hold prejudiced views, but the deficit model of low SES people also exists at a discursive level where it is not fairly or adequately explained as the product of individual bias but rather indicates a cultural logic. It is the discursive construction of low SES people that we now turn to explore in the Bradley Review.