Class Matters Paperback – September 2, 2005

I bought this book to read along with my 16 year old daughter for a class. We would read the chapters and then discuss it before she wrote her assignment. It brought to light many new topics and such great, interesting, and sometimes sad but uplifting conversations. When I asked her for input on the review she handed me her notebook and said this says it all, I am not writing another review. Her notebook was full of her thoughts about each section of the book, and the many things we had discussed and expanded on. Every evening after dinner we would read and then talk about the things we learned.I personally found the book engaging and food for thought. I love reading, pretty much anything I can get my hands on. This was a educational and enjoyable read.

This book was required summer reading my son's rising sophomore year. I was thrilled he was being asked to read a nonfiction book, as fiction dominates the high school curriculum. The SAT is almost all based on nonfiction, so I don't know why students aren't being prepared to understand and evaluate nonfiction.The chapters in this book alternate between stories of individual Americans and statistics-heavy essays identifying and analyzing trends affecting the "class structure" of the United States. I found the personal stories more engaging, but the essays do provide a backbone for the anecdotes.Most of the stories were well-balanced in presenting people in all their complexity. I did think that in several profiles of people in the lower and working classes, the issue of personal responsibility was too lightly handled (e.g., the Mexican restaurant worker who spends $75/wk on lottery tickets and drinks most nights after work instead of going home to his family; the single mother who had six kids with five different fathers). My son didn't catch the references until I pointed them out.I would have liked an essay about a person who consistently displays a high level of personal responsibility. Are people like that able to rise through the classes? I personally know of a couple that came to the U.S. from the Philippines, worked 13 years to get their green cards and citizenships -- cutting no corners -- and then worked six years to bring their adopted child into the States. They had the support and encouragement of their church, are a solid middle class family today, and the child is now in college and likely to start his adult life in the middle class.The book also should be updated if it continues to be required reading in school. One essay talks glowingly about how more people can achieve the American Dream of home ownership... because of subprime mortgage lending! With its 2005 publishing date, the book predates the subprime mortgage crisis and the resulting home foreclosures that ravaged the lower and working classes and sent the country reeling into a recession. In our school district, a personal finance class is required to graduate. All of our students' classes should be sending out appropriate and up-to-date messages.

I am a S.E.E.D. facilitator. Our group meets monthly for three hours, discussing topics surrounding issues of equity and justice. This year we are focusing on Economic Class in Independent School. This book is one of the resources we are using. "Class Matters" has presented information to us that is fueling our discussions and opening areas where we had not considered. The books has also guided me to seek more information and other avenues where I can learn more.I highly recommend the book, it will create more questions, and spark in the individual the understanding that we all need to continue to seek and learn about class in America.

This book represents a lot of data that reveal the major shift in incomes from the late 40"s and the 50' to today's. A major force has rearranged the lives of those labeled skilled workers. In this work, the word, class, means only income and not the customs and beliefs of different classes of people in America

This book is something everyone should read. It really illustrates the class inequalities in America. The personal stories of people from different classes really paints a picture of how class is inherited and how it is hard to change your class from the one you were raised in, however upward mobility is possible.

The book had an interesting premise and provided insights into various people view class, but it provided no insight on why it exists and why movement between classes and decreased over the generations