They Say, I Say: Ch. 4, Ex. 1

Like the exercise first states, Jean Anyon first summarizes the main points of authors Bowles and Gintis, who argue that students who come from different backgrounds are rewarded for different behaviors. She then goes on to summarize the points of Berstein, Bourdieu, and Apple, who all believe that a different set of knowledge and skills are only available to certain social classes. Anyon seems to agree with both points, as she sets out to “offer tentative empirical support (and qualification) of the above arguments.” Though she says she has tentative, or uncertain, evidence of this, the purpose of the article that she is writing seems to be to prove that they are, in fact, true. Anyon hopes to accomplish this by “providing illustrative examples of student work. […] in contrasting social class communities.” From this, I concluded that she agrees with the arguments given and plans to discuss how different social class does affect students in terms of showing what they accomplish as a result of this social class dichotomy.