Our Workshop

One of the most interesting discussions for me during the whole on-campus workshop happened when we are questioned about the first time we thought about ye class issue here in Bryn Mawr College. Two students in our group said that actually before they started our seminar this semester, they have never thought about the social class issues and its correlations with education.  Most students think that when they interact with students who come from different social class, especially with those who come from higher social class than themselves, they are more likely to be self-conscious and sensitive. Therefore, we came up with the idea that people should consider more about the social class issues when they interact with people from different economic backgrounds. But at the same time, when we discussed how often we thought about the class issue during our college life, the answer turned out to be: not very often. We all agreed that we focus more on the “academic elitism” that Jane Trembley mentioned in her article. I think this kind of comparison is really interesting. On the one hand, we think that we should pay more attention to the class issues; on the other hand, we agreed that class sometimes does not matter that much, because what we want is to attain a higher level in academics. I therefore wonder that for people in Bryn Mawr, how important do they think the social class is? Also, what kind of role does it play in education?