Goodwin examines how socioeconomic class manifests itself in school settings among females in her work. The author investigates the numerous categorizations of girls that occur during speeches and contends that girls build interpretations of global events as a method of socially organizing themselves in relation to others in society. She focuses on numerous techniques that girls in elementary schools use to gauge their social position, with a special emphasis on income. For example, in their chats, girls analyze their vacation experiences in terms of the places they went and the stuff their parents bought for them; a comparative debate that leaves children from underprivileged families feeling comparatively poor and frustrated. Connection: The chapter discusses what I usually see happening in my society. For example, children from rich families display a lot of affluence in terms of toys they use or foods they eat in comparison to those from poor families. Confusion: The author, however, fails to show how the participation and positioning in story telling aids in raising awareness about social classes amidst children. What if she would have argued that kids participating in story telling get to hear stories about their parents’ high or low status in society?
Work Cited
Goodwin, Marjorie. ‘Language Practices for Indexing Social Status: Stories, Descriptions, Brags, and Comparisons.’ In The Hidden Life of Girls: Games of Stance, Status, and Exclusion. USA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006. Print.
