This research and advocacy project explores the role of social class and economic inequality in the work of New York City elementary school teachers. By attending to how economic inequality appears in both the private lives of teachers and the classroom spaces of public school, this work questions the viability of current neoclassical traditions of economics education when faced with the unsustainable reality of rampant and widening class division.

Part of this work explores the possibilities for childhood memories to serve as reservoirs of knowledge, acknowledging the social worlds of children and the kinds of observations and nascent theorizing they are engaging. Many of the educators in this project are attempting for the first time to create classroom spaces where young children can share and learn about the historical and contemporary materializations of class-based inequality and discrimination.

Here you can find scholarly research-based articles, teacher-facing pieces, short films of elementary school classrooms, and a library of resources. The hope is this site encourages future research, curricular support, and more spaces for teachers to dream what is possible when facing economic inequality head-on through classroom teaching.

This work has been a collaborative effort with teachers, professors, students, and a team of research assistants, including Dr. Karen Zaino, Dr. Eve Herold, and Dr. Francine Almash, and is supported by the generosity of the following organizations. Films were produced with Marilena Marchetti at Portico Films. The Principal Investigator is Debbie Sonu, Professor in the School of Education at Hunter College, City University of New York. Her CV can be found here.