Struggling with Class in English Studies.

I cholarly conversations about literature, literacy, and social class have been part of our profession since at least the 1950s, when Richard Hoggart published The Uses of Literacy. In the past decade, attention to class in English studies has grown dramatically, emerging as a central concern in the field, especially in composition. Compositionists perhaps more than any other educators have considered seriously the way class shapes students' learning and their uses of language. Teachers and scholars of literature have developed theories about what defines texts as working-class as well as ideas about how to consider class as a theme within literature of all kinds, including literature primarily concerned with the upper classes. These interests are taking shape as a specialty within English studies, as represented by, for example, the Working-Class Special Interest Group of the Conference on College Composition and Communication since the mid-1990s and the more recently founded Working-Class Literature Association. Several working-class