If 

„It matters what matters we use to think other matters with; it matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what knots knot knots, what thoughts think thoughts, what descriptions describe descriptions, what ties tie ties. It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories.”

then we have to look who are the ones designing design.

in quotes by Donna J.Haraway 

added by Anne-Kristin Winzer

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The following text is an excerpt from the zine „working_lass_hero_ine“.

Personal stories, social theories, statistics, song texts, photos and blog entries about social class built the foundation.They came from poverty class academics, workers‘ children, educators and workers. They formed the basis of a fictional character called working_lass hero_ine, which is introduced at the end. The character is supposed to serve as a visual aid for hierarchical and classism-based structures. It makes no claim to completeness but indicates in which areas class is effective,e.g. embodiment of social class, aesthetic attitude,the habitus. It is unambiguous and diverse, just like the experiences with classism and the view on (creative)work, education, career.

„I began my journey to class consciousness as a college student learning about the politics of the American left reading Marx, Fanon, Gramsci, Memmi, the little red book and so on. But when my studies ended, I still felt my language to be inadequate. I still found it difficult to make sense of class in relation to race and gender. Even now the intellectual left in this nation looks down on anyone who does not speak the chosen jargon.“ (bell hooks) 

Similar to bell hooks, an Afro-American literary scholar and intersectional feminist, my engagement with social class and class consciousness began with social advancement, the increase of cultural capital, and the observation of the decreasing proportion of students with parents‘ workers or unemployed backgrounds on the way from comprehensive school to grammar school and from a technical college to the University of the Arts Berlin. 

While in the USA, France and England „classism“, i.e. the „discrimination of persons on the basis of the actual, presumed or attributed social or educational status“ (cf. Kemper, A. 2012, p.201), is increasingly addressed as a topic, class in Germany still receives little attention, although Germany is one of the European countries in which education is still strongly dependent on one’s social origin (cf. Rothmüller, B. 2012, p.96f)

Inequality of opportunity in the educational system

People who have little cultural capital do not usually have the right information to invest in an education that will put them in highest positions. They lack familiarity with the structures and values of the school or university, material security, but also habitus security. And this security is necessary, especially for riskier educational paths and decisions, which do not promise a concrete job or irregular income. According to a 2010 study for the Hans-Böckler-Foundation, they prefer „shorter, more structured and application-oriented courses of study that have a practical, accessible job description“ (see web5). Familiarity with certain structures, concepts, rituals and people of a particular milieu creates security, which is why terms such as success, courage and strength should always be considered proportionately with regard to starting conditions. „One can see what distinguishes the abstract information that a high school graduate from the lower and middle classes can obtain about scarce positions from a specialised counselling institution from the familiarity that a child from the ruling class gains from dealing as a matter of course with people who hold these positions [...]“ (Bourdieu, 1981b,p.179f, after Krais/Gebauer, 2002,p. 41). If there is social advancement through the education system, Bourdieu describes the „rising stars“ as „uncertain in their evaluations, half 

following their inclinations, half of their educational zeal“ (Bourdieu, 1982a,p. 511, after Krais/Gebauer, 2002,p. 47).

Current debates about classism in the educational system are, among other things, the subject of the sociologist Andreas Kemper, who founded the first autonomous department for studying working-class children. In „Klassismus im Bildungssystem: Zur virtuellen Gewalt des sich senkenden Blicks“ (Classism in the Educational System: On the Virtual Violence of the Lowering Gaze), he sketches class-related exclusions of others and self with the help of a study by the sociologist and philosopher Barbara Rothmüllers at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Even before the entrance examination, the first barriers to entry were already effective. Prospective students from migrant groups, children of workers or children whose parents had low educational qualifications were strongly underrepresented in comparison to the population and shares at other universities (cf. Rothmüller 2012, p.96). In fact, applicants with a ‚low‘ social background were very rarely admitted to the Institute of Art (see ibid.,p.101): „Even other courses of study known for their social homogeneity, such as medicine or law, were surpassed (see ibid.,p. 101). The reason for this is not only the cultural but also the social capital. The applicants lacked knowledge about certain application modalities, tips and knowledge of acquaintances who already studied at the university (see ibid.,p. 96f ). The argument „intuitive knowledge and feeling for the composition and presentation of the works“ (ibid.,p.98) to be tested in the examination phase is reason for criticism for Rothmüller, because portfolio preparation and design are social processes, whereby 6 of 7 applicants spoke with teachers or acquaintances. According to the study of the Hans-Böckler-Foundation, besides knowledge, they also cut at selection institutions because of their low self-confidence and the lack of practice in self-presentation (see web5)

Kemper explains the self-exclusion of interested ^low^ people of social origin by means of the space of possibility or a topological pat

tern of thought in which the ^university^ appears to be ^high^. Workers must succeed in seeing themselves not only as „Nach-Möglichkeit-Seiende“ which translates to „according-to-possibility-beings“ but also as „In-Möglichkeit-Seiende“, which means„in-possibility-beings“ (according to Bloch), i.e., accessibility must appear to be possible (Bloch 1979,p.238). According to Bourdieu, people of the middle classes orient themselves towards the upper class. They see their opportunities in social advancement and consider accessibility to be quite conceivable, which makes a realization more likely. Kemper sees the self-organization of workers‘ children and the so-called Poverty Class Academics as an important means of breaking through these patterns of thought. There are already first initiatives in Germany, such as the newspaper „The Dishwasher-Magazin by and for Workers‘ Children“ or the initiative „ArbeiterKind.de“, to support the university studies of non-academic children.

Now more than ever during corona pandemic it will be even scarier to decide to start an expensive university design course with uncertain 

employment and irregular or low payment and student loans to pay off.