Hidden Rules Among (financial) Classes
From "A Framework for Understanding Poverty" by Ruby Payne
handle2345·
This is from "A Framework for Understanding Poverty" by Ruby Payne. She does a really nice job of explaining it in readable simple terms. It is not a scholarly work, and makes huge generalizations.
I've found it to be very helpful for middle class people who are working outside their class (poverty or wealthy) and are struggling to understand their clients behavior. Why did that rich dude/rich lady totally blow you off? Because connections matter, and you don't have any. Why does that person spend all their money on clothes/food/beer even though eviction is coming in three weeks? Because time is in the moment (not thinking about the future) and eviction is fate, the system sets them up to fail.
Many middle class people see their narrative as the only potential narrative (the American Dream is a middle class narrative), so its really helpful for them to understand that their values are not shared by everyone.
It is not very helpful to apply these principles to race (and race is usually involved in the US), nor is it helpful to state these generalizations out-loud when working with those in a different class, because the values of poverty and wealth are not the American standard values, people are often embarrassed by them (i.e. rich people won't talk about wealth, even though it motivates everything).