The reading assignment was the introduction and first chapter of Those Who Work, Those Who Don’t: Poverty, Morality, and Family in Rural America by Jennifer Sherman. Declan had found it a truly interesting read and it was part of the reason he decided to attend the class.

“About half. More than I expected. Anyone care to share observations?”

“I could relate to the content, having grown up in rural Vermont, although I never had to face economic conditions like those in the study area in the book,” Alli said after raising her hand.

“Yes, the author offers an interesting lens to view our rural communities through, doesn’t she? That begs the question. How many of you grew up in a rural setting?”

About a third of the class raised their hands, including Alli and Declan.

The frustrated girl looked around and sniffed. “Figures,” she said quietly to her mostly silent friend.

The teacher’s gaze snapped right to them. “And right there we have validation of the author’s premise. You didn’t read the assignment, did you?”

Caught off guard, the girl looked first flustered, then angry. “No, as I was too busy completing a paper one of your fellow CDAE professors assigned us suddenly two days ago,” she said, folding her arms across her chest.

“Time management issues aside, can anyone explain what your classmate just did?”

Nobody seemed in a hurry to say anything or maybe hadn’t heard the girl’s comment. How Professor Lilt had heard the comment, Declan didn’t know, but he was kind of glad to see the bitchy one get called out. He raised his hand.

“The author discusses the human need to identify and stratify social classes in order to figure out each person’s place in that hierarchy. Like wolves and pack structure. When differences are hard to identify in a mostly homogenous group, morality or background differences are often used to create the structure.”

“Yeah. Pretty good. Our subject in back made a comment that could be construed as negative when shown a difference in this otherwise bland subgroup of humans known as college students. Identifying individuals who come from rural backgrounds gave her data to help her place herself in the hierarchy she identifies as important,” Professor Lilt said. She paused and looked around the room.

The pissed-off girl now wore a crimson face, although she still appeared disgruntled. She was collecting a lot of negative looks from the rest of the class.

“Understanding how people view themselves and their position in society gives the observer insight into how those same individuals are motivated and thus how those motivations can be used.”

“Like by politicians?” another student, down front, asked.