Social Class Literacy

In the reading The Elements of Literacy it briefly talked about how literacy can be defined with social classes. Meaning that the high class was the most literate, and the low class was the least literate with the middle falling somewhere in between. I completely disagree and feel like this is stereotyping social classes. It kind of makes me sick that someone thinks that they are more literate than your just because they are looked higher upon in society. Think to yourself, is Paris Hilton more literate than you just because she is of a higher class than you? No one wants to be told they are illiterate, so why even base part of the definition of literacy on class? Also, the  reading says that to define literacy is like defining the word love. With that in mind can one even define literacy as being classed based? If you were to use social class "love" in replace of social class "literacy", would that even make sense?

I remember my Economics teacher in high school sharing a story about a student he had that e-mailed him about how he had got accepted into Harvard law after attending UNC-Chapel Hill on a full-ride academic scholarship. He told my class that the kid in high school was always picked on because it was obvious his family struggled to make ends meet. At the time, I thought about what a great story and left it at that. After reading the class based part of the Elements of Literacy, I realized that according to the that definition this kid wasn't very literate. That just isn't true. The kid had to be exceptional literate for Chapel Hill to think highly enough about him to grant him a scholarship and to be accepted into Harvard law.

Yes, I know there are plenty of examples that fight for and against my argument. I think that in order to say how literate someone is based on social class there would have to be a separate social class that was just based on literacy. It would have to have very clear guidelines on how to measure literacy if that is even possible.