De Certau theorizes that the power of “writing” has been subsumed by institutions and capitalist class structures to create and sustain the haves and have-nots. This economy functions by stratifying individuals and groups though systems of recorded text with clear, dominating social purposes. On the micro-institiutional level of a high school, such textual records include files of academic and social evaluation, report cards, and demographic summaries of ethnicity and language proficiency. De Certeau’s scriptural economy also maintains its power by defining who is literate, educated, and productive given the set of institutional records, thereby reinforcing power inequities. In schools, legitimated text participates in this economy as students’ school writing is regulated, evaluated, and translated into the systems of power that determine their advancement.
— Paris 2010. 280.