Research on students’ curriculum interpretations reveals issues regarding understanding students, which serve as a prerequisite for discussing educational theory and practice. This qualitative research investigates the issue ignored in previous studies – the curriculum interpretations of elementary school students from working class families. The students of a fifth-grade class in an elementary school in south China were invited as participants. Firstly, the findings indicate that students’ practical orientation toward curriculum were manifested in viewing curriculum as useful for taking examinations, finding future jobs, and being applicable to daily life. School subjects were also classified according to the teacher’s authority and abilities for teaching. Secondly, the group of boys did not believe that diploma has its function for educational exchange as strongly as the conformists do. Internal and external limitations have been argued to cause their “partial penetration”. Moreover, students’ curriculum interpretations reflect how they perceive their living situation. The students from working class families were not able to deeply penetrate the structure of social class due to the limitation caused by the school ideology which regards the examination as a mechanism for social equality. The final part of the article proposed that education could serve for promoting humanity in that students with low socioeconomic status could overcome the social class barriers.