Block 1 - Class & Inequality Flashcards
(32 cards)
Describe the National Statistics Socio – Economic Classification (NS-SEC)
- Based on Goldthorpe schema and has been used since 2001
- measures employment relations and conditions of occupation
- operationalises class into a measurement tool
- helps explain structure of socio – economic positions and explain variation in social behaviour
- Widely accepted and valued both as a measure and as a good predictor of health, educational etc
What are the 8 classes of the NS-SEC
1 – Higher managerial and professional occupation – higher autonomy on themselves and others
2 – lower professional and high technical occupation
3 – intermediate occupation
4 – Small employers
5 – Lower supervisory and technical occupations
6 – Semi routine occupations
7 – Routine Occupations
8 – Never worked/Long time unemployed
What is the 3 classes of the NS-SEC
1 – Higher managerial. Administrative and professional occupation
2 – Intermediate occupations
3 – Routine and Manual occupations
Outline the GBCS
- the GBCS shifts away from focus on occupation categories
- cultural class analysis
- inductive rather than a deductive analysis – starts from straightforward evidence and generates theories from this
- The GBCS claims to address the social polarisation in British Society – why there is so much of a big gap between the rich and poor
- Also investigates class fragmentation in its middle layers/horizontal cleavages – the divisions within the middle class
How does the GBCS measure class
- Uses measure of economic, cultural and social capital
- economic capital – the wealth, occupation, earnings, assets and savings
- social capital – social connections, who you know, political parties, social clubs and hobbies
- cultural capital – what are your interests, your education, how you spend your free time
- social and cultural resources provide opportunities and capability which you won’t otherwise have and others don’t have
Bourdieu and class
- class struggle is through everyday struggles to define our social identity at the level of representation, discourse and meaning
define symbolic capital
conferred by systems of representation and recognition that serves to legitimise class distinctions
- people see their own social position and the dominant class norms and cultural meanings
A new model of class - GBCS
1 – Elite – 6%, wealthiest and privileged, 24% of this group were privately educated, London based and homeowners
2 – Established middle class – 25%, most gregarious and 2nd wealthiest, work in management, come from MC background
3 – Technical middle class – 6%, small and prosperous new class, work in science and social media
4 – New affluent workers – 15%, group is sociable, they are secure and come from WC backgrounds
5 – Traditional working class - 14%, scores low for economic and social factor, own their own home, some financial security
6 – Emergent service worker – 19%, financially insecure, but high social and cultural factors,
7 – Precariat – 15%. Poorest and deprived class group, more than 80% rent their home
Define liminality
During this phase, individuals or groups may experience a sense of disorientation, uncertainty, and vulnerability as they undergo significant changes in identity, social status, or cultural roles.
Savage et al 2013 - GBCS
ESSENTIAL READING
- The elites economic advantage sets it apart from the other classes (suggesting economic capital is the most important)
- The majority of the population falls outside traditional class boundaries, requiring a more fluid understanding of social and cultural distinctions.
- The new affluent workers and emergent service workers, may be seen as products of the traditional working class, demonstrating a break in working-class culture due to factors like de-industrialization, mass unemployment, immigration, and urban restructuring.
Criticisms of the GBCS
- economically reductionist – as the established mc had more social and cultural capital than the elite but are lower due to their economic capital
- regional issue - some cultural activity are unavailable to some people
- very strict criteria
What ways are cultural capitals expressed
- embodied by individuals
- objectified in cultural goods
- institutionalised in forms of qualification, honours and aways
Outline Skeggs (1997) study - methodology
- 12-year ethnographic study of 83 working- class white women in the north-west of England, including an intensive 3-year period of participant observation.
- Begins with women’s enrolment on a course at a local college, the study follows them through education, labour market and family processes.
- concern with ‘the emotional politics of class’ - the emotional struggle of class
Outline Skeggs (1997) study - findings
- Skeggs’ respondents tend to reject class categories for themselves (disidentification)
‘Class positions and class identity, however, are not the same. The young women had a clear knowledge of their ‘place’ but they were always trying to leave it.’ (p. 81) - did not want to associate with their WC identity
Outline Scandone (2022) study - methodology
- 17 in-depth interviews with British-Bangladeshi women from working-class backgrounds currently in higher education
*stresses the multiple intersections between class, gender, race, ethnicity and religion
What were Skeggs girls view on the MC
- not being middle class is certainly valued in many working- class social groups’ (Skeggs 1997: 11)
- ‘They’re really ignorant’
- ‘What gets me with these people with loads of money is they look like crap”
Did Skeggs girls think they were WC (when they were young)
- ‘Well I think I’m working class …because my mum has always had to work for a living…’
- As Gidddens notes their is an intergenerational experience with class
‘I don’t think I’m working class at all now .Not after we bought the house and that… I expect I’m now middle class…but it’s like when we go to Dave’s business dos, but I don’t really feel like some of them, you know the bosses’ wives with all their talk and that. I sometimes feel really frightened to speak in case I show him up. I expect they’re really middle class so I’m not really like them, but I’m not like the rest of our family without two pennies to rub together… I don’t really fit.’ (June 1989)
- stuck in a process of liminaltiy and in a struggle between their identity and their mobility
Define habitus clive
Sam Friedman (2016)
a sense of self “torn by contradiction and internal division” around class origins and locations
Outline Scandone (2022) study - findings
- class location was defined by ‘ways of being’, including embodied expressions, outlooks, and values, as well as by material properties such as employment, educational credentials, and income.
- Racial discrimination further undermined the possibility, for those of minority ethnic origins, to fully inhabit the legitimised middle-class location
- Societal expectations around gender roles and job structures often made it challenging for individuals to balance family responsibilities with seeking high-status employment opportunities.
-
I am working-class, but I don’t feel like I have working-class attitudes and values. Because working-class values are money and success but I’m focusing on my education. . . . There’s a negative sort of label to working-class people. . . . Have you heard of the term chav? I wouldn’t associate myself with that. And also the way I speak, I don’t use slang all the time. . . . Also I’m not ignorant I don’t like to stereotype races. Because they say working-class people lack education, but I feel middle-class people also lack education . . . they get the news from the media so they put negative labels on us. . . . I think I’ll be middle-class in the future in terms of my income. My values, what I teach my kids may be working-class. I want them still to work hard, I want them to work for what they get. . . . I do want to make it easier for them but only in terms of income, I guess that would make me middle-class, but my values, my Bengali cultural and religious values will still stay the same. I don’t want to completely lose myself. . . . Middle-class I just feel like the values is quite different. . . . It’s more English I think, more British. (Chandi)
Scandone (2022)
- Chandi sees ‘proper’ middle-class culture to include white British cultural features
- Chandi stresses the desire to retain her working class and ‘Bengali cultural and religious values’ and not to ‘completely lose [her]self’. Bourdieu’s notion of habitus helps to explain this tension between becoming middle-class and retaining one’s ethnic and religious identity.
Define Habitus
Bourdieu (1977, 2004)
A socialized subjectivity” refers to a deeply ingrained framework of perception, appreciation, and behavior formed through the internalization of both collective and individual class experiences. This framework shapes individuals’ actions and practices to align with their class-based background.
Nicola Rollock (2014) - Methodology
- focus on ‘how we perceive, feel and respond to categorisations of our class identity and the extent to which classed capitals are seen to have weight, worth or legitimacy for different ethnic groups’
= 2-year interview study exploring the educational strategies of parents of Black Caribbean origin - 69 respondents, all in professional or managerial occupations
How did Rollock (2014) define class identities
the ‘invisible whiteness’ of middle- class norms and representations
* white gatekeeping and ‘white’ social spaces