Topic 6: Social Class

How do we acquire Social identities?

Sometimes given to us at birth - born male / female with white / black skin (link to ascribed status)

These social identities are socially constructed

What is Social Class Identity?

Incredibly difficult to define - can be viewed as involving elements of occupation, wealth, income and culture (ie Would the queen be working class if she moved into a council estate)

Most don’t know which social class they are, sociologists struggle to define a category for each social class

Most convenient for sociologists - define using occupation (an indicator of other factors) 

ONS Social Class Scheme

Class 1: Higher managerial + Professional (Lawyers, doctors)

Class 2: Lower managerial/ professional (Junior managers, social workers)
Class 3: Intermediate (Clerical workers, secreateries)
Class 4: Small employers and self employed (taxi drivers, window cleaners)
Class 5: Supervisors, craft and related (printers, plumbers, train drivers)
Class 6: Semi-routine (shop assistants, hairdressers)
Class 7: Routine (waiters, cleaners)
Class 8: Never worked/ long term unemployed

Savage (LSE): ‘Great British Class Survey’ 

Online questionnaire to determine social class

Gave indication as to what percentage fell into each class

Who are the upper class? (Ken Roberts)

Less than 1% of the population

Defined by enormous wealth rather than occupation

Key elements: educations, family ties and social and leisure activities

Public schools: socialise pupils - self confidence, sense of social superiority

Younger members - exclusive social events: provide a distinctive upper-class lifestyle (Old aristocratic traditions - provide a sense of ‘real class’)

Can be regarded as a subculture - distinct norms and values that differ from the rest of the population

Ken Roberts (2001)

Upper class is ‘closed’ - members are children of upper-class parents

Social Closure - a result of shared culture that creates a web of links and contacts (difficult for non-members to penetrate)

Kinship in upper-class (Ken Roberts) 

Exclusive lifestyle means younger members socialise with other younger members - tendency to inter-marry

With time, more kinship connections developed between upper class families

Children usually educated in top schools (Eton, Harrow → Oxford, Cambridge) 

Valuable social contacts made with each other (‘Old boys network’) 

Exclusive Social Events (Roberts 2001)

Provide distinctive upper-class lifestyle

Often based on old aristocratic traditions - provide sense of ‘real class’

Provide circuit where further connections can be made

Hunting, shooting, Wimbledon (tennis), Henley Regatta (rowing), Royal Ascot

King and Smith (2018): Jack Wills - upper class lifestyle

Logos and text related to sailing and skiing, tweed - aristocratic lifestyle

Targeted students at top universities, privately educated background (‘Jack Wills Crowd’)

Sponsored many events like Oxford and Cambridge skiing trips and polo matches + handed out merchandise, recruited ‘Seasonaires’ to promote the brand across the country

'Jack Wills culture’ - upper class students anxious to maintain high status within a more diverse cohort of students

Who are the middle class? 

Professional, well paid, skilled, non-manual jobs

Difficult to make general statements - wide variety of jobs and income (not much shared identity) 

Bourdieu (Neo-Marxists theorist)

Ruling class have the power to shape which attributes are valued - can pass on Cultural Capital to their children

e.g Middle-class parent will be in a more advantageous position at a school parents evening than a parent who doesn’t have this knowledge

Gillies on Cultural Capital

Middle-class parents use their cultural capital to manipulate the education system to benefit their children (school governors committee, PTA)

Who are the working class?

Manual workers

1951 - 75% of population, but has now shrunk to under half

Range of occupations - differ in pay, status and power 

Until end of 1970s this was classed as traditional working class 

Peter Wilmott and Michael Young on Traditional Working Class

Traditional Gender Roles

Marriage - for life (disapproval of divorce)

Members of extended family live close - lots of visiting (esp women)

Close-knit communities

Strong class identity

Sharpened by experience of working together to improve wages and working conditions

Distinction between ‘us’ (WC) and ‘them’ (Bosses, middle class, authority)

Sided w/ trade unions and labour party

Goldthorpe and Lockwood - New WC

Since late 1970s, New WC has developed

Following mass immigration, globalisation and reduction in manual jobs, WC reduced in number and seems to have changed in norms and values

Past - based around work, Now - Leisure and instrumental attitude to work (work for money, job doesn’t define)

Materialism - WC benefited from rise in living standards over past 50 years

More likely to own homes, cars, consume and enjoy foreign holidays

Changing gender roles - now less pronounced

Merging of boundaries between working and middle classes

Until 1940s, class structure characterised by clear boundaries between social class groups - different norms and values, housing, jobs and roles