Class Flashcards
What are some aspects of upper class identity?
- Concern with etiquette
- Employment of domestic staff
- Taste for high culture
- Participation in the social season
- Attempted social closure
- Elite social network/ Old boys network
- Attendance of private boarding schools
What are some aspects of middle class identity?
- Commitment to education
- Belief in the importance of individualism
- Concern for deferred gratification
- Respect for high culture
- Social aspiration
- Social anxiety
- Conservatism
- Social comparability
What is social class?
A group of people who share a similar economic situation (similar job, income, assets).
Why is social class important?
Social class is linked to an individual’s life chances (a person’s chances of obtaining the things defined as desirable and avoiding the things defined as undesirable in society).
What is habitus?
The cultural framework each social class possesses which covers what counts as good or bad taste.
What are some aspects of the old working class identity?
- Strong sense of community
- Clear gender divisions
- Us vs them mentality
- Strong moral and family values
- Immediate gratification/Present focus
- Fatalism
What are some aspects of the new working class identity?
- Privatised home-centred family lifestyle
- Work seen as means of making money
- Little sense of loyalty
- Women more likely to be employed
- High levels of home ownership
- More emphasis on consumer goods
What are some theories around class?
Lash and Urry - The de-centring of class identity refers to the way class is no longer the most important part of someone’s identity.
Goldthorpe and Lockwood - Embourgeoisement describes how the wealthier end of the working class is becoming middle class.
Jones - The working class are caricatured as worthless, lazy and immoral.
Murray - The underclass is a new form of working class identity dependent on benefits.
Jordan and Charlesworth - The underclass are not separate to the working class and are not failing due to their own values but rather due to government policies, globalization and economic recession.
