Class identity

Question 1

What does Vice’s the UK’s young reoffenders: Rule Britannia tell us?

Answer 1

That marginalised youth have a restricted habitus with a lack of opportunities therefore they are stuck in a poverty cycle and can’t imagine a life beyond their council estate

Question 2

What is cultural capital?

Answer 2

The ability to recognise other cultures and languages and how it influences your life

Question 3

What is economic capital?

Answer 3

Your wealth

Question 4

What is social capital?

Answer 4

It is the resources, benefits and opportunities individuals gain from their network of relationships and social connections embedding the value of social interactions, trust and shared norms within a community or group

Question 5

Who came up with the ideas of capitals?

Answer 5

Bourdieu 1984

Question 6

What is objective and subjective sense of class identity?

Answer 6

Objective can be measured through jobs and leisure activities whilst subjective is how you feel within the class system despite the objective factors

Question 7

What is Max Weber’s idea on social class?

Answer 7

The likelihood of a person gaining access to opportunities, experiences and material goods

Question 8

What is cultural capital embodied?

Answer 8

They are intangible and unquantifiable and include an individual’s practices, general disposition, skills, knowledge and accent

Question 9

What is cultural capital objectified?

Answer 9

The possession of a material object that is acceptable to dominant agents in a social space

Question 10

What is cultural capital institutional?

Answer 10

They are rewards such as qualifications given by educational institutes

Question 11

What is Mackintosh and Mooney (2004) theory on the upper class?

Answer 11

They argue that this group is largely “invisible,” since they don’t interact with the majority of the UK population, having separate education, leisure activities and so on.

Question 12

How do Marxists believe charity is used?

Answer 12

To normalise destitution

Question 13

Who are the super rich?

Answer 13

They are a social class group that have made their fortunes through hard work and the media portray them as celebrities because of their lavish lifestyle. However, unlike the upper class, they lack cultural capital.

Question 14

What is Savage (1992) opinion on social class?

Answer 14

They argue that there are cultural differences between the middle class factions of professionals and managers

Question 15

What is Savage (2015) opinion on social class?

Answer 15

He used Bourdieu’s concepts of social and cultural capital to divide up the classes further, identifying groups such as the established middle class, the technical middle class and the emergent service workers

Question 16

What is Saunders (1990) opinion on social class?

Answer 16

They note differences in cultural values of the individualistic private sector workers and community orientated sector workers

Question 17

How do you judge social class?

Answer 17

• money
• possessions
• house
• lifestyle
• holidays
• style
• television viewing habits
• accent
• occupation
• norms / values

Question 18

What does Tony Blaire believe?

Answer 18

We are all middle class now

Question 19

What is Fox (2004) theory on social class?

Answer 19

The middle class can be separated into the upper middle class, the middle middle class and the lower middle class

Question 20

Who are the working class?

Answer 20

They are a romanised social group defined by skilled, semi - skilled and unskilled manual workers uniting under a proletarian identity of traditional gender roles, close family and a close association with their class

Question 21

What is Skeggs (1997) theory on social class?

Answer 21

He studied working - class women who felt humiliated by the ways which teachers and doctors judged and dismissed them due to their working class background. So, women felt they have to look respectable in their style in fear of judgement

Question 22

What is Murray (1984) theory on social class?

Answer 22

He argues that over - generous benefits encourage some people to develop a culture in which they don’t take responsibility for their own actions and have an expectation that they will be looked after the state

Question 23

What is Marshall (1998) theory on social class?

Answer 23

They point out that surveys frequently show that people still themselves belonging to a particular class

Question 24

What is Braverman (1974) theory on social class?

Answer 24

They argue that middle class is becoming more proletarianist because jobs are less labor intensive as they are being replaced by machines

Question 25

What is Bloodworth (2018) theory on social class?

Answer 25

They consider the effects of declining working class industries as people are taking gigs to earn a wage losing a sense of community that comes from work and could be used as an explanation why we voted out of the EU in 2016

Question 26

How is the under class characterised?

Answer 26

• high rates of illegitimacy and single parenthood
• high rates of crime
• high rates of welfare dependency
• low levels of education and employment
• a sense of hopelessness and despair

Question 27

What are the reasons for the underclass?

Answer 27

• decline in traditional family
• rise in single - parent families
• decline in social capital
• increased drug use
• decline in work ethic

Question 28

What do post modernists Pakulski and Waters (1996) believe about social class?

Answer 28

They argue that we are no longer defined by what we do, which is the basis of social class identities but rather by what we consume a shift from production to consumption