social class and identity

Question 1

What is social class

Answer 1

A social class is a group of people of similar status commonly sharing the same levels of power and wealth.
Upper class, middle class, working class and underclass

Question 2

What would marxists say about social class and identity

Answer 2

For marxists in particular social class is more than just an identity. The marxist concept of false class consciousness focuses on the way in which many people are not aware of their social class.

Question 3

What would neo marxists say about identity and social class

Answer 3

Bourdieu looks at how working class people lack cultural capital- knowledge behaviour and skills
Sugarman sees that as suffering from cultural deprivation.
For Bourdieu upper class and middle class are not superior to wc but they have an advantage in capitalist society

Question 4

What would the new right say about social class

Answer 4

New right sociologist Charles Murray would say that there is a dependancy culture in what he terms the underclass.

Question 5

Postmodernist evaluation of this

Answer 5

Postmodernist argue that consumption is now a more important source of identity- people are defined by what they buy however this is often determined by social class as it depends on how much money you earn. so the two link. However they argue that some of the class based assumptions about what people do with their leisure time are now outdated.
Individual choice has replaced social class and people pf any class might throw a dinner party

Question 6

What would Bradley evaluate about this

Answer 6

argues that class is still an important source of identity but it is no longer the most significant one- it intersects with other sources of identity such as gender and ethnicity