Understanding social inequalities: social class

Question 1

How can social class be defined ?

Answer 1

• social stratification
• a shared, economic position
• Linked to wealth, income, occupations, education
• differences with attitudes and cultures between cultures
• Inequalities help decide what class you are in

Question 2

What are the ways that class can be categorised ?

Answer 2

• Marx
• Three-class system
• Murray
• Hope-goldthorpe
• Great-British class survey

Question 3

What is the marx way of catagorising classes ?

Answer 3

Two-class system:
- Bourgeoise - ruling class - owned the means of production
- Proletariat - employed by the ruling class

Question 4

What is the three class system of categorising class?

Answer 4

• Upper class
• Middle class
• Working class

Question 5

What is Murray’s approach to categorising crime ?

Answer 5

• Underclass

Question 6

What was Hope-goldthorpe’s approach for categorising class ?

Answer 6

Distinguished three main classes which can be divided into 7 occupational classes:
- Service class, e.g. 1)Higher professionals such as managers
- Intermediate class, e.g. 3) Routine non-manual workers such as sales
- Working class, e.g. skilled manual workers

Question 7

What is objective social class ?

Answer 7

The way that people categorise class:
- the government
- marxists
- goes off what job you have

Question 8

What is subjective social class ?

Answer 8

• peoples own perspectives of their class
• they do certain things to identify with the class (music, film, hobbies)

Question 9

What is the Great British class survey ?

Answer 9

• BBC used Bourdieu’s initial ideas
• Separated class into 3 sections
• Cultural, economic and social capital
• The survey scored respondents based on the degree that they possessed each form of capital
• This separated them into 7 categories such as the elite, established middle class, traditional working class

Question 9

What did Marshall say ?

Answer 9

Many people saw themselves as working class even though they worked in non-manual labour and white-collar jobs

Question 9

What did Savage say ?

Answer 9

Found that many people were reluctant to identify themselves with social class at all

Question 10

What are the advantages and disadvantages of the Great British class survey ?

Answer 10

Advantages = looks at a wide range of factors

Disadvantages = In the GBCS the working class occupations had higher capital than other data
People also may not fit into one of the 7 categories