Social Class

• Personal identity is the way we see ourselves in relation to others
• Social identities are based on our membership of, or identification with, particular social groups - these groups can be socially constructed or an ascribed status.
• Social class is increasingly hard to define, it involves elements of occupation, wealth, income, and culture.
• ONS Social Class Scheme outlines 8 social classes from unemployed (8) to high professional positions (1)
• The upper class is less than 1% of the population, defined by its enormous wealth rather than the occupation of members.
• Roberts

  • The upper class is 'closed' as its members are children of other members
  • Social closure is due to the shared culture that creates a web of links and contacts
• The Sutton Trust

  • Upper-class use their wealth and contacts to get their children into elite public schools like Eton (40k a year)
  • Elite schools teach elements of high culture like Latin and lacrosse, which they use to maintain an exclusive, elite lifestyle that excludes anyone else
  • Build connections (old boys network) and inter-marry to maintain the social closure
• King & Smith

  • Jack Wills clothing reflected elements of upper-class lifestyle, like sailing and skiing, and materials associated with aristocracy
  • Marketed towards students at top universities by sponsoring Oxbridge events like ski trips and polo matches
  • 'Jack Wills Crowd' used the clothing as a way of maintaining their high status
• Bourdieu

  • Ruling class have the power to shape what attributes are valued in society and pass on their cultural capital to their children
  • E.g. etiquette and confidence in different social situations
• Gillies

  • Middle-class parents use their cultural capital to manipulate the education system to benefit their children
  • E.g. running the PTA, being on the governors committee, and using the right language to talk to teachers
• Skeggs

  • Working-class women who wanted to progress in the health profession changed the way they spoke and dressed more demurely to conform to the middle-class values of their peers
• Hey

  • Middle-class girls felt more powerful so felt less need to use their sexual capital than lower-class girls
• Wilmott & Young - features of the working-class

  • Traditional gender roles - men as breadwinner, women as housewives
  • Marriage for life, disapproving of divorce
  • Families lived near each other and formed close-knit communities with a strong sense of class identity
  • 'Us' against 'them' mentality - working together to improve wages and working conditions
• Goldthorpe & Lockwood

  • New working class has emerged as a result of mass immigration, globalisation, and the reduction in manual jobs
  • Leisure is now more central than work, which they now have an instrumental attitude towards
  • Materialism led to a rise in living standards - more likely to own houses and cars
  • Less pronounced gender roles
• Embourgeoisement thesis 


  Blurring of the classes - like the middle class and working class
• Braverman

  • Mining and factory jobs have been replaced by call centres, bars, and restaurants
  • Working class are no better off - still have low pay, low status, and exploitation for the benefit of the business owner
• Marshall

  • 60% of sample thought of themselves as belonging to a particular class
  • 90% could place themselves in a class if prompted
• Pakulski & Walters

  • Identity is now based on what we buy, wear, and enjoy rather than social class
  • Lifestyle and identity is more flexible and diverse now
• Murray

  • Underclass have a different set of deviant norms and values
  • Unemployment, violence, delinquency, drugs, alcoholism.