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In this paper, we examine whether social class and class divides in social networks contribute to individuals' attachment to society. We argue that network segregation restricts individuals' social worlds, thereby diminishing societal attachment. Our research site is Chile, a country with relatively low social cohesion and one of the world's highest levels of economic inequality. We use large‐scale representative survey data collected in 2016 for the Chilean urban population aged 18–75 years (n = 2983) and interrelate indicators of well‐established dimensions and sub‐dimensions of societal attachment. Results of our regression analyses show that members of the upper middle class are more attached to society than their fellow citizens from other social strata. In addition, having more social contacts within one's own social class reduces attachment to society. In particular, network homogeneity lessens societal attachment for lower‐ and upper‐class individuals, but not so strongly in the middle class. We conclude that social cohesion in Chilean society would be enhanced not only by more equal opportunities but also by changes to the social settings in which social class segregation is (re)produced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite predominantly lower social class origins, the second generation of established immigrant groups in the UK are now attaining high levels of education. However, they continue to experience poorer labour market outcomes than the majority population. These worse outcomes are often attributed in part to their disadvantaged origins, which do not, by contrast, appear to constrain their educational success. This paper engages with this paradox. We discuss potential mechanisms for second‐generation educational success and how far we might expect these to be replicated in labour market outcomes. We substantiate our discussion with new empirical analysis. Drawing on a unique longitudinal study of England and Wales spanning 40 years and encompassing one per cent of the population, we present evidence on the educational and labour market outcomes of the second generation of four groups of immigrants and the white British majority, controlling for multiple measures of social origins. We demonstrate that second‐generation men and women's educational advantage is only partially reflected in the labour market. We reflect on the implications of our findings for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A paper by Breen and Goldthorpe recently claimed to have exposed 'fatal flaws' in my work on meritocracy in Britain. This paper responds to their criticisms. The results of their re-analysis of the NCDS data set are shown to be consistent with my earlier findings and arguments. Furthermore, re-running some of my earlier models using measures that they favour and a method designed to privilege their position, the results once again demonstrate that, while class origins have some effect on class destinations (in particular, for those born into the middle class), ability and effort exert a much greater effect. Based on these results, the paper identifies three core propositions about meritocracy in Britain on which all parties to this debate should now be able to agree. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Much of the literature on the urban middle classes describes processes of both affiliation (often to the localities) and disaffiliation (often from some of the non‐middle‐class residents). In this paper, we consider this situation from a different position, drawing on research exploring whether and how children and adults living in diverse localities develop friendships with those different to themselves in terms of social class and ethnicity. This paper focuses on the interviews with the ethnically diverse, but predominantly white British, middle‐class parent participants, considering their attitudes towards social and cultural difference. We emphasize the importance of highlighting inequalities that arise from social class and its intersection with ethnicity in analyses of complex urban populations. The paper's contribution is, first, to examine processes of clustering amongst the white British middle‐class parents, particularly in relation to social class. Second, we contrast this process, and its moments of reflection and unease, with the more deliberate and purposeful efforts of one middle‐class, Bangladeshi‐origin mother who engages in active labour to facilitate relationships across social and ethnic difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a previous paper it has been shown that across three cohorts of men and women born in Britain in 1946, 1958 and 1970 a gender difference exists in regard to relative rates of class mobility. For men these rates display an essential stability but for women they become more equal. The aim of the present paper is to shed light on the causes of this trend-or, that is, of increasing social fluidity-among women. We begin by considering a refined version of the perverse fluidity hypothesis: that is, one that proposes that part-time work leads to increasing downward worklife mobility among women that also entails downward intergenerational mobility and thus promotes greater fluidity. We do in fact find that the increase in fluidity is very largely, if not entirely, confined to women who have had at least one period of part-time work. However, a more direct test of the hypothesis is not supportive. We are then led to investigate whether it is not that part-time working itself is the crucial factor but rather that women who subsequently work part-time already differ from those who do not at entry into employment. We find that eventual full- and part-timers do not differ in their class origins nor, in any systematic way, in their educational qualifications. But there is a marked and increasing difference in the levels of employment at which they make their labour market entry. Eventual part-timers are more likely than eventual full-timers to enter in working-class positions, regardless of their class origins and qualifications. Insofar as these women are from more advantaged origins, they would appear not to seek to exploit their advantages to the same extent as do full-timers in order to advance their own work careers. And it is, then, in the downward mobility accepted by these women-who increase in number across the cohorts-that we would locate the main source of the weakening association between class origins and destinations that is revealed among women at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have recognized young people's educational expectations as a key factor in predicting educational outcomes, but few studies have attempted a comprehensive classification of how young people's educational expectations are shaped. In this article, I outline a typology of how young people from different social class origins shape their educational expectations. Drawing on 100 interviews with 15‐year‐olds, I find two underlying dimensions in young people's accounts of their educational expectations: how risk aware they are and how goal oriented they are. These dimensions translate into a heuristic model for understanding the structure of young people's educational expectations. I identify four major approaches to shaping educational expectations ‐ the confident, the determined, the explorative, and the anxious ‐ and show how these approaches connect to the young people's class origin. The typology of approaches offers a conceptual framework for understanding the mechanisms that lead young people to shape their expectations in qualitatively different ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Time use is both a cause of social inequality and a consequence of social inequality. However, how social class stratifies time use patterns is seldom studied. In this paper, I describe the time use patterns in the years 1983 and 2015 by social class, and gender in the British context. Using sequence analysis methods, I show how the diversity of time use patterns in British society is socially stratified. I find that 13 clusters capture the heterogeneity of time use patterns and that these clusters are associated with social class, gender, and day of the week. These clusters capture patterns of paid and unpaid work schedules, as well as leisure patterns. The results show that men have experienced a reduction of the standard Monday to Friday 8‐hr working day, while women have experienced a general increase in this type of schedule. On the other hand, patterns of domestic working days have reduced for women and increased for men. Important differences exist in paid and unpaid work patterns between social classes. Working‐class women have experienced an important increase in shift work on weekends. They are also much more likely to be doing unpaid work on weekdays compared to upper‐class and middle‐class women. Working‐class men are more likely to experience non‐working days and leisure days on both weekdays and weekends and are more likely to be doing shift work. They are also more often doing unpaid work on weekdays compared to men in upper‐class households. Patterns of childcare indicate that all families have increased their childcare time. Men in upper‐class households in particular have experienced an important growth in childcare time between 1983 and 2015. I conclude by discussing how time use can further our understanding of social stratification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Now that most UK universities have increased their tuition fees to £9,000 a year and are implementing new Access Agreements as required by the Office for Fair Access, it has never been more important to examine the extent of fair access to UK higher education and to more prestigious UK universities in particular. This paper uses Universities and Colleges Admissions Service ( UCAS) data for the period 1996 to 2006 to explore the extent of fair access to prestigious Russell Group universities, where 'fair' is taken to mean equal rates of making applications to and receiving offers of admission from these universities on the part of those who are equally qualified to enter them. The empirical findings show that access to Russell Group universities is far from fair in this sense and that little changed following the introduction of tuition fees in 1998 and their initial increase to £3,000 a year in 2006. Throughout this period, UCAS applicants from lower class backgrounds and from state schools remained much less likely to apply to Russell Group universities than their comparably qualified counterparts from higher class backgrounds and private schools, while Russell Group applicants from state schools and from Black and Asian ethnic backgrounds remained much less likely to receive offers of admission from Russell Group universities in comparison with their equivalently qualified peers from private schools and the White ethnic group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on qualitative data of an upper‐secondary school in Sweden's primary elite community, Djursholm, I propose how medical diagnosis of students as dyslexics contributes to consecrating them by offering a short cut to successful performance, while at the same time reproducing differences between social classes. The study suggests how students that do not score top can be labeled dyslexic and the social and moral consequences of that. I introduce the concept of "consecrating medicalization" in order to discriminate between the effects of medical diagnosis of members of different social classes. In this way, this paper contributes to further examining some key problems in medical sociology and the sociology of elites, by offering a framework of synthesis and integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses ethnographic data to engage a critical reflection on the tension between individual responsibility for the environment and inequality. While research has shown that the majority of sustainable consumers are middle and upper class, educated and white individuals, the study explores how the ethical injunction to ecological sustainability is being introduced to lower‐income neighbourhoods in France. It draws on the observation of a national programme which aims at supporting inhabitants of public housing estates in the process of greening their lifestyle in order to fight climate change and fuel poverty. The paper analyses how environmental responsibilization is specific in that it calls upon a responsibility towards others, towards the common good. Using the Foucauldian concept of 'subjectivation', it describes and analyses the moral work implied by such behaviour change programmes. It demonstrates that a negative representation of poor households and a moral framing of the responsibility for the environment lead to a moralization of their lifestyle under the heading of 'eco‐friendly behaviours'. A paradoxical result of such endeavours is that the social group with the least impactful lifestyle on the environment is the one which is moralized in the most intrusive and resolute manner. The article shows, however, that the tenants manage to resist the normalizing discourse on sustainable living, for reasons which are not anti‐environmentalist. This piece thus provides interesting results for sustainability studies as well as for the sociology of the regulation of underprivileged neighbourhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By employing a Bourdieu‐inspired class scheme that differentiates between classes' volume and composition of capital, and by analysing Norwegian administrative register data for birth cohorts between 1987 and 1992, this paper examines the relationship between social class background and gender‐(a)typical choices of higher education. Fields of study in higher education in much of the Western world remain segregated by gender despite the gender gap in educational attainment having been reversed. However, some changes have taken place due to the influx of women into male‐dominated, high‐status fields. Few recent studies have examined the relationship between social class background and gendered educational choices in light of these changes; furthermore, the focus of previous research has been limited to the vertical dimension of class. The results presented in this article suggest that men and women are more likely to make gender‐atypical choices when this leads to social mobility and that focusing solely on the vertical dimension of class may mask horizontal differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent revival in interest in class subjectivity has been largely premised on class belonging as a form of identity, eschewing talk of class-consciousness. Evidence in this debate has been mostly qualitative and focused on specific social groups. This paper uses data from the 2003 British Social Attitudes Survey to map the sense of class belonging in England and to assess the strength of class belonging when placed alongside other social identities, such as gender and nationality. The paper also explores the extent to which class identity could be conceived of as class-consciousness through its links with attitudes to redistribution and workplace relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the possible effects of the increasing exposure to modernity on younger workers in some sectors of developing countries with special reference to those employed in advanced manufacturing in Turkey. In recent decades Turkey has undergone considerable urbanization, improvements in literacy and rising levels of formal education. The paper systematically examines differences in the work-related attitudes and expectations, commitment and aspirations of younger and older workers, who have been exposed to these processes to different degrees. It is broadly confirmed that younger workers have higher expectations and aspirations that make them relatively less satisfied with a number of aspects of their work and which are likely to make for a less committed more critical workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the relationship between social engagement, particularly civic engagement, and education. It is well known that more highly educated people are more likely to engage in voluntary work in formalized settings. It has been difficult to disentangle the effect of higher education from that of family origin and occupational socialization. This paper examines the effects of tertiary education on the social and civic engagement of young people, using the British Household Panel Study. The social and civic activity of young people is observed in their late teens, before entering the labour market or tertiary education, and compared with that of the same young people in their early 20s, after completing tertiary education courses or gaining labour market experience. It was found that the social and civic engagement of young people who would enter higher education was higher in their late teens than that of their peers who did not enter. However, higher education had a small additional effect on civic engagement, for both young and mature students. The children of professionals were the social grouping most likely to be involved in civic activities. The relationship of higher education, professional occupations and family socialization is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a reply by Richard Breen and John H. Goldthorpe to Peter Saunders' criticisms about their work on meritocracy in Great Britain. Saunders has argued, on the basis of analyses of the National Child Development Study data-set, that present-day Britain is to a large extent a meritocratic society: where individuals end up within the class structure is largely determined by their ability and effort. Saunders' difficulties stem in large part from his original concern to expose British sociologists' commitment to what he has labelled the social advantages and disadvantages (SAD) thesis. In both our previous papers our aim has been simply to test the meritocracy thesis--not to support the SAD thesis, nor to run a competition between the two theses. In our first paper our strategy was to begin by establishing the level and pattern of the class origins-class destinations association and then to see what happens to this association when the individual merit variables of ability, effort and educational attainment, as best these can be constructed, are brought into the analysis. Saunders now contends that this approach is flawed and in fact biased against the meritocracy thesis because of problems of measurement error and of omitted variables. But in neither respect do his arguments stand up to examination. It is apparent that Saunders' misunderstandings arise from the fact that he seeks to impose upon us the strategy of the variable race that he himself favors. Thus, he contends that in our approach any residual variation in class outcomes is automatically attributed to class origins or, in other words, the default is set to favor the SAD thesis. Finally in this connection we would note that in our second paper addressing the meritocracy thesis, we develop our original approach to try to mitigate both problems of measurement error and those of deciding just how closely a particular society at a particular point in time approximates the meritocratic ideal.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on the theme of social stratification and it's interrelation with cultural practices, including meanings and operationalization of class and status, and relationship between cultural consumption and social distinction.

Lay perceptions and experiences of social location have been commonly framed with reference to social class. However, complex responses to, and ambivalence over, class categories have raised interesting analytic questions relating to how sociological concepts are operationalized in empirical research. For example, prior researchers have argued that processes of class dis-identification signify moral unease with the nature of classed inequalities, yet dis-identification may also in part reflect a poor fit between 'social class' as a category and the ways in which people accord meaning to, and evaluate, their related experiences of socio-economic inequality. Differently framed questions about social comparison, aligned more closely with people's own terms of reference, offer an interesting alternative avenue for exploring subjective experiences of inequality. This paper explores some of these questions through an analysis of new empirical data, generated in the context of recession. In the analysis reported here, class identification was common. Nevertheless, whether or not people self identified in class terms, class relevant issues were perceived and described in highly diverse ways, and lay views on class revealed it to be a very aggregated as well as multifaceted construct. It is argued that it enables a particular, not general, perspective on social comparison. The paper therefore goes on to examine how study participants compared themselves with familiar others, identified by themselves. The evidence illuminates social positioning in terms of constraint, agency and (for some) movement, and offers insight into very diverse experiences of inequality, through the comparisons that people made. Their comparisons are situated, and pragmatic, accounts of the material contexts in which people live their lives. Linked evaluations are circumscribed and strongly tied to these proximate material contexts.The paper draws out implications for theorizing lay perspectives on class, and subjective experiences of inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In British social mobility discourse, the rhetoric of fair access can obscure wider issues of social justice. While socio‐economic inequalities continue to shape young people's lives, sociological work on class dis‐identification suggests social class is less obviously meaningful as a source of individual and collective identity. This paper considers subjective understandings of the post‐16 education and employment landscape in this context, drawing on qualitative research exploring the aspirations of young men and women as they completed compulsory education in north‐west England, and the hopes their parents had for their future. It shows how unequal access to resources shaped the older generation's expectations for their children, although this was rarely articulated using the explicit language of class. Their children recognized they faced a difficult job market but embraced the idea that success was possible through hard work. Both generations drew moral boundaries and made judgments based on implicit classed discourses about undeserving others, while at the same time disavowing class identities. There was a more explicit recognition of gender inequality among the parents framed with reference to hopes for greater freedom for their daughters. Opportunities and inequalities were thus understood in complex and sometimes contradictory ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a comprehensive account of the way in which cognitive and educational attainment mediate the link between social origins and elite social class destinations in mid‐life. Using the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70), we assess the roles of a range of pathways through which educational advantage may lead to occupational attainment: cognitive development; private and selective secondary schools; school level qualifications; and higher education, including institution and field of study. Whereas past research has shown a residual direct effect of social origins on class destinations, we find that, once a sufficiently detailed picture of educational attainment is taken into account, education fully explains the link between social origins and top social class destinations. In contrast, the gap between men and women in achieving top social class positions is in no part accounted for by education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper we add to the existing evidence base on recent trends in inter‐generational social mobility in England and Wales. We analyse data from the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study (ONS‐LS), which links individual records from the five decennial censuses between 1971 and 2011. The ONS‐LS is an excellent data resource for the study of social mobility because it has a very large sample size, excellent population coverage and low rates of nonresponse and attrition across waves. Additionally, the structure of the study means that we can observe the occupations of LS‐members' parents when they were children and follow their own progress in the labour market at regular intervals into middle age. Counter to widespread prevailing beliefs, our results show evidence of a small but significant increase in social fluidity between 1950s and the 1980s for both men and women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hidden barriers, or 'gender pay gap', preventing women from earning equivalent incomes to men is well documented. Yet recent research has uncovered that, in Britain, there is also a comparable class-origin pay gap in higher professional and managerial occupations. So far this analysis has only been conducted at the national level and it is not known whether there are regional differences within the UK. This paper uses pooled data from the 2014 and 2015 Labour Force Survey ( N = 7,534) to stage a more spatially sensitive analysis that examines regional variation in the class pay gap. We find that this 'class ceiling' is not evenly spatially distributed. Instead it is particularly marked in Central London, where those in high-status occupations who are from working-class backgrounds earn, on average, £10,660 less per year than those whose parents were in higher professional and managerial employment. Finally, we inspect the Capital further to reveal that the class pay gap is largest within Central London's banking and finance sector. Challenging policy conceptions of London as the 'engine room' of social mobility, these findings suggest that class disadvantage within high-status occupations is particularly acute in the Capital. The findings also underline the value of investigating regional differences in social mobility, and demonstrate how such analysis can unravel important and previously unrecognized spatial dimensions of class inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent developments in class analysis, particularly associated with so-called 'cultural class analysis'; have seen the works of Pierre Bourdieu take centre stage. Apart from the general influence of 'habitus' and 'cultural capital', some scholars have tried to reconstruct class analysis with concepts drawn from Bourdieu. This involves a theoretical reorientation, away from the conventional concerns of class analysis with property and market relations, towards an emphasis on the multiple forms of capital. Despite the significant potential of these developments, such a reorientation dismisses or neglects the relations of power and domination founded in the economic institutions of capitalism as a crucial element of what class is. Through a critique of some recent attempts by British authors to develop a ' Bourdieusian' class theory, the paper reasserts the centrality of the relations of power and domination that used to be the domain of class analysis. The paper suggests some elements central to a reworked class analysis that benefits from the power of Bourdieu's ideas while retaining a perspective on the fundamentals of class relations in capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines recent debates about the role of what Bourdieu termed cultural intermediaries in the formation and reproduction of the relations of cultural capital. Workers in the cultural or creative industries were given a central place in Bourdieu's schema in the creation of hierarchies of value in the production and consumption of symbolic goods. Subsequent writers about the apparent emergence of a creative economy (;) have given workers involved in the production and distribution of cultural goods a pivotal place in the development of late or post-modernity. More recent work (;) has criticized the validity and coherence of the term as it has come to be understood and called for more rigour in its definition and use. This paper adds to this debate by considering the book trade as a space in which the gap between production and consumption of cultural goods is mediated. It suggests that cultural intermediaries, as cultural workers, are engaged in the reproduction of the cultural aspects of social class by‘shoring up’ their insecure position in the relations of cultural capital, rather than simply being the taste leaders of a reflexive modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the potential of Bourdieu's approach to capital as a way of understanding class dynamics in contemporary capitalism. Recent rethinking of class analysis has sought to move beyond what Rosemary) calls the‘employment aggregate approach’, one which involves categorizing people into class groups according to whether they have certain attributes (e.g. occupations). Instead, recent contributions by Pierre Bourdieu, Erik Wright, Aage Sorensen, and Charles Tilly have concentrated on understanding the mechanisms that produce class inequalities. Concepts such as assets, capitals and resources (CARs) are often used to explain how class inequalities are produced, but there remain ambiguities and differences in how such terms are understood. This paper identifies problems faced both by game theoretical Marxism and by the rational choice approach of Goldthorpe in developing an adequate approach to CARs. It then turns to critically consider how elements of Bourdieu's approach, where his concept of capital is related to those of habitus and field, might overcome these weaknesses. Our rendering of his arguments leads us to conclude that our understanding of CARs might be enriched by considering how capital is distinctive not in terms of distinct relations of exploitation, but through its potential to accumulate and to be converted to other resources. This focus, we suggest, sidesteps otherwise intractable problems in CAR based approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distinguishing between an explanatory and a normative interest in social stratification, this paper considers the relation between class analysis and the value of equality. Starting from the familiar distinction between (in) equality of position and (in) equality of opportunity, and noting the extent to which mobility research focuses on the latter, it suggests that class positions can themselves be characterized in terms of the opportunities they yield to those occupying them. This enables the clear identification of the kinds of inequality that are and are not addressed by research findings presented in terms of class categories and odds ratios. The significance of those findings from a normative perspective is then discussed, and their limitations are emphasized - though the paper also explains in what ways they are indeed of normative relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following recent research evidencing that young men are redefining the essential components of what it is to be a man, this paper draws on qualitative interviews with 22 elite-level, English Premier League academy level football (soccer) players to investigate their performances and understandings of masculinity in relation to decreasing homohysteria. Even in this gender-segregated, near-total institution, these working-class, non-educationally aspiring adolescents evidence an attenuated performance of 'maleness' and improved attitudinal disposition toward homosexuality. Congruent with insights developed by inclusive masculinity scholars, respondents maintained emotional closeness and physical tactility with male teammates and friends. These more inclusive attitudes and homosocial behaviours were, however, slightly more conservative than in other recent research. We close by explaining this variation with reference to theoretical apparatus' provided by Goffman and Bourdieu to advance theoretical debates about social class and masculinities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets out to define the underclass and then test the predictions of three competing theories in the underclass debate. Using the National Child Development Study for the analysis it is found that an 'underclass' suffering from a lack of qualifications, low cognitive ability and chronic joblessness exists. The validity of making a distinction between the working class and an 'underclass' has often been questioned both because of the dubious history of such a distinction and because it is not believed that such a distinction is empirically true. The results in this paper contradict this assertion by finding the underclass to be distinctive from the working class in terms of patterns of family formation, work commitment and political allegiance. The distinct attitudes of the underclass, when coupled with evidence of inter- and intra-generational stability of membership, provide early evidence that a new social class, the underclass, may now exist in Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we provide a comparative analysis of the political and ideological salience of class in Britain and the USA, using the Comparative Project on Class Consciousness and Class Conflict dataset. We show that class divisions, however measured, are much more salient in British political choices. We then ask whether this difference results from the weaker cultural salience of class in the USA, or whether it reflects the distinctive nature of the American political system. We find that class is strongly salient in the USA, not in politics, but in the sphere of work- place and industrial relations. We conclude with a discussion of the meaning of these findings for British and American class research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines changes in the relationship between class origins and the position young people occupy one year after finishing post-primary education in the Republic of Ireland over the period 1984-1993. We find that class differentials in the position occupied after leaving school do not change over time, although, among young women, the relationship between educational attainment and the position occupied does change slightly. We show that the reason why this latter change can co-occur with an absence of change in class differences is because class origin effects on the position a school leaver occupies one year after leaving school are substantially independent of educational attainment effects. In other words, class differences in how young people fare after leaving school are only weakly mediated by education. Other channels of class influence must therefore be operating, and their cumulative impact is much greater than that of class based educational inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to integrate class, citizenship and gender in a comparative approach to the analysis of welfare state regimes. I argue that the incorporation of gender into the analysis entails a reassessment of the conventional conception of citizenship, a broadening of conventional definitions of political mobilization and participation and a modification of the welfare state regime concept used in the mobilization of power resources research approach. Furthermore, the concept of de-commodification or insulation from the pressures of the labour market, which is central to the analysis of welfare state regimes, must be supplemented by the concept of personal autonomy or insulation from personal and/or public dependence. To date comparative research has concentrated on the relationship between the labour market and the state with little attention to the family aspect of this tripartite relationship. The concept of personal autonomy remedies this imbalance since it relates directly to the articulation of relations of reproduction and production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debate about elderly people has been dominated by stereotypical images, while profound inequalities in the circumstances of elderly people have been neglected. This paper examines one aspect of inequality, that of personal income, showing that elderly people span the gulf between affluence and poverty, and that ageist representations of pensioners mask structured inequalities which have arisen during the working life. The paper focuses on gender inequality of occupational and private pension income and assesses the effects of the sexual division in the labour market ('the price of being female') and of women's role in the domestic economy ('the cost of caring'). Gender and marital status as well as class are found to be crucial factors in understanding income inequality among elderly people. Occupational and personal pensions are the chief means of perpetuating these divisions into later life. The paper uses data from the 1985 and 1986 General Household Survey, which provides a representative sample of over 7000 people over age 65. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the extent to which Hargeaves' and Lacey's differentiation-polarisation theory is applicable to setted comprehensive schools bearing in mind certain objections to the theory made by Quine. The research is based on an ethnographic study of a comprehensive school, located in the south of England, in which the pupils are streamed by sets after the first year. The sample of pupils studied are fourth years in the top, middle and bottom streams of the school. By using a variety of research methods to study the historical and current academic and behavioural values of the pupils, this paper suggests that the differentiation-polarisation theory holds fairly well, particularly in the second year. The research does not substantiate Quine's objections to the theory. The paper concludes by considering the implications of the theory for social class differentiation and other contemporary theories in the sociology of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The culture of poverty debate has been a constant theme of analyses or ghetto poverty and accompanying discussions of policy. Most attention has focused on the educational and community aspects of the debate. Relatively little attention has been directed towards the analytically central issue of work orientation and behaviour. This paper examines some critical issues in this key problem area with respect to the ghetto lower class. Initially the two competing theories of ghetto lower class work behaviour and values are presented and materials introduced from the ethnographic and sociological literature which support a modified form of the sub-cultural theory. Evidence from a field study of job training programmes is then presented to offer further support for the importance of sub-cultural values and orientations in shaping lower class ghetto work behaviour. Finally, some conclusions on the theoretical and policy implications of the paper are drawn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper on occupational prestige is two-fold. The first part of the paper is devoted to a more general discussion of some theoretical and methodological shortcomings of the sociological literature on occupational prestige. The aim of the second part of the paper is to provide an illustration of one possible approach to the theoretical and empirical analysis of dissensus in occupational prestige which may be able to transcend at least partly some of the suggested shortcomings of the conventional approach. The sample utilized for the empirical analysis is a sample of the West German élite. The findings indicate that the position of an individual in the structure of voluntary interaction and his normative standards have an impact on the prestige assigned to different groups of occupations. Comparing science and nonescience occupations all requiring a university education, it was found that members of the elite who had close, personal interaction with scientists as well as a more favourable attitude towards the consequences of science and read proportionally more science literature assigned disproportionally higher prestige to science occupations in contrast to occupations outside of science.

The article presents comments of the author on his article "Profiting from a Comprehensive School," published in the "British Journal of Sociology," to draw attention to the sociological study of comprehensive schools. Author defends his article on two grounds presentation and analysis, and conclusions. Any inadequacies on presentation are probably determined by the limitations of the article-intended as a research note and not a fully developed paper. The criticism in conclusions seems largely directed at presentation. The conclusions are in fact valid on the basis of the findings of the research itself. The same applies to statistical techniques employed. In short it would seem that no valid critique of the conclusions themselves is presented. However, here is a point-by-point reply. The tables present the most outstanding deviations in keeping with the summary nature of the article. They are condensations of tables in the thesis. Thus class categories are included or omitted in accordance with the importance of variations.

This article discusses a study on social status and clique formation among grammar school boys in London, England. This paper reports on another aspect of the inquiry into the effects of social class at adolescence, which has been carried out at the London School of Economics and Political Science in England under the direction of Doctor H. T. Himmelweit. Within the broad framework of the research project, an important place was allotted to problems of peer group selection. Moreover, the paper is based on information from three sources: a choice of friend questionnaire, a sociometric questionnaire and an open-ended question on the attributes of a good friend. The most interesting conclusion which has emerged from these data points to an important difference between this country and the U.S. In both countries, the adolescent's value system largely determines his friendship choices. In England, it has been shown that similar class stereotypes may be found and it is quite possibly true that such friendship criteria as are embodied in the choice of a friend questionnaire reflect parental values. It could also be argued, that the working class boys in the grammar school are exceptional, in that they come from homes where middle class values are prevalent. In England, it may be said in general that by having secondary grammar and secondary modern schools, the working class pupils are divided into those who will be given an opportunity for social ascent and those who will not. England deliberately segregates the new recruits to the higher social levels and gives them more advanced training in separate schools. Under these conditions, several factors combine to give the working class boy those attitudes, interests and motives which are concomitant with his future social position.

Reforms which increase the stock of education in a society have long been held by policy-makers as key to improving rates of intergenerational social mobility. Yet, despite the intuitive plausibility of this idea, the empirical evidence in support of an effect of educational expansion on social fluidity is both indirect and weak. In this paper we use the raising of the minimum school leaving age from 15 to 16 years in England and Wales in 1972 to estimate the effect of educational participation and qualification attainment on rates of intergenerational social class mobility. Because, in expectation, children born immediately before and after the policy was implemented are statistically exchangeable, the difference in the amount of education they received may be treated as exogenously determined. The exogenous nature of the additional education gain means that differences in rates of social mobility between cohorts affected by the reform can be treated as having been caused by the additional education. The data for the analysis come from the ONS Longitudinal Study, which links individual records from successive decennial censuses between 1971 and 2001. Our findings show that, although the reform resulted in an increase in educational attainment in the population as a whole and a weakening of the association between attainment and class origin, there was no reliably discernible increase in the rate of intergenerational social mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a reply to comments made by Ken Smith in response to comments made by Jane Elliot and Shirley Dex on the article "Operationalizing Max Weber's probability concept of class situation: the concept of social class," by Ken Smith. The authors feel that Smith's article does not focus on the operationalization of Weber's work, making the title misleading. The authors also believe that Smith lacks an understanding of statistical concepts such as significance levels. Smith's criticism that Elliot and Dex's response lacks a unified theory is addressed.

This paper uses unique population-level matched employer-employee data on monthly wages to analyse class-origin wage gaps in the Swedish labour market. Education is the primary mediator of class origin advantages in the labour market, but mobility research often only considers the vertical dimension of education. When one uses an unusually detailed measure of education in a horizontal dimension, the wage gap between individuals of advantaged and disadvantaged class origin is found to be substantial (4-5 per cent), yet considerably smaller than when measures are used which only control for level of education and field of study. This is also the case for models with class or occupation as outcome. The class-origin wage gap varies considerably across labour market segments, such as those defined by educational levels, fields of education, industries and occupations in both seemingly unsystematic and conspicuous ways. The gap is small in the public sector, suggesting that bureaucracy may act as a leveller. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the consequences of the recent economic downturn and UK government spending cuts, as exacerbations of prevailing trends in neoliberal employment policy, on temporal perception, specifically as it relates to the adaptation of subjective anticipations of and projections into the future to objective prospects of unemployment by class. Grounded in a phenomenologically-minded Bourdieusian conceptualization of class and time and contextualized by statistics on chances of job loss, it draws on qualitative research with 57 individuals from across the class structure to chart differing dispositions toward the future. In particular, it distinguishes three orientations - the future as controllable, the future as uncontrollable and the future as reasonably controllable - which appear to correspond with resources possessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author replies to a critique of his work by scholar Ulrich Beck on the concept of risk society, particularly the importance of the use of social class in the development of a critical theory of risk society. The article responds to distinctions made by Beck concerning risk society including risk and catastrophe, individual and systemic risks, and the concept of conflict logic of social classes and global risks. The article also examines economic inequality, wealth distribution, and political and economic power.

The article discusses the origins of religion in society in context with classes and classification. Topics include using social class as a structure of inequality that is rooted in the social relations of economic life, discussion on Geometric Data Analysis (GDA) showing different dimensions and different criteria for classification, and description of distinct theoretical attitudes toward classes and classification.

The article discusses the omnivores, distinction, and the measurement of social position in context with their Class, status and lifestyle. Topics include evaluation of empirical premises about lifestyles and the framework of multivariate statistical models; lack of connection between omnivorousness and status consciousness is compelling evidence against a Bourdieusian homology, and development individuals lifestyle orientations, and socio-economic wealth with resources at young age.

The article discusses the comments on the conceptualization of class, status and cultural consumption. Topics includes evidence against the individualization thesis and the decline in the explanatory power of social class, limitations on attempts to delineate the transformation of cultural repertoires, discussion of connection between someone's self-awareness in terms of cultural resources and the disposition to perform distinction.

The article comments on the article "Operationalizing Max Weber's probability concept of class situation: the concept of social class," by Ken Smith. The authors feel that Smith's article does not offer a workable approach to social class classification. The authors also believe that Smith's article is not properly situated within the appropriate literature on social mobility. It is unclear whether the intention of Smith's article is to redraw fixed social class boundaries or remove them entirely.

A joint concern with multidimensionality and dynamics is a defining feature of the pervasive use of the terminology of social exclusion in the European Union. The notion of social exclusion focuses attention on economic vulnerability in the sense of exposure to risk and uncertainty. Sociological concern with these issues has been associated with the thesis that risk and uncertainty have become more pervasive and extend substantially beyond the working class. This paper combines features of recent approaches to statistical modelling of poverty dynamics and multidimensional deprivation in order to develop our understanding of the dynamics of economic vulnerability. An analysis involving nine countries and covering the first five waves of the European Community Household Panel shows that, across nations and time, it is possible to identify an economically vulnerable class. This class is characterized by heightened risk of falling below a critical resource level, exposure to material deprivation and experience of subjective economic stress. Cross-national differentials in persistence of vulnerability are wider than in the case of income poverty and less affected by measurement error. Economic vulnerability profiles vary across welfare regimes in a manner broadly consistent with our expectations. Variation in the impact of social class within and across countries provides no support for the argument that its role in structuring such risk has become much less important. Our findings suggest that it is possible to accept the importance of the emergence of new forms of social risk and acknowledge the significance of efforts to develop welfare states policies involving a shift of opportunities and decision making on to individuals without accepting the ‘death of social class’ thesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ulrich Beck has argued that the changing logic of distribution and, more importantly, the ‘individualization’ of social processes in reflexive modernity have killed off the concept of social class and rendered the analysis of its effects a flawed endeavour. The present paper takes issue with this perspective by exposing its key weaknesses, namely its ambivalence and contradiction over what exactly constitutes individualization and the extent to which it has really displaced class, its inconsistent and caricaturized description of what actually constitutes class, its erroneous and unsatisfactory depiction of class analysis, and its self-defeating reasoning on the motors of individualization. The intention is not to conservatively deny that social change is occurring nor to advocate any particular model of class, but only to illustrate the aporias of Beck's position with the aim of vindicating the enterprise of class analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we empirically examined two explanatory mechanisms for educational inequality: cultural reproduction and relative risk aversion, using survey data taken from secondary school pupils in Amsterdam. Cultural reproduction theory seeks to explain class variations in schooling by cultural differences between social classes. Relative risk aversion theory argues that educational inequalities can be understood by between-class variation in the necessity of pursuing education at branching points in order to avoid downward mobility. We showed that class variations in early demonstrated ability are for a substantial part cultural: cultural capital – measured by parental involvement in highbrow culture – affected school performance at the primary and secondary level. However, relative risk aversion – operationalized by being concerned with downward mobility – strongly affects schooling ambitions, whereas cultural capital had no effect. Thus, we conclude that ‘primary effects’ of social origin on schooling outcomes are manifested through cultural capital and not through relative risk aversion (in addition to other potential sources of class variations such as genetics). Relative risk aversion, and not cultural capital, affects schooling ambitions, which is relevant for our understanding of secondary effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article responds to M. Bittman and J. Pixley's paper "Equality and Gender, Divided Versus Multiple Subjectivity: A Response to Allon J. Uhlmann's The Sociology of Subjectivity, and Subjectivity of Sociologists" in volume 55, issue number 3 of the "British Journal of Sociology." The criticism of Bittman and Pixley's book "The Double Life of the Family" focused on a number of selected texts in order to expose some of the analytical dynamics that prevail in the sociology of the Australian family. The book served as an example of a class-unconscious discussion of the family. It was argued that the book overlook systemic differences in subjectivity across class and gender, and did not consider the sociological significance of the variation in the contexts in which members of different classes lead their lives. Bittman and Pixley's response skirts the main issues which have been the focus of the critique.

This paper studies the impact of social class and education on political orientation. We distinguish the ‘old’ middle class from a new class of social/cultural specialists. However, the difference in their political orientation may especially be related to the level and field of education; the new middle class is more highly educated and often in fields of study that extensively address social competencies, characteristics independently affecting political outcomes. Analyses on Dutch data showed that education is more important in the prediction of ‘cultural’ liberal issues than social class. Economically-oriented issues are more strongly affected by social class. This means that interests of the new middle class are served by liberal standpoints relating to a strong government and income redistribution policies, but not relating to cultural issues.