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Existing studies on employers' preferences towards institutions of class cooperation suggest that certain types of employers support these institutions because they provide economic benefits. To test this thesis, this paper examines attitudes of German employers towards board-level codetermination. It compares firms' attitudes at the individual and the collective level: individual firms' attitudes are analysed using survey data and media statements from individual executives; collective attitudes are analysed using policy statements from the national business federations. The paper finds considerable support for board-level codetermination among individual firms but continued opposition from the federations. The paper suggests that this difference arises from the federations strategically over-representing dissatisfied members. The promotion of voluntary arrangements allows the federations to campaign against board-level codetermination without alienating the satisfied members. The paper highlights the need to complement a micro-foundational analysis of preference formation with an analysis of intra-associational processes of preference aggregation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper investigates the sociotechnical imaginary surrounding Uber's supposedly imminent arrival in Winnipeg, through an examination of communication in the public sphere. We examine how actors mobilized their communicative resources in efforts to either bring ride-hailing or keep it away. For some advocates, ride-hailing technology was less important than Uber's symbolic value of building Winnipeg's image as an innovative city. Media coverage contrasted innovation and Uber with Winnipeg's anxieties about being behind other cities and its taxi industry's reputation as stuck in the past. These visions of Winnipeg's future addressed an unspoken White, middle-class city dweller. While Winnipeg's transportation industry was shaped by the socially located experiences of racialized immigrant men as taxi drivers and Indigenous women as passengers, these actors had less power to shape the imaginary. Our analysis suggests that cities like Winnipeg view Uber as an image-making product as much as a beneficial service for their citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most analyses of the relationship between class position and health outcomes have been restricted to occupational class and male mortality, and most discussions of the function of the health services in relation to class and health have been based on a limited range of hypotheses about the relevance of health service use to health. This paper draws on data from a longitudinal study of a sample of disadvantaged mothers and children in the UK to examine the different dimensions of class associated with maternal and child health outcomes over the first year of life, and to explore the role of formal health service use in relation both to class position and health outcomes. A novel feature of the paper is the use of complementary statistical methods to approach these issues. The findings show that mothers'and children's health are influenced by material conditions, and that these differentiate between ‘the poor and the poorest’; occupationally-defined class position does not discriminate between health outcomes for mothers and children in the same way as it does for men. Within this sample of predominantly disadvantaged mothers and children, use of the formal health services appears to be associated with negative rather than positive health outcomes. The interpretation of these findings is discussed, as are their implications for the future development of European health and welfare services. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Stratification and inequality are among the most central concepts in sociology, and although related, they are fundamentally distinct: inequality refers to the extent to which resources are distributed unevenly across individuals or between population subgroups, whereas stratification refers to the extent to which population subgroups occupy distinct hierarchical layers within an overall resource distribution. Despite the centrality of stratification in theories of class structure, prior empirical studies have focused exclusively on measures of inequality, which do not accurately capture the degree of class stratification and suffer from a variety of methodological limitations. In this paper, we employ a novel rank-based index of stratification to measure the degree to which occupational classes inhabit distinct, non-overlapping, and hierarchically arranged layers in the distribution of personal market income. The stratification index is nonparametric, both scale and translation invariant, and independent of the level of inequality. Based on this index, our results show that the US income distribution is highly stratified by occupational class and that the degree of class stratification increased substantially from 1980 to 2016. Moreover, we find that this trend is almost entirely due to growing stratification among aggregate occupational classes rather than among the disaggregate occupations nested within them. Finally, a set of counterfactual analyses indicate that the rise of occupational class stratification is driven by increases in the income returns to education, deunionization, and deindustrialization, although the relative importance of these factors varies by gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elizabeth Anderson and Debra Satz continue in the tradition of Plato with their work on the role of education in a just society. Both argue that a just society depends on education enabling citizens to realise democratic or civic equality and that this equality depends on sufficiency in the distribution of educational goods. I agree that education is important to preparing democratic citizens, but I disagree about the plausibility of sufficiency here, especially in the educational context. My argument is two‐fold: I first reconsider a generic positional goods objection to educational inequality, I then argue that plausible sufficientarian replies to this objection fail insofar as they are premised on an impoverished conception of class and power that treats all statuses more like socio‐cultural traits when they should instead be referencing the material conditions someone has inside a social structure. One cannot bring an individual X into the halls of power and simultaneously have X represent or compensate those who are presently disadvantaged in the way that X had formerly been disadvantaged. In short, we should worry about the realistic possibility of securing and sustaining a civic‐minded elite because elites have the power and motivation to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of us. For the sufficientarian story to work, we need more that explains the realistic possibility of a benevolent ruling elite, until then, democratic equality seems to be better realised by aiming for equal educations, adequacy isn't enough. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent evidence on the relationships between people's social support resources and their health shows the general importance of social support as an environmental factor promoting good personal and public health. The literature on social support is less equivocal in this sense than that on health-service use, where some evidence suggests that, even controlling for previous health status, use of the health services is not health promoting. However, it is not clear just what aspects of social support may be relevant to different measures of health status. The relationships between class inequality, social support and health-service use also require illumination. This paper uses longitudinal data from a study of socially disadvantaged households to explore these issues in relation to the health of women and young children. Analysis of these data shows that the social support resources of mothers generally decline over the first year following birth. Both quantitative and qualitative indicators of support are significant predictors of good health, though qualitative indicators (how support is experienced) have stronger relationships with health outcomes than quantitative indicators (the extent of social contact). The psychological well-being of mothers is more closely linked than either their physical health or that of their babies to their support resources. Support from mothers, friends and a research-provided midwife support intervention is particularly important. Health-service use and social support are not related to each other and, indeed, appear to function in opposite ways in relation to health outcomes; while health-service use is associated with poorer health (controlling for social deprivation, stress, and previous health status), the social support resources of mothers are associated with improved health outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the relationships between stress, social support, class, health and health-service use in a sample of mothers and children from a predominantly socially disadvantaged population. The initial sample size was 509; the sample was drawn from 4 cities, 2 in the south of England and 2 in the Midlands. Stress, measured using a standard life-events inventory, was found to be more common amongst the most disadvantaged women; the women who reported the most stress during pregnancy also reported the most stress 1 year after the birth. There were few direct relationships between stress and social support; those that did exist were in the direction of more life events being associated with less support. The occurrence of life events was strongly related to the mothers' psychological and physical health; there were also relationships with the babies' health, especially at 1 year. Events of particular importance were those relating to money, problems with partners and paid work. Women who reported life events were more likely to use the health services both for themselves and for their babies. A model is proposed for understanding the processes linking the material and cultural circumstances associated with class and health outcomes. In this model, social support and health-service use occupy contrasting roles as factors mediating these relationships. While health-service use is associated with an increased risk of adverse health outcomes, social support is health-promoting. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article asks how ordinary people in Germany perceive and legitimize economic disparities in an era of rising income inequality. Based on in-depth qualitative interviews with respondents from higher and lower social classes, the paper reconstructs the ‘moral economy’ that underlies popular views of inequality. While respondents agree with abstract inegalitarian principles—i.e. income differentiation based on merit—they are concerned with specific instances of inequality, especially poverty and wealth. These are criticized because they are seen to imply intolerable deviations, both upwards and downwards, from a way of living presumed as universal, thereby fostering a segregation of life-worlds and social disintegration. Thus, perceptions of injustice do not seem to be based on the existence of income inequality as such, but rather on the view that economic disparities threaten the social bond. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article explores key issues for a social history of Western European working classes during the last three decades of the twentieth century, starting from a comparative examination of the West German and French cases. The scope of deindustrialization and its social consequences (mass unemployment and growing regional disparities) is the first issue; the transformation of work processes in manufacturing and the effects of this on skills, wages and discretion over tasks at the work place is the second issue. The paper discusses in detail the broadening generational divide among the working classes, the problem of organizing collective interests in times of job insecurity, and the general trend towards market regulation. Finally, changing gender relations among working-class families and households and the changes in intergenerational mobility are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Prison ethnographers have tended to downplay the epistemological and methodological dilemmas relating to identity and positionality, which have been more commonly rehearsed in anthropological and sociological ethnographies. This paper explores these issues through a reflexive interrogation of a study of prisoner identities and social relations in two male prisons, with a particular focus on race/ethnicity, class and gender. Drawing from interactions with two prisoners as case studies, it applies Walkerdine et al.’s (2001) psycho-social analytical frame to illustrate how the subjectivities and biographies of researchers are implicated in the dynamics of prison research encounters and analysis. In doing so, it considers the epistemological implications of reflexive practice for interpreting the prison field. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Following a value-theoretic and class-based approach, it is argued in this paper that ecological problems are inseparably linked to the process of extracting surplus value in capitalism and, owing to their adverse impacts, instigate struggles over the appropriation of nature. These struggles fought within and outside the state by competing agents shape environmental regulation. In particular, taxes, permits, command-and-control measures, and subsidies affect prices, profits and rents and have class and other social implications. Evidence of current environmental regulation shows that it takes places under the great influence of capitalist concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how mothers' and fathers' daily time use changed across social classes from 1990 to 2013 in Germany. In the 2000s, Germany's adherence to the male breadwinner model was eroded by labor and family policy reforms typical of the adult worker model, which assumes individual self-sufficiency. The implications for gender and class inequality have been heatedly discussed. Drawing on the German Time Use Survey, I find that gender equality in the division of labor is greatest among full-time dual-earner couples with standard schedules. The prevalence of this pattern increased among the middle- and upper-class in historically conservative western Germany, but declined across classes in formerly socialist eastern Germany. In parallel, nonstandard work patterns and dual-joblessness gained in importance among lower-class couples, particularly in eastern Germany. I conclude that the adult worker model benefited mothers with access to standard full-time jobs but at the cost of greater class polarization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Major theories of democratic representation posit that elected officials ought to reflect the preferences of their constituents and act accordingly. But a growing body of research finds that the preferences of the most affluent influence policy outcomes more than those of the least affluent. Yet, broad studies of unequal policy responsiveness have so far only examined Northern Europe and the USA. This biased sample limits our ability both to generalize about unequal responsiveness and to build theories about its causes. We address these limitations by studying Spain, which differs from prior cases in important ways. We collected data from Spanish mass surveys fielded over the period 1976–2016 and researched which of these policies were subsequently approved. We find consistent evidence that policy responsiveness in Spain is unequal. We also find that this pattern holds regardless of the ideology of the government and the type of policy, although with some variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the growing industry of elite assisted living in Chile, which represents a break with a longstanding culture of care provided at home by family members and domestic workers. How does this market, locally associated with deprivation, abandonment and standardization, become a legitimate option for the rich clientele it caters to? Drawing on 40 interviews with consumers and providers of institutional care, I show that the market for assisted living is moralized through material and symbolic continuities with forms of class privilege that residents feel slipping away. Respondents interpret assisted living as an extension of the domestic work previously consumed in clients' homes, they reframe care as an exclusive commodity and they highlight residents' entitlement to bend organizational structures and retain authority over space and labor. These findings shed light on the relationship of class to processes of cultural legitimation by revealing the extent to which not only the affective meanings of 'home', but its social hierarchies, play a role in moralizing markets of care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does access to property shape children's experiences of institutions? Can access to property in preschool counter class inequality? Using two years of ethnographic data from a preschool serving middle-class, white children and a preschool serving poor children of color, I explore how access to and control over objects such as toys shapes children's school experiences. I found that preschools created different experiences of property: precarious property and protected property. Poor children of color experienced precarious property: personal objects were forbidden at school due to the risk of theft or loss. Teachers' loose supervision meant that children sometimes had classroom toys taken by peers. In contrast, middle-class, white children experienced protected property; teachers' rules encouraged children to bring some personal property, which was kept safe at school. Teachers' close supervision also allowed children to securely enjoy classroom toys. These property rules meant that white, middle-class preschoolers could assert individuality and control through property. Meanwhile, poor preschoolers of color had limited school-sponsored opportunities to assert individuality through personal property. I argue that property rules at preschool can reproduce class inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine how different spatial compositions affect the educational achievement in mathematics of 16-year-old students in Chile, a Latin American country with high inequality and one of the most segregated education systems in the world. Conceptually, we complement the literature on 'neighbourhood effects', which typically addresses the influence of concentrated disadvantage, by focusing on concentrated advantage and its influence on educational outcomes. We construct a panel with all school students who took a national standardized mathematics test in 2010, 2014 and 2016 in the Metropolitan Region of Santiago, Chile. We complement it with survey data for the 52 districts of the Metropolitan Region, clustering the districts based on factors such as unemployment, economic inequality, access to services, experiences of violence and stigmatization. Our different identification strategies consistently show that concentrated poverty and affluence are both relevant for explaining educational achievement in mathematics above and beyond individual and school characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A robust body of literature documents how women manage their self-presentation and perceptions of sexual risk when navigating city spaces. Yet we know less about how these strategies and tactics interact with existing class relations in society. This study investigates how, in the metropolitan city of Hyderabad in India, upwardly mobile women who commute via ride-share apps and lower-class men employed as drivers navigate the temporarily shared space of the car ride within the broader context of growing public anxiety around women's safety in the city. Drawing on interview data and participant observation, I show two empirical patterns: 1) women commuters and men cabdrivers each view the other through the lens of suspicion as relatively more powerful than themselves; and 2) while women construct men drivers as sexually rapacious and dangerous, men understand the upwardly mobile woman commuter as entitled and abusive of her class power. I argue that competing understandings of risk exacerbate social distance and reproduce class and gender hierarchies between men drivers and women commuters. I suggest that the desire for safety vocalized by women passengers, while understandable, seems to rest on a set of processes that further pathologize and "otherize" the lower-class male subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives Guided by the social convoy model, this study investigated the association between friendship and cognitive functioning among older Chinese adults, as well as the moderating effect of marital status (married vs widowed). We also explored whether depression might account for the link between friendship and cognitive functioning. Methods We used data from the China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey in 2014 (N = 8,482). Cognitive functioning was measured with the Mini-Mental State Examination instrument and friendship was assessed with a 3-item Lubben Social Network Scale. Linear regression and path analyses within a structural equation modeling framework were performed to examine the hypotheses. Results Results indicated that friendship was significantly related to better cognitive functioning among older Chinese adults (β = 0.083, p <.001) and marital status moderated this association (β = −0.058, p <.01). In addition, depression partially mediated the relationship between friendship and cognitive functioning (β = 0.015, p <.001). Discussion The results implied that friendship is important for maintaining cognitive functioning in later life and widowed older Chinese adults may benefit more from friendship in its relationship to cognitive functioning than married older Chinese adults. Further, one potential pathway linking friendship to cognitive functioning may be through depression; however, more research is needed to support this finding. Intervention programs aimed at building friendship opportunities may be one way to achieve better cognitive aging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Autoantibodies that bind self-antigens are a hallmark of autoimmune diseases, but can also be present in healthy individuals. Clinical assays that detect and titer antigen-specific autoantibodies are an important component of the diagnosis and monitoring of autoimmune diseases. Autoantibodies may contribute to disease pathogenesis via effector functions that are dictated by both the antigen-binding site and constant domain. Content: In this review, we discuss features of antibodies, in addition to antigen-binding specificity, which determine effector function. These features include class, subclass, allotype, and glycosylation. We discuss emerging data indicating that analysis of these antibody features may be informative for diagnosis and monitoring of autoimmune diseases. We also consider methodologies to interrogate these features and consider how they could be implemented in the clinical laboratory. Summary: Future autoantibody assays may incorporate assessment of additional antibody features that contribute to autoimmune disease pathogenesis and provide added clinical value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives Later adult work attachments and exits are in flux, suggesting the need for understanding both the range of contemporary population-level pathways of work and nonwork and variations by overlapping social locations. We document patterned continuity and change in monthly work attachments and analyze the intersecting effects of age, gender, education, and race/ethnicity. Methods We capitalize on massive microlevel 16-month panel data from the Current Population Survey from 2008 through 2016 to empirically identify patterned pathways of monthly states: working full-time, long hours, part-time; being self-employed or unemployed; not working because of a disability, due to family care or other reasons, or because one defines oneself as retired. Results Analyses of 346,488 American women and men aged 50–75 years reveal patterned elasticity in the timing and nature of work attachments in the form of six distinctive pathways. Our intersectional analyses illustrate divergences and disparities: advantages for educated White men, disadvantages for low-educated Black men and women through their early 60s, and intersecting effects of gender, education, and race/ethnicity during the later work course across age groups. We find convergence across social markers by the 70s. Discussion This research highlights the importance of intersectional analysis, recasting the gendered work course in later adulthood into a framework of even greater complexities within mutually shaping categories of race/ethnicity, class, and age. Older Americans experience patterned, uneven pathways around work and nonwork. We recommend additional scholarship on the dynamics of constrained and disparate choices unfolding across multiple intersecting social locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The period 1820–60 marked an era of transition and diversity in Ireland that rapidly transformed the face of Irish society. Inextricably linked with these processes was the expansion of Ireland's private asylum system. This system diverged from its British counterpart both in the socioeconomic cohort it served and in the role it played within the mental health-care system as a whole. The implementation of the 1842 Private Asylums (Ireland) Act, the first legislative measure geared exclusively toward the system, highlighted the growing importance of private care in Ireland as well as providing for the licensing and regulation of these institutions for the first time. To date, historians of Irish medicine have focused almost exclusively on the pauper insane. This article aims to shift this emphasis toward other categories of the Irish insane through exploration of the Irish private asylum system, its growth throughout the period, and the social profile of private patients. I shall also interrogate the trade in lunacy model through exploration of financial considerations, discharge and recovery rates, and conditions of care and argue that while Irish private institutions were a lucrative business venture, the quality of care upheld was apparently high. Finally, I shall argue that Irish private asylums catered primarily for the upper classes and briefly explore alternative provisional measures for other non-pauper sectors of society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article is about social space and material objects for sale within that space. We draw primarily on Goffman's (1971) concepts of use space and possession territories to predict that as the social density of a given space increases, inferences of the subjective social class and income of people in that space fall. Eight studies confirm that this is indeed the case, with the result holding even for stick figures, thus controlling for typical visual indicators of social class such as clothing or jewelry. Furthermore, these social class inferences mediate a relationship between social density and product valuation, with individuals assessing both higher prices and a greater willingness to pay for products presented in less crowded contexts. This effect of inferred class on product valuation is explained by status-motivated individuals' desire to associate with higher-status people. To the best of our knowledge, this research is the first to reveal the link between social density, status inferences, and object valuations. As such, it makes a novel contribution to what has come to be known in sociology as the topological turn: a renewed focus on social space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philosophers of education as well as philosophers, sociologists and other theoreticians are searching for new models and interpretations of teaching, using new concepts, transversality being one of them. Some treat the new ways based on transversal competence as an augmentation of neoliberal power and its influence at school, some, on the contrary, struggle with the influence and creation of absolutely new modes. Following the latter approach developed by Wallin (2014), Cole (2013, 2018) and Bradley (2018), applying the Deleuzean and Guattarian philosophy to education as regards the concept of transversality, as well as abstract machine, line of flight, people‐yet‐to‐come and other concepts, I examine the educational capacity to apply new updated ways for educating the young generation. I present a multi‐modal experiment in a class using transversality. It is a practical teaching/learning method using multi‐modality in a philosophy class and integrating art. In practice, transversality is interpreted in two ways: radical, which means working with and within transversality in the creational machine, and soft, which refers to working for transversality, that is, the creation of circumstances for new possibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on in-depth interviews and focus groups with 64 poor men of color, this article analyzes how a U.S. federally funded "responsible fatherhood" program transmitted a discourse of paternal essentiality, claiming that fathers as masculine role models uniquely contribute to child development. It reveals how, despite lack of evidence that fathers make indispensable gendered contributions to parenting, the focus on male role modeling resonated for marginalized fathers because it characterized them as essential for children's well-being in their capacity as men, not economic providers. Using an intersectional lens, the promotion of paternal essentiality can be understood as a response to the way gender ideologies and race and class inequalities interact to shape norms of responsible fatherhood that discount men of color living in poverty. This strategy relies, however, on an empirically unsupported rationale for fathers' involvement that individualizes the social problems attributed to "fatherlessness." This case reveals how racism, class exploitation, and patriarchy reciprocally shape government-sponsored fatherhood programming and its impact on marginalized men's parenting identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our reconsideration of domesticity comes at a time when empire and colonial and postcolonial categories of analysis are informing many fields of historical study. This essay traces the historiographic origins of the intersection of domesticity and empire, focusing on domesticity's usefulness as a window on cross-cultural intimacy and conflict. It also offers an example of how previous treatments of domesticity might be revised by taking empire and settler society into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although class relations are situated within workplaces, research on class income shares has neither examined firm-level mechanisms nor distinguished between managerial and non-managerial workers within the class of labor. This article analyzes the effects of union power on the distribution of shares of income between capital, top managers, and non-managerial workers at the firm-level during the neoliberal era. Using data on US airlines from 1977 to 2005 I find that strikes are central to shaping the firm-level distribution of income shares, but in an unexpected way. Strikes redistribute income away from non-managerial workers, without affecting either profit or top managerial income shares. These results suggest that analyses of income distribution across classes must incorporate a more detailed class schema as well as observe effects of deunionization at the firm level. Moreover, the findings provide further evidence that firm-level mechanisms are shaped by the institutional context in which firms operate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religion deeply intersects with race, ethnicity, and class in the United States. In many cases, these “variables” cannot be separated. In other words, religion’s relationship to other social structures is “complex”—a term which I borrow from a body of literature known as “complex inequality.” If we accept this complexity, then a central question arises: what are we doing looking for independent effects of religion? Asking this question does not imply that religion is not worth studying sociologically. It also does not mean that we cannot figure out when and how religion matters on its own. But it does mean that we have some work to do—especially on our research designs and methods—if we want to understand religion in all of its complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its worldwide fame as a fashionable resort and dwelling place of high society, and unlike other elite haunts, the St Tropez peninsula has been overlooked by the social sciences. And yet, it is an emblematic place to observe not only elite selfsegregation, but the rise of inequality as well. Based on an ongoing empirical research, this article aims to fill this gap by linking the study of elites to the analysis of social-spatial inequality. It challenges the dominant narrative that simply focuses on elite newcomers charmed by the natural beauty of the area by showing that it took considerable work to adapt local amenities to their tastes. Departing from the common image associated with St Tropez as a show-off place of conspicuous consumption, it also highlights a trend towards 'conspicuous seclusion'. All in all, the case of St Tropez reveals how elites shape their environment through the physical and symbolical power they exert over space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship on elites, including on their consumption, tends to focus primarily on social closure and the pursuit of social advantage. Research has therefore not investigated the meanings and morality of elites' lifestyle choices, particularly from the perspective of the wealthy themselves. Yet understanding this lived experience is critical to understanding the cultural dimensions of inequality. This article draws primarily on in-depth interviews with 50 affluent New Yorkers to analyze their spending practices, discourses and conflicts. My respondents worked hard to frame their consumer choices as meeting reasonable, 'normal' needs, representing their consumption as basic, family-oriented and prudent, and drawing explicit symbolic boundaries against ostentation, materialism and excess. I argue that these discourses illuminate their struggles to feel morally worthy of privilege, and expand our understanding of a cultural vocabulary of legitimate entitlement in the USA, to include consumption as well as hard work. Furthermore, these discourses illuminate symbolic boundaries that are incongruous with social boundaries, as they appeal to middle-class symbolism. By theorizing consumption discourse as a site of legitimation as well as exclusion for elites, the article highlights another mechanism by which extreme inequality is made acceptable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores a much theorized but rarely empirically investigated temporal component to the structuring of life chances at the apex of the class structure. By following 21 complete birth cohorts, I utilize sequence analysis and systematically explore pathways that lead to the Norwegian upper class during 10 years of adulthood. Separate analyses of each cohort map these trajectories at different stages of adult life and cross-cohort similarities are found. The analysis reveals that durable access is differentiated from long-range vertical mobility and a stepping stone function of middle-class attachment. Trajectories are also shown to be highly capital specific, thereby indicating that capital conversion within social space rarely traverses horizontal divisions. I argue that elite research and class analysis would benefit from approaching questions of processes of group formation in a manner that entails a systematic account of temporality while acknowledging the class structure in a multidimensional way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sect-to-church theory assumes that sects will become more church-like as members' socioeconomic status improves. By abandoning tension-related characteristics, they decrease the level of tension with their social environment. Studying Pentecostal middle-class congregations in Argentina, this article shows that the reduction of tension involves impression management: the studied middle-class congregations display middle-class features (e.g., educational training) and selectively shield tension-related practices (e.g., glossolalia) from the glances of non-Pentecostal peers. Instead of abandoning tension-related practices to reduce tension, middle-class congregations strategically adjust their religious practices depending on the extent to which these are accessible for relevant outsiders, switching between sect-like and church-like styles of religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on interviews with guardians of unaccompanied minor foreigners in Belgium, this article investigates the inequalities underlying the care relationships between guardians and their pupils. It does so by analysing the beliefs and practices of the guardians and considers how they both resist and reproduce dominant discourses on the minors' presumed needs and rights in terms of care and protection. First, this article examines the way these guardians negotiate middle-class imageries of 'sacred' childhood that are featured in exclusionary conceptualizations of humanitarianism. Second, it explores the role of an ethics of care in how the guardians navigate between a desire for standardization and the interpersonal care relationships with their pupils. I argue that the guardianship work does not only add to the guardians' constructions of middle-class subjectivity, but that it also provides them with a unique perspective that tends to change the way they see 'just' care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Evans and Mellon's 'Working class votes and Conservative losses: solving the UKIP puzzle' seeks to resolve a puzzle: how substantial levels of UKIP support among traditional working class voters, and in Labour-held constituencies, can be reconciled with evidence that a majority of current UKIP supporters recall voting for the Conservatives in 2010. Evans and Mellon (2015, Journal of Parliamentary Affairs, doi:10.1093/pa/gsv005). advance two arguments to resolve this puzzle. First, that the political impact of UKIP has been misunderstood due to a failure to consider long-term political shifts. Second, that the class basis of support for UKIP has been misunderstood due to poor measures of class. We find much to agree with on both of these points. This reply focuses on clarifying our arguments on three issues: the social basis of UKIP support; the role of value divisions and the importance of geography and the electoral system for understanding UKIP's longer-term prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critically evaluates explanatory theories about how representatives, and more specifically members of parliament (MPs), connect with interest groups. Central to this are the crucial questions of whether these contacts are partybased or identity-based. Our analysis includes five kinds of groups: two traditional cleavage-based groups (blue-collar workers and employers) with well-established contacts between parties (respectively, social-democratic and conservative parties) and interest groups (trade unions and employers' organisations) on the one hand, and three newer groups in society (women, young people and the elderly), on the other hand. Our analysis is based on the data Partirep MP Survey, which contains information about characteristics, attitudes and behaviour of regional and federal MPs in 15 European countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is the first in-depth academic discussion of the key aspects of the enhanced collective redress mechanisms introduced recently in relation to competition law infringements in the UK by the Consumer Rights Act. The legislation is a particularly significant development because of the historical and contemporary focus on the 'consumer' at the heart of competition/antitrust law and because the reforms also reflect more recent debates generally in legal practice about 'access to justice'. The article first recounts the pivotal role played by 'class actions' in US antitrust enforcement before outlining the recent debate on encouraging and facilitating private enforcement in the EU, particularly in relation to collective redress, culminating in the (anodyne) Commission Recommendation of June 2013. As the article notes, most of the collective redress mechanisms introduced across the EU Member States to date have been opt-in models, but these have been criticized for their limited impact and effectiveness, and an opt-out representative model has been introduced in some Member States and discussed in others. The article will reflect on the limited provision in the UK on collective redress in relation to competition law infringements prior to the Consumer Rights Act, in particular the limitations in the opt-in follow-on procedure under section 47B of the Competition Act 1998, as demonstrated by CA v JJB. The article will then focus on the Act's provisions (and associated Tribunal rules) in relation to opt-in/opt-out collective proceedings and settlements (in both follow-on and stand-alone actions). The article will outline the new statutory provisions in sections 47B and 49A and B of the Competition Act 1998, for Collective Proceedings and Collective Settlements, respectively. The Tribunal rules on certification will be considered, noting the potential difficulties in their practical application, before further analysis of two key problematic aspects of the proposed opt-out collective redress scheme, which may limit its effectiveness and uptake. The first concerns the appointment of the class/settlement representative and the second concerns the potential funding arrangements in relation to opt-out collective proceedings. The article questions whether the combination of these two aspects may dis-incentivize and unnecessarily limit the effectiveness of the new opt-out provisions, although it is accepted that this will also greatly depend on the Competition Appeal Tribunal interpretation and application of its new Tribunal Rules in relation to Collective proceedings, in particular regarding certification, appointment of the class/settlement representative, and determination of the appropriate costs and expenses incurred in pursuing a collective claim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In various writings Karl Marx made references to an 'aristocracy of finance' in Western Europe and the USA that dominated ownership of the public debt. Drawing on original research, this article offers the first comprehensive analysis of public debt ownership within the US corporate sector. The research shows that over the past three decades, and especially in the context of the current crisis, a new aristocracy of finance has emerged, as holdings of the public debt have become rapidly concentrated in favour of large corporations classified within Finance, Insurance and Real Estate. Operationalizing Wolfgang Streeck's concept of the 'debt state', the article goes on to demonstrate how concentration in ownership of the public debt reinforces patterns of social inequality and proceeds in tandem with a shift in government policy, one that prioritizes the interests of government bondholders over the general citizenry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cyberbullying threatens young people's well-being. This study is one of the first to examine cyberbullying from a social network perspective. The class-based friendship networks of 103 classes were reconstructed using peer-nomination questionnaires. Closeness centralization and the global clustering coefficient were calculated using social network analysis and subsequently entered into a Poisson-regression. The outcomes of these analyses show that in classes featured by high closeness centralization in the offline and online friendship network, more cyberbullying happens. Additionally, our analyses reveal that in classes featuring a high global clustering coefficient in the online network, less cyberbullying occurs. The composition of the class in terms of gender and ethnicity were not significantly associated with the number of cyberbullying incidents in class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the decades following the discovery of insulin, eugenicists grew concerned that more diabetics would survive into their reproductive years and contribute "defective" genes to the gene pool. Insulin thus came to be seen as both a blessing for the individual and a problem for the future of humankind. Nevertheless, diabetics in the United States were neither prevented nor discouraged from reproducing. I argue that this stemmed from the widespread belief that diabetes was a disease primarily of middleclass whites, who possessed positive traits that outweighed their particular genetic defect. Historians of eugenics have demonstrated convincingly that race and class stereotypes made some populations more vulnerable to coercive eugenic practices. The case of diabetes demonstrates that race and class stereotypes could also confer protection. In the end, possession of a defective gene mattered less than the perception of one s contribution to society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A literary criticism of the book "Envisioning Real Utopias," by Erik Wright is presented. It examines the two important rhetorical tours de force accomplished in the book wherein each is bound to transform debate over the nature of socialism. It argues on Wright's opposition to capitalism as an economic ideal-type with possibly destructive consequences to socialism as a political ideal-type with beneficial economic consequences. It elaborates on the book's focus on the Spanish firm Mondragon.

Musical skill was so fashionable in Tudor England that the music tutoring business flourished. But music tutors themselves have remained an entirely shadowy group, largely ignored even by musicologists due to a dearth of source material. This article attempts to shed light on an unknown group through fresh readings of new and old sources. The manuscript autobiography of Thomas Whythorne, a Tudor musician and sometime private music tutor, is rich with self-exploration, social commentary and intimate storytelling. Whythorne’s observations of his own status among servants, his relationships with the women of the household, even his attempts to woo his own pupils, all add life to our present skeletal body of knowledge of music tutors. By comparing his narrative to the revealing printed songs of contemporary music tutors, we find a rare window into the lives of these hidden figures of Tudor history. The article concludes that although static models of hierarchy and deference like the Great Chain of Being are attractive, the household arena wherein the music tutor operated was not so simple a polity. Music tutors were something quite distinct from court musicians. There was no designated place for the music tutor, so he dangerously manoeuvred, making his own place in the world. Power, sex, love and intrigue combined with music’s power to arouse passions in the sometimes isolated music room, creating the setting for a romantic gamble that could result in triumph or despair. A tutor could circumnavigate the accepted forms of courtship and go straight for his mistress’s heart, and perhaps even her marriage bed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the potential of pragmatist social theory (Dewey and Mead) for elaborating and clarifying the classical analyses of capitalism by Marx, Schumpeter, Sombart and Weber. It shows how a reinterpretation in the context of pragmatist discourse can overcome the rationalist shortcomings of Weber's theory of capitalism and formulate key Marxist concepts like ‘capital’ or ‘reification’ more convincingly. It also outlines a multi-level approach for analysing the dynamics of capitalism, focusing on the interaction between class structures, individual creativity and the communication of innovative paradigms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using a class focused Marxist approach, we elucidate the adopted position of Indian small-scale sector as a devalued other within the adopted development paradigm that accords primacy to Capital and West. In the background of this understanding of small-scale sector, we demonstrate how the New Economic Policy in the era of globalization could be theorized as a tool to obtain the (post) colonial hegemony of capital over the small-scale sector. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith notes that moral sentiments, emotions and feelings affect economic and social practices. In the literature on social embeddedness of the economy, sentiments and emotions are neglected, and more attention is given to rules, norms and institutions, which are seen as being instrumental in reducing transaction costs and creating social cohesion. By examining the transformation of Kyrgyzstan to a market economy, the authors show how emotions can motivate individuals to pursue ultimate concerns and commitments. Furthermore, it is argued that without moral emotions and institutional safeguards, economic practices and relationships can be distorted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relationship between skills and preferences for job security regulations. Two contrasting arguments are examined: the relative skill specificity thesis advanced by Iversen and Soskice (Iversen, T. and Soskice, D. (2001) 'An Asset Theory of Social Policy Preferences', American Political Science Review, 95, 875-893] and the replaceability thesis propounded by Goldthorpe [Goldthorpe, J. H. (2000) On Sociology Numbers, Narratives, and the Integration of Research and Theory, New York, Oxford University Press]. Both arguments are based on the concept of asset specificity from transaction cost economics. However, they offer conflicting expectations. Iversen and Soskice expect employees with relatively specific skills to demand more job security regulations so as to increase the likelihood that there will be a return on investment. In contrast, Goldthorpe's reasoning implies that employees with very specific skills are difficult to replace. Consequently, they are less concerned about their job security than employees with few specific skills. Analysis of survey data lends support to Goldthorpe's replaceability thesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the multitude of seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century British medical publications regarding empire and health, Hans Sloane’s A Voyage To the Islands [of] Madera, Barbados, Nieves, S. Christophers and Jamaica (1707) was the first to incorporate significant numbers of female and African patients among its printed case histories. Comprising some sixty-four pages of the introduction, this unique set of records affords scholars the rare opportunity to examine how patients (of both sexes and races, various ages, and all social levels) residing in a “torrid zone” were diagnosed and treated by an English physician during the 1680s. Sloane had expected to encounter illnesses vastly different from those found in England when he arrived in Jamaica, but after practicing medicine in Jamaica for over a year, he concluded that there existed very little difference in the manifestation of illnesses in different climates. Although some ailments were sex-specific and culture-specific, for the most part Sloane transgressed categories of gender and race by diagnosing and treating all his patients according to the same medical ideology. And although it did not directly challenge accepted medical views, Sloane’s Voyage revealed incongruities in dealing with such categories within the context of early imperial medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]