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Americans are noted for not talking about social class, and for eschewing any class identity besides "middle class." Does the same hold true for participants in progressive groups? A study of 25 varied social movement organizations in the US found that two class categories of progressive activists in particular avoided explicit talk of class and, when asked about class identity, resisted the question or garbled their answers. First, lifelong working-class and poor activists were much less likely to identify themselves or other group members with conventional class terms. Second, voluntarily downwardly mobile activists from professional middle-class backgrounds with antimaterialist values and do-it-yourself lifestyles tended to equate themselves with involuntarily low-income people, misrecognizing their higher cultural capital. In the absence of clear, consistent and openly discussed class identities within activist groups, distorted forms of class talk filled the vacuum. For example, posing as working-class sometimes conferred status; and during conflicts, references to class and race privilege were sometimes used as insults. When the bottom half of the 99% do not name their class identity, and when some class-privileged activists hide or deny their cultural capital, both kinds of missing class identities may have harmful effects on social movement groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What do activists think leaders are supposed to do in order to get less-active members more involved? The answer varies by the class background of the activist and the class culture of the group, which has implications for cross-class coalition building. In the Culture Contrasts in Coalitions study, including 51 interviews with active members of 18 voluntary groups in 5 US states, almost all interviewees spoke positively about encouraging more member input and involvement. But their conceptions of how leaders produce more member involvement varied greatly, however. The three most common strategies favored by informants to the informant's class trajectory and to the predominant class of the group membership. These 3 strategies for member activation are:1.Using stylized group process techniques: Concerted cultivation of equal participation;2.Holding back from over-participation to allow autonomous action; 3.Entrusting strong, protective leaders to ensure input and mutual aid and allow the accomplishment of natural involvement.The first two strategies were advocated most often by activists from professional middle-class backgrounds in globally focused groups; the third strategy was advocated most often by activists from working-class and lower-middle-class backgrounds in grassroots and labor groups. Two of these class associations parallel Annette Lareau's two categories of childrearing. Lareau observed working-class and middle-class children and how parents and teachers related to them, and found a consistent class difference in child-rearing methods, the working-class "accomplishment of natural growth" and the middle-class "concerted cultivation." ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To sustain involvement in a social movement, an organization must establish ways of making decisions acceptable to members. But decision-making methods tend to vary by groups' predominant social class, as well as by race and gender. There is a dearth of literature on class differences in organizational cultures. To fill this gap, our Culture Contrasts in Coalitions research has studied meetings of 15 diverse social movement groups in New England and Florida. Meeting participants are scored for class background and current class by applying an algorithm to survey answers. This paper focuses on respondents' preferences in amount of time spent on group process. Analysis of 183 surveys shows that those wishing for more process time have significantly higher mean scores for current class. White people are more likely than people of color and, surprisingly, men are more likely than women to prefer more process. These findings have disturbing implications for building cross-class coalitions. If less privileged activists prefer less group process, yet diversity produces tensions and differences that require group resolution, how are these to be resolved? Tensions are sometimes diffused by humor - but humor also differs by class. We contrast two examples from meeting transcripts that suggest possible class differences in uses of humor. We suggest implications of these differences for strengthening mixed-class groups and avenues for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]